The Bridge: Episode Eight

"As far as I know, he had no moral scruples whatsoever. I'll miss him."

The opening theme finishes as normal this week, with "Back to the Beginning". This makes last week's deviation seem even odder. In retrospect, last week's episode seems to have been very much a one-off: a philosophical reflection in the midst of an otherwise plot-driven series. You'll be glad to hear that I'll be taking my head out of my arse to review this episode. No more bloody Kierkegaard. Actually, he's the Danish link to existentialism that I was looking for… er, I'll drop it.

We seem to have two parallel tracks to this episode. First is the relationship stuff- Martin seems to be patching things up with both Mette and August, and his mental state seems to be slowly improving. Things are up in the air, but Mette's miscarriage scare has convinced her to give it another go. Oh, and she's expecting twins. But there are also worrying signs: Mette's mysterious male friend is still around, and now he's bringing flowers. August's online friend "Frida" is still around too, and now "she" wants to meet him.

There's also relationship stuff happening with Saga, surprisingly. Hans, her boss, who's nice to her, is retiring. Anton brings her some flowers; he's looking for more than sex. It's fascinating how the dialogue foregrounds so strongly how the gender stereotypes are being reversed here. And yet… Anton has to be a suspect, doesn't he?

There are a couple of great Saga moments, again. Her idea of small talk is to ask Martin whether he's cheated on his wife before. And there's a wonderful scene where she sits alongside her colleagues, who had been chatting happily: cue an awkward silence. And this time her idea of small talk is to say that she had her period that morning. Er, yes.

Plotwise, we spend most of the episode chasing one red herring, the rather unpleasant Jesper (although at least he acts as an explanation for why Sonja is so upset), and surely this Jens bloke must be another? It's all too neat, Jens has hardly been mentioned, and they surely wouldn't reveal the murderer with two episodes to go.

No; this is an episode of misdirection and sleight of hand. What we're really being shown won't, I suspect, be revealed until much later. And the killer isn't finished yet. The ending pretty much tell us so. Still, I suspect there's some truth in Saga's theory that the killer has some sort of connection to all of the victims. Trouble is, we live in such a connected world.