The Bridge: Episode Six

"You're clever. I'm sure it'll come to you."

I was sort of lukewarm about the theme song initially but, exactly as with the new Soundgarden single, something has clicked and it's really growing on me. The lyrics are such wonderfully poetic gibberish, too, and it's tempting to read all sorts of unintended echoes from the story, whether they start as a cross in you or not.

This is a big, big episode. Lots of plot stuff happens, obviously, but Martin's life is suddenly falling apart. I say suddenly, but it feels earned; it was foreshadowed last episode. The moments of rage that we saw last episode are becoming more irrational, and his casual adultery- which we thought had been tied up last episode and which is, perhaps, another symptom- suddenly leads to him being thrown out of the marital home. And if that isn't enough, August is sleeping with Saga who, naturally, doesn't understand why he's upset. In this episode he goes to unreasonable lengths in his suspicions of both Stefan and Saif. He's losing his grip on the case, and it's Saga who makes the running.

And yet we're beginning to see possible chinks in Saga's armour, too. Her sister committed suicide at fourteen, the same age as Anja, and it's not hard to see the obvious link, that she blames herself for both of their deaths. Martin instinctively sees this connection. Perhaps he understands her better than she understands herself. Perhaps he's seeing things that aren't there. Perhaps the point is simply that other people are always, in the end, unknowable. But it seems, right now, that Saga's distance from the world of feeling is leaving her in a better state than Martin.

Interestingly, the murderer seems to understand Saga too, to an extent. The conversation between the two of them indicates that she may even be a factor in his plan. But it's her, of course, who works out in the very last moment that he must be a police officer. He certainly knows stuff that only police officers would know.

As for other characters- well, Saif and his unnamed father are more or less stereotypes, or more charitably stock characters who could have stepped out of a Hanif Kureishi novel but then, I suppose, they're only there to dramatise the murderer's latest "problem", the failure of integration and the treatment of immigrants. Interestingly, though, Saga is beginning to suspect that all of these issues are just a smokescreen; the murderer's motive is personal, not political.

Interestingly, Ferbé starts to fall apart here, too, with his overdose on pills in that horrible trendy club. He seems quite shaken by it all, suddenly aware of mortality and disturbed that he technically died briefly, yet there was no tunnel of light, only darkness. For someone with such an ego it must be terrifying to contemplate the extinction of that ego. Ake, meanwhile, seems to be taking his place. Perhaps nice guys sometimes finish first.

Yet again, I have no idea where this is going, and I love it.