The Bridge: Episode Four

"How's your scrotum?"

"Small talk isn't your strong side…"

In spite of the above quote, there's not much humour in this episode. The stakes are raised, things previously set up are unwound, new characters and plot threads emerge. The reason for the low morale of the Danish police is becoming clear: tomorrow is the verdict in a trial of four police officers accused of unlawfully killing an immigrant, and one of their number is being leant on to keep silent for some unknown reason. A morosely silent, middle aged couple are introduced, and the man witnessed all this. Oh, and that bloke Anja's staying with, Lasse Jönson? He's well odd, he has memory lapses, he thinks he's a samurai, and he's planning something big for tomorrow, after which Anja, a self-indulgent, deeply unlikeable Holden Caulfield of a character, will get to keep the flat. Oh, and what was that odd jump cut while he was playing with the sword?

We get some fleeting appearances of the killer, too, starting very early on. He's male, he dresses in black, and the first shot on the stairs seems to show a long leather jacket. Er, it's me. Except it isn't; the action sequences later on show him to be quite athletic, which is not like me at all. We have a second red herring, too, in Lasse, although Stefan continues to simmer nicely as our suspiciously obvious main suspect.

Charlotte is most interesting here, as she's the fly in the ointment, the one variable for whom the killer hasn't planned. The four millionaires, it's assumed, at least by Saga, are meant to refuse the ransom, thereby proving the killer's political point. At first, she sticks to this presumed script and pretty much insists that everyone refuse. But as soon as she discovers, in a scene that reminds me of Katrine meeting her dead lover's wife in Borgen, that a woman who can only be her late husband's lover has gone to see his coffin. Worse, her daughter-in-law knew all about the affair. This is not the sort of thing the murderer, with his psychological profile, could possibly account for, but Charlotte determines to pay the whole ransom herself out of pure spite for her husband and his daughter. The most selfish character in the programme performs the most outwardly selfless act, and her grand emotional gesture is thrown into the mix.

Of course, the immediate consequences are limited. The killer stops bleeding Bjorn, but he dies anyway. But an unpredictable gesture has been thrown into the killer's plan. No doubt there will be ripples.

Martin gets more and more likeable. The scene between him and Mette, his wife, where she reveals to him that she's pregnant just days after his vasectomy, is so very sweet. The dialogue is all about how the could possibly make room for another child and whether to keep it, but we know they will. The dialogue is counterbalanced by their laughter, and affection for each other, and mutual happiness. But all is not completely well in the house: who is this "Frida" whom August is chatting to?