The Killing - Série 2

Better to kill an innocent man than to hesitate to kill an enemy. Another Nordic detective exercise in practical Machiavellianism, this time with a refined concept, which, thanks to half the runtime, seems much more concise, focused and dynamic than the first series. Brilliant work with a dehumanized atmosphere and professional masks allows the creators to do high jinks, where the main heroine can be in essence consistently unsympathetic, cold, and an obsessed bitch, and one inadvertently sympathizes with characters who are morally on the edge (the lack of dichotomy of good and evil is essentially a design element of The Killing). Grasping the subject of the war on terror, xenophobia and the boundaries of where the "beneficial bending of democracy" ends and the "autocratic quirks" begin is taken far enough (in the Scandinavian way) to be thought-provoking, and therefore, it's not just mandatory decoration. The plot line is much smoother and clearer, the direction is more stable and, last but not least, the pair of characters - an eclectic politician looking for a mask in the performance of the (always) great Nicolas Bro and the character of a war veteran with a memory disorder (Homeland à la Denmark?) played by the torn down and hunted Ken Vedsegaard. Brilliant, this time almost without any reservations from me. (19/02/2013)