Streaming series review - The Bridge: Seasons 2 & 3

The Bridge: Seasons 2 & 3 (Bron/Broen) ***1/2 (out of 5) Back in 2011, this Scandinavian crime series was not only hugely popular in Europe, but spawned quite a few remakes and derivatives on both sides of the Atlantic. The premise is that a body is found straddling the national border of a bridge joining Denmark and Sweden, creating jurisdictional confusion. It gets worse when they discover that the top and bottom halves are from different women. Successor series have been set on the US/Mexican, Singapore/Malaysia, Greece/Turkey and the Russia/Estonia borders. A France/England version used the Chunnel in the same way. That list may be more illustrative than complete. In each, a cop from one side partners with one from the other, despite cultural and personal differences that add tensions to the whodunnit component.

This original paired Sweden’s detective Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) with Denmark’s Martin Rhode (Kim Bodnia). Since all cop duo dramas or comedies must begin with irritating differences, Saga is somewhere on the high-functioning end of The Spectrum – brilliant, hyperfocused, feeling virtually no emotions in her professional or personal lives, and blunt with everyone about what she’s thinking – unable to use normal sensitivities in any conversation. What she thinks will be what she says.

Martin is the grizzled, world-weary Dane who can be soft and supportive when the situation calls for tact. The two don’t particularly like each other, but mutual respect evolves during this somber season of shared sleuthing.

Season Two opens 13 months after the first and introduces some new detectives before settling in with the first pair. This year’s plot escalates from the realm of crime to international terrorism. Even so, there’s a significant carryover from Season One affecting roles and actions in the new case. Without providing details, the season ends in a way that might preclude the two sharing any other cases.

Season Three, another 13 months later, pairs Saga with a younger Danish partner, Henrik (Thure Lindhardt) and returns to the more familiar realm of civilian murders with a serial killer dispatching victims in apparently ritualistic, attention-seeking displays. Really gory, too, and each posed differently. Both seasons are filled, if not overrun, with characters and subplots, giving viewers more of a challenge than average. Bingeing each season is advisable for keeping the plots and players in mind. As one expects from Scandinavian drama, the tone is somber – longer on mood than action, and even lower on moments of levity. Both sets do a pretty good job of living up to Season One’s level of quality in scripting, acting and production values. A final fourth season aired abroad and is sure to follow here. Stay tuned , as they say…

(The Bridge: Seasons 2 & 3), mostly in Swedish and Danish, with subtitles, are streaming on Topic as of 12/26/23)