Category Archives: Finnish

Deadwind (2018)

From IMDB:

When Sofia Karppi, a detective in her 30’s who is trying to get over her husband’s death, discovers the body of a young woman on a construction site, she triggers a chain of events that threatens to destroy her life again. Deadwind is a highly thrilling series from Finland mixing crime investigation and personal drama.

From Netflix you can stream two seasons of this Finnish police detective story. Season one has 12 episodes. Season two has 8 episodes. Each episode lasts about 50 minutes. English subtitles.

Karppi is the woman detective and her sidekick is the male detective Nurmi.  Both are somewhat emotionally wounded. Of course, you wonder throughout the series if they will develop some emotional attachment.

Season one involves murders associated with a real estate investor and entrepreneur and his possible suspicious business dealings.

Season two involves murders this time associated with a large construction site and a somewhat suspect mayor.  Add to that mix a serial killer.

Somewhat mediocre and drags on a bit. But watchable.

 

 

Bordertown (2016)

From IMDB:

Quirky police detective, in Finland, delves into his mind palace to solve despicable crimes all the while trying to keep his family together. If Sherlock was based in Finland this would be it.

From Netflix you can stream 3 seasons of this Finnish crime series. Season 1 consists of 11 episodes while seasons 2 and 3 consist of 10 episodes. Each episode lasts about an hour. Most often one complete story requires 2 or 3 episodes.

You can always get English subtitles. In seasons 1 an 2 you can get an English sound track which to my ears always sounded somewhat unnatural as if the dubbing was too formal. Oddly enough there is no English sound track for season 3, only Finnish, Spanish, and Italian.

Kari Sorjonen is quite possibly the most eccentric detective I have seen.  His odd mannerisms of touching his face and head with outstretched fingers might just get on your nerves. Supposedly when he does this he has ingenious flashes of insight.

Never mind the idiosyncrasies, the stories are as grim as they are good.  His supporting detectives and family members fill out the cast well.  Indeed a constant theme is his somewhat clueless neglect of his family because, as is the case in so many detective series, that phone is always ringing.

Worth a watch.