4 out of 5

Created by: Per-Olav Sørensen

covers season 1

So, Nobel is the name of the lead character, right…?

Fie to your pithy American TV rules assumptions!  But, uh, to be fair, I was hanging onto this as well, thinking we’d eventually get around to hearing that Norwegian soldier Erling (Aksel Hennie) was nicknamed Nobel or some such something.  However, much like the series’ roundabout way of approaching story – one of its more rewarding elements, actually – we come around to understanding that the multi-layered political and financial maneuverings that we’re seeing are, often in conflicting fashions, in pursuit of a type of peace, or at least compromise, hence the Norwegian subtitle of “fred for enhver pris,” i.e. peace at any cost.

It’s a bit slow to get there, as we bounce back and forth around a particular date, prior to which the Afghanistan-encamped soldiers of which Erling is a part are doing their duties under wartime rules – cannot fire until a threat is presented – and are involved in a secretive Special Forces job of protecting a certain important Afghani (Wasima – played by Ayesha Wolasmal), who is the right person’s niece but perhaps the wrong person’s wife.  In the present, Wasima is still being protected, by now on Norwegian soil, and Erling gets involved in further secrets which leads to more questionable army practices being exposed and questioned by the press.  But what is this all amounting to?  Getting a taste for the show’s pacing, which following Erling’s rather laid back lead, juxtaposes against what are actually quite tense dramatics, all swirling around the justifications of the miasma described above, which are, as mentioned, a teeth-gritting – due to the liable realism – blend of trying to keep the peace and trying to get or stay rich.  So it’s all amounting to showing us this mess, in a paced, human fashion, digging into soldier psychology and how that blends (and doesn’t) with being damnedly human.  The approach is atypical, but it pays off by being incredibly gripping, never handholding us with explanations when we can be trusted to intuit something from other’s reactions.  Of course, this wouldn’t work without the immersive and engaging acting of our primaries, Hennie most especially but also the case with his wife (Tuva Novotny) and fellow soldiers, and both the talking head moments and helmet-cam footage as directed by creator Per-Olav Sørensen are a great blend of moving-with-the-moment and patience.

The show builds up a bit of mystery as to who is dictating certain events and why, and when this is revealed prior to the series’ conclusion, the wrap-up admittedly loses a bit of steam.  Not so much because the show was relying on the mystery – it does an excellent job of showing that the Who and What could be anyone and anything, really, in this “business” of peace and war – rather because we’re infected by the same malaise Erling feels at realizing just that.  So the show succumbs to its own point, in a way.

Still, an amazingly unique and effective thriller.