While we’re getting used to episodes of Beck in which Martin Beck hardly features at all, will we be able to cope with the death of a major character, and the traumas of Martin’s grandson Vilhelm?
After the last episode, which concluded with the shock death of long-standing favourite character Jenny Bodén (Anna Asp), we’re wondering how much more traumatic the series can get.
Apart from Martin Beck himself, Jenny was the character with perhaps the most fully fleshed-out private life, so with her gone and titular character Martin Beck fading into the background, we’re wondering what will propel the series in future. Could it be entirely based around the traumas of Martin Beck’s grandson Vilhelm, who has seen more kidnappings, shootings and hostage-taking in a few months with the police than most officers probably see in their entire career?
In The Invisible Man, which kicks off with Martin gloomily contemplating Jenny’s memorial book, everyone is now in therapy. Only Ayda Çetin (Elmira Arikan) seems unaffected, but we have long suspected that she’s a robot.
Vilhelm seems to be in denial, arguing that Jenny knew the risks when she put on the uniform. Surely he can’t really believe this? His Die Hard attitude to policing is certainly going to result in more trauma.
When podcaster Medin is been murdered in his bed, suspicion falls on Andrew Tate-style influencer Roos. His philosophy – roughly, do military training and eat more meat – doesn’t cut much ice with Alex, or even with Vilhelm, and certainly not with gender studies researchers Josefine (Sofia Pekkari) and Annelie (Elinor Silfversparre). But Roos does preach against violence.
Fingerprints found in Medin’s flat tie into evidence found at a series of Peeping Tom incidents – Martin is investigating the so-called ‘balcony man’, so is called in to help on Medin’s murder.
Vilhelm repeatedly goes off the rails, running his own investigations, and even taking civilian worker Ayda along on a search which results in the discovery of another body. But the question remains whether the ‘balcony man’ investigation and the murders are connected. Is it the toxically masculine Roos, his creepy assistant Henrik, researcher Josefine or Annelie’s even creepier boyfriend Pedram?
Things come to a head when a violent argument between Roos and Josefine, who were having an affair, sparks another killing, and Vilhelm’s hot psychologist Nina Gonzalez (Dilan Gwyn) is held hostage by Henrik. Vilhelm, bafflingly, runs up eight flights of stairs rather than taking the lift to save her, by which time she’s psychoanalysed him into passivity.
Themes of toxic masculinity, grief, family values and responsibility are threaded through this episode, which is far more like the Beck episodes of old than the more current, procedure-driven plots, so that’s to be welcomed. Josef, worryingly, seems to be buying into Roos’s alpha male propaganda, while Martin talks to Vilhelm about his psychological state – it’s a sign of Vilhelm’s traumatic condition that he has a lava lamp on his windowsill. Martin thinks that Vilhelm is too traumatised for police work, and has lost the compassion necessary for the job, but new boss Ebba Ståhl (Nina Zanjani) insists that he remain on the team, despite Martin’s obvious misgivings.
All we miss from this episode really is one of Martin’s surreal chats with his neighbour Grannen, which is replaced by a baffling conversation with a retired actress about John Travolta and Battlefield Earth (possibly a deliberate reference to Scientology?).
Nonetheless this was the better of the two episodes of this series, and actually bodes well for the next, now being filmed. As the Swedes say, “Finns det hjärterum så finns det stjärterum” – roughly, there’s always room for one more arse on the sofa.
Chris Jenkins
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW
Beck is broadcast in the UK on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer