Furia

As a cooperation between Norwegian and German production companies, I guess there was an agreement to carve up the action between the two countries and use actors of both nationalities. I have to say that I am impressed with the standard of English of all the players - the Norwegians and Germans had to converse in English amongst themselves but then both nations are reputed for the high level of their language instruction.

Unlike other reviewers, I found the second part of the series, set in Germany, more exciting despite the often gaping plot holes. I had found Asgeir's move to the remote village not credible and didn't believe that his face couldn't be kept out of the newspapers or even local TV. Someone in a witness protection programme doesn't blithely carry on in their former job but just with a lower profile and a new name. Some of his actions, as a former Special Ops member, were also hard to fathom.

Ragna's role was problematical as well. There is a debate all around the world in these times of terrorism from whatever quarter as to whether undercover agents should be allowed to break the law during an infiltration of a subversive group. She was doing so in spades to enable herself to ingratiate herself into the bunch of right wing loons who had a plan to destabilise Europe.

The show was hers, really; after the action switched to Germany, Asgeir's role and participation became minimal and I assume the actor playing his part was written in to those scenes simply because he had demanded to be in the eight episodes. Things got rather far-fetched at times, especially when tracking the mobile phone. What top level agent would believe that such a careful terrorist group would have kept it on? And if they did, why?

As I said, there were several plot holes, the most glaring of which was that no one thought of speaking in Arabic to the school terrorists. My Arabic language skills are not the best, but I would have placed what country they were from within a minute.

Well, it was all done at a fast pace with plenty of action and I enjoyed it.

I watched with subtitles as conversational Norwegian is beyond me but the German was pretty clear and the English-language parts were perfectly enunciated. I'm going a bit deaf so I usually watch even English programmes with subs, but these foreign actors were easier to understand than many English ones! This was a worthwhile watch.