Cross-border police dramas have been popular for quite a while in Europe. “The Eagle” ran for three seasons on Danish TV in 2004-06, and counts among their solid entries in the genre. The title was the nickname accorded to Hallgrim (Jens Albinus, who looks rather like a world-weary Gary Collins), a first-class detective from Iceland who has distinguished himself serving in Denmark. When Season One began, he’d just been appointed to head a new unit specializing in cases involving suspects or victims from two or more countries, ideally to minimize jurisdictional restraints and complications in preventing or solving crimes. The first of eight episodes begins with a new serious crime to handle just as he’s trying to return to Iceland to spend time with his dying mother. The urgent threat preempts the personal.
The hourlong programs deal with a main case every one or two episodes, with some running threads and recurring characters loosely linking them. That makes it advisable to watch in order, though bingeing may not be necessary. The scripts are, as usual for Nordic crime dramas, well-written, with a gritty, realistic look and tenor, not much overt action. Or sunlight. Or levity. The team of actors spent time at a police academy to prep for their roles. A real one. Not by watching our series of POLICE ACADEMY comedies.
The crimes in Season One ranged from cop killers to drug dealing and money laundering to human trafficking, and even a nuclear threat. They are handled mostly by intellectual sleuthing from the team. We also get the usual mix of personal stories among the handful of players in the unit, but nowhere near the soap opera territory others have plied. The Icelandic locations serve well, standing in for almost all scenes that are supposedly occurring in Denmark and around the Continent.
In Season Two, the format changes. A couple of writers were replaced, perhaps facilitating the new approach. This whole season consists of the team’s attempt to bust a huge criminal enterprise. An arms-dealing cartel that stretches from Russia to Africa, with Denmark one of the stops along the way. Other crimes – like buying them with valuable minerals, blood diamonds or human trafficking – keep the weapons moving from one hand to the next. The eight episodes are stages of the overall task. Whenever they nail one of the leaders, another tier of evil with a new monster emerges. Like a lethal Whack-a-Mole.
Local and international politics frequently hinder their efforts, as many of the targeted honchos have protectors among various governments and agencies making them off-limits, if not immune, regarding the two-hand metal bracelets and reservations at a graybar hotel they so richly deserve. Honor among thieves is an alien concept to these bad guys. They eliminate some of the bosses or henchmen when they become inconvenient to the others. Cynical for the cops to get more help from the crooks than from their governments in steps up the criminal ladder. But that seems likely to exist in the real world more than we’ll ever know.
There’s also more action in Season Two: physical confrontations in the field; more use of SWAT teams and other armed back-up; more shots fired; higher body count. Even with that dimension ramped up, they manage to flesh out the characters of several regulars, including their personal issues and problems. The writers give Hallgrim a rather unmanageable set of romantic options, and something of a sex life. No naughty bits displayed in any of those horizontal encounters.
Season Two ends with some open questions, but no seminal cliffhangers. Fellow closure buffs can be reassured about their protagonists’ futures. There is a Season Three of the same length that supposedly wraps it all up, and MHz will likely acquire those rights and stream them here in the near future.
2.5 stars out of 4
“The Eagle: Season Two” mostly in Danish among nine other languages, with subtitles, streams on MHzChoice on August 6, 2024.
