I had a pause after the 4th series; I think I overindulged by doing a fair bit of binge-watching of those series and I was beginning to feel, with Series 4, that they were just re-treading old ground in plot and film techniques by starting with a spectacular death and then the timeline technique with snippets of contemporary police interviews as the lead-up to the murder was gradually revealed over the entire series.,
I initially had the feeling that Series 5 was going to suffer from this problem but, as suggested above, after the uncertain start, it much improved. A big part of this was the development of Patrick who, in the previous series just came over as a selfish, very sexy slut-boy but in this series, was gradually shown to have some real depth and being a capable of real emotions and possible relationships. It was really well done and by the end my view of him had totally changed – yes, his manipulativeness was still there, and he remained as sexily slutty as ever, but he was, I felt, a more interesting character than he had been previously. Rebe was well developed too and, always commendable, there were no easy solutions for these relationships or proto-relationships, as much as we may have wanted them.
I do find a, largely visual, disconnect with Benjamin; there is something about his look and manner that is at odds with the very corrupt and powerful figure that he is supposed to be.
Good to see that there is a new police inspector to take on the case as the previous one in the early series was spectacularly unsuccessful – and it is certainly right that, as it seems, Samu is leaving/has left the series. There is now NO way he can be even remotely convincing as a teen – in close-up’s he looks in his thirties!
Anyway, the formula continues to work – let’s see what is conjured up in the next series.