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Writer's pictureElias Jenvald

The ending of The Bridge (Bron/Broen) season 2 makes no sense to me

Right, so, the bridge is by far the best Scandinvia has to offer in the genre of modern investigative crime thillers, and if you have not seen it, you should. If for nothing else, jjst to get aquainted with the Danish powerhouse that is Kim Bodina, before he takes on the role of Vesemir in the next season of The Witcher.


But massive spoiler here, since I will be talking about the ending of season to, knowing that this is about as far as I have seen of the show right now. That is your warning, from now in there be spoilers.



So The Bridge is about a weirdly elaborate series of murders, starting with a body on the bridge right on the border between Sweden and Denmark. We follow Danish cop Martin Roede, played by the aformentioned Kim Bodina, opposite Sofia Helin as Swedish cop Saga Norén, as they together unravel the murders on both side of the border. On the way, we learn of Martin's past, him being revealed as a bit of a slut, having had two wives before the one he has now, and is drawn to sleep around, something we see him do once during this marriage, and it is suggested he has done in the past as well. In the end of the first season it is revealed that the murderer is an old collegue of Martin's, Jens, who lost his son and wife in a drunken accident, when the wife was going to leave him after her having slept with Martin. The entire elaborate plan had everything to do with the accident, and in the end, Jens kills Martins oldest son, and want Martin to kill him for it. As he tries to, Saga manages to stop him, and the first season ends (or second begins?) with Martin being grateful for that.


The beginning of the second season picks up 13 months later, sees Martin living in a hotel after not wanting to involve his wife, who knows he has cheated on her, in his police-work any more. He is haunted by Jens and his actions. Needing to know that he is mortal, he visits him from time to time, first not being able to stand more than a few seconds, but later finding his own type of revenge, as he tries to lure out the old Jens that he knew from before, making Jens understand what he has done, ending in a triumphant way with the two of them meeting, and Martin afterwards saying "He did not say he was sorry, but I could see it in his eyes."


Bu that point, he moves back with his wife, and is seemingly happy. He has grown as a character, earlier having refused to sleep with someone else, despite him effectivly being seperated from his wife. But then things happen. The wife does not love him anymore after all that has happened, and asks him to leave. He discovers something about Saga that makes her angry that he poked around in her private affairs, and so, Jens starts to haunt him once again.



If that was were the season ended, that would have been an amazing set up for season 3. How will Martin deal with the sudden sense of being alone? How can he stop Jens from haunting him now? Will he ever? But instead something else happens. First of, Saga forgives him quite quickly. I kind of love this, since it is great character development for both of them, and a step up in their relationship. But then comes the twist. Jens dies, seemingly by suicide, bu Saga finds out that it was Martin who did it. She tells the force, Martin goes to jail, and like that, he is gone from the show. From what I'v seen, he does not show up at all after that. They did not write him out of the show because Kim wanted out, no, he walked after reading the scripts for the first four episodes of season 3, realizing that he would not have that big of a role anymore.


If confuses me how someone that could have had a great story-arch just suddenly doesn't. When he doesn't kill Jens at the end of s01, the show does not become Se7en, but something a lot more interesting, more fitting a TV-show. Now, that is all gone, Jens won, all character development is for naught, and both seasons are worse for it, unfortunately. The relationship between Saga and Martin are gone, argubly the best part of the series. A main character is gone for no reason, having to be replaced by someone else. I am looking forward to seeing how this effects Saga as a character, but I am kind of sad that I won't be able to see the continuation of Martin Roede as a character.


This does not make the show bad, not by any means, but it saddens me to see what it could have been. I will still watch the rest, and I might try and get my Kim Bodina-fix with Killing Eve or the Danish 90's film Pusher. In any case, that's my opinion, you might think otherwise. I'd love for you to tell me in the comments of that is the case. Now on to something else. Games maybe? Yeah, maybe.

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