Borgen: Season 4
Jun. 8th, 2022 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSooo. the fourth season. On the one hand, I think it's better made - written, acted - than the third which suffers from Alex the over the top villain and very blunt media satire, and promoting Torben to third main character after Birgitte and Katrine, then giving him a storyline not justifying that promotion. Whereas season 4 doesn't do that. The premise and the ensuing dilemmas are well chosen and truly interesting - there's a massive oil find in Greenland, which on the one hand would give Greenland a lot more status and a shot at true independence, but on the other is a potential environmental disater from Denmark, and soon, Russian, Chinese and Americans are circling - and the big theme - how far do you for for power, and when does power become its own goal, rather than the instrument with which to achieve the goals you originally set yourself? - is consistently executed. Also every character given screen time is well used. (Including Torben's, who is back to supporting character and, who made me like him in a way I never had before as Katrine's fatherly confidant.) The new characters - Asger, Birgitte's Artic expert and later Arctic minister, Rasmus and Oliver, the civil servants working with her, the new (female) PM Birgitte has a push/pull dynamic with, Hans the Greenland minister who is the Greenland politician most seen this season and his children, Emmi, a Greenland civil servant - are all interesting, and I came to care about them. As for the previous regulars still around, their relationships with each other go through various interesting twists and turns. (More in the spoilery section.) Above all, it's a great performance by our main actress as Birgitte.
So why I'm not cheering the new season and feeling ambivalent? Because in a way, it's Borgen: Breaking Bad. Not quite, but almost. And that can be hard to watch. Not in a "badly made" and definitely not in a "out of character" way, but in a "I'm currently getting pummelled by RL and want a story that's not the darkest timeline we're in" way.
Birgitte going Dark Side until reversing course at the very last moment was both compelling and horrifying to watch. Now, I'm a B5 veteran and Londo Mollari is my favourite character. But while on that show, we saw Londo's fall spread across three seasons, we also saw his reversing course through the next two. With Birgitte, there was just the finale during which she finally admitted to herself what she had become and used her smarts and skills to not only deal with the damage but do so in a way that still left her with a life in politics and a new career. Which was exhilarating to watch - especially since the job Birgitte finally choosing for herself is the very one I'd been hoping she would get before hearing anything about this season, to wit, Ursula von der Leyen's at the EU - but not enough emotional catharsis for me after a season of Birgitte doing a Walter White, step by step by step.
As for our second leading lady: Katrine starts the season being given Torben's old job as head of TV1. And... she's terrible at it. With the best intentions, but she's not a good boss, and she gets pummelled through the season, relentlessly vilified in the social media, increasingly disliked by everyone at the network save Torben, pressured by the money men (and women) and finally driven into a nervous breakdown. Again, none of this is done in a way that feels wrong for the character we know. Katrine has always been at her best as an investigative reporter. That's her calling. Which is why I hoped she'd go back to it after s3 had her work as Birgitte's spin doctor. Handling lots and lots of staff, coordinating, pacifying ruffled feathers, treading the fine balance between authority and either too much or too little approachability - there's been nothing in previous seasons to indicate she could do that. It's still not fun to watch her fail for an entire season, and too little catharsis/pay off by her eventuall breakdown and, once she's recovered from that, and by her decision to now go to investigative writing (with Torben).
There is of course a thematic connection between the two - the price of power. Birgitte in a way thrives in these power games, she is able to outwit, cajole, bully and/or beat her opponents, but en route she loses ever more of what originally motivated her and what she originally fought for. When, mid season, her one time nemesis Michael Laugedson, arguably the slimiest, most repellent character of the show, for the very first time says something positive about her (without having an advantage in doing so) because he's honestly impressed and she decides to secretly make him her spin doctor, this is a big red flag in case you've missed all the earlier ones. (BTW: kudos to the show for making the Birgitte & Laugedson scenes non sexual and yet the most blatant outward symbolism of her going Dark Side. It's not that he's seducing her to it. She was the one to contact him. Palpatine, he's not. He is seriously impressed by how far she's willing to go, and also, he's another power addict and since his gambit to get back to it failed in the season opener, she's his shot of being relevant again.) This means the characters have more scenes together than at any earlier point of the show - where they talked about each other to other people - and the actors turn out to be compelling together. But you still understand why Birgitte threw up in the night before deciding to contact him.
Meanwhile, Katrine is a keen observer of power, and an excellent commenter and detector when someone is abusing it - but she herself cannot exercise it, and trying to increasingly destroys her. It's worth pointing out that unlilke in s3, when Alex and everyone else wanting to turn the tv broadcaster into essentially a game show place with soundbite news was blatantly wrong, here the younger reporter with whom Katrine clashes most is no such thing. She makes some mistakes, but no more than Katrine herself did in earlier seasons, and the rest of the staff which increasingly takes against Katrine in the fallout aren't painted as villains, either. The season doesn't really have villains, since Birgitte goes from heroine to anti heroine to villain protagonist back to heroine, and her various opponents en route all have good points, while Katrine is Jesse Pinkman without the drug addiction.
Like I said: it's all well done. But not exactly this viewer emotionally needs at this point in her life.
So why I'm not cheering the new season and feeling ambivalent? Because in a way, it's Borgen: Breaking Bad. Not quite, but almost. And that can be hard to watch. Not in a "badly made" and definitely not in a "out of character" way, but in a "I'm currently getting pummelled by RL and want a story that's not the darkest timeline we're in" way.
Birgitte going Dark Side until reversing course at the very last moment was both compelling and horrifying to watch. Now, I'm a B5 veteran and Londo Mollari is my favourite character. But while on that show, we saw Londo's fall spread across three seasons, we also saw his reversing course through the next two. With Birgitte, there was just the finale during which she finally admitted to herself what she had become and used her smarts and skills to not only deal with the damage but do so in a way that still left her with a life in politics and a new career. Which was exhilarating to watch - especially since the job Birgitte finally choosing for herself is the very one I'd been hoping she would get before hearing anything about this season, to wit, Ursula von der Leyen's at the EU - but not enough emotional catharsis for me after a season of Birgitte doing a Walter White, step by step by step.
As for our second leading lady: Katrine starts the season being given Torben's old job as head of TV1. And... she's terrible at it. With the best intentions, but she's not a good boss, and she gets pummelled through the season, relentlessly vilified in the social media, increasingly disliked by everyone at the network save Torben, pressured by the money men (and women) and finally driven into a nervous breakdown. Again, none of this is done in a way that feels wrong for the character we know. Katrine has always been at her best as an investigative reporter. That's her calling. Which is why I hoped she'd go back to it after s3 had her work as Birgitte's spin doctor. Handling lots and lots of staff, coordinating, pacifying ruffled feathers, treading the fine balance between authority and either too much or too little approachability - there's been nothing in previous seasons to indicate she could do that. It's still not fun to watch her fail for an entire season, and too little catharsis/pay off by her eventuall breakdown and, once she's recovered from that, and by her decision to now go to investigative writing (with Torben).
There is of course a thematic connection between the two - the price of power. Birgitte in a way thrives in these power games, she is able to outwit, cajole, bully and/or beat her opponents, but en route she loses ever more of what originally motivated her and what she originally fought for. When, mid season, her one time nemesis Michael Laugedson, arguably the slimiest, most repellent character of the show, for the very first time says something positive about her (without having an advantage in doing so) because he's honestly impressed and she decides to secretly make him her spin doctor, this is a big red flag in case you've missed all the earlier ones. (BTW: kudos to the show for making the Birgitte & Laugedson scenes non sexual and yet the most blatant outward symbolism of her going Dark Side. It's not that he's seducing her to it. She was the one to contact him. Palpatine, he's not. He is seriously impressed by how far she's willing to go, and also, he's another power addict and since his gambit to get back to it failed in the season opener, she's his shot of being relevant again.) This means the characters have more scenes together than at any earlier point of the show - where they talked about each other to other people - and the actors turn out to be compelling together. But you still understand why Birgitte threw up in the night before deciding to contact him.
Meanwhile, Katrine is a keen observer of power, and an excellent commenter and detector when someone is abusing it - but she herself cannot exercise it, and trying to increasingly destroys her. It's worth pointing out that unlilke in s3, when Alex and everyone else wanting to turn the tv broadcaster into essentially a game show place with soundbite news was blatantly wrong, here the younger reporter with whom Katrine clashes most is no such thing. She makes some mistakes, but no more than Katrine herself did in earlier seasons, and the rest of the staff which increasingly takes against Katrine in the fallout aren't painted as villains, either. The season doesn't really have villains, since Birgitte goes from heroine to anti heroine to villain protagonist back to heroine, and her various opponents en route all have good points, while Katrine is Jesse Pinkman without the drug addiction.
Like I said: it's all well done. But not exactly this viewer emotionally needs at this point in her life.
