The Swedish-Danish series The Bridge debuted in 2011 and started the Nordic noir movement that shook global TV. The concept of using co-productions, an icy and gloomy setting, and police officers from different countries working together to solve a crime – the body is found right on the border, which legally forces a joint investigation – worked like a glove for European countries. The series has been re-recorded/adapted in several countries, including a British/French version, The Tunnel. So when Austria and Germany came up with Der Pass (Pagan Peak) in 2018, it was already a bit of a stretch to suggest task forces and detectives (as always, a man and a woman) banging their heads together to get to the killer. However, Der Pass managed to break through the barrier once again and is one of the best-constructed series of recent years, one that reached the rest of the world both via Amazon Prime Video (rest of Europe) and in America via HBO Max. It is unmissable.

I will openly discuss all seasons in detail, i.e. spoilers. I suggest avoiding reading BEFORE watching because it is so rare that we have thought-provoking content without it being debugged in detail everywhere that we no longer have surprises. De Pass is all about surprises and it’s fun to discover them as the writers want. Come back here later. I marathoned the three seasons in days, I bet you will do the same. That said, let’s get to the analysis.

The formula: when nonlinearity is used well

Anyone who reads Miscelana knows that one of the things I complain about most recently is the use of non-linear scripts to tell a story. Der Pass uses the formula but with firmness and purpose. When he sews, he changes our perspective of the facts, without having invented anything to confuse us excessively. Even when we realize that there are three timelines in every season, they are constructed in a way that helps to put together the puzzle, but the control is in the hands of the writers. Ever.

The quote from The Bridge – which kind of left a part cynical and wary of following Der Pass – is just that, a slight inspiration.

The story (the three seasons are tied together) begins when a corpse is found on the border between Austria and Germany and detectives Ellie (Julia Jentsch) and Gedeon (Nicholas Ofczarek) meet. They could not be more opposite in gender and degree: she is sweet, idealistic, and positive while he is cynical, rude, and corrupt. However, both are detail-oriented and obsessed, they quickly and strangely understand each other, with long silences and the common objective of identifying and arresting a serial killer who uses pagan legends and satanic rituals as cover for his increasingly violent crimes.

Their secrets somehow unite them too, because another thing that Gedeon and Ellie have in common is not judging anyone. She has an affair with her married boss and he is a drug addict, living with trauma (which will only be revealed in the third season). Another thing that unites them is that when a suspect is arrested, they know it is the wrong person and try in vain to continue searching for the killer, without succeeding. The problem is that the serial killer – Gregor – falls in love with the police officer and Ellie’s life is at serious risk. It is Gedeon who saves her, as he identifies and arrests Gregor, but only after the villain has taken poison and served the drink to Ellie. Gedeon takes her to the hospital and the colleague survives, but then he is the victim of an ambush. Bandits he had worked for order him killed in revenge and Gedeon is shot at a crossroads, apparently dying without help.

Well-constructed characters without exaggerated mannerisms

There are interesting elements that were avoided in Der Pass. Firstly, there is no romance between the protagonists and when there is friction between them it is plausible as we already understand their contrasting personalities. The chemistry between them is also plausible, which is a growing intimacy of affection, admiration, trust, and love, but brotherly and never distractingly romantic love.

While Gedeon is disgusting – fat, unwashed, drunk and drugged, limping and smoking – Ellie is a beautiful woman without forcing her femininity, with little vanity and neither abandoned. She is believable. Their journey is the opposite, as we expected: Gedeon regains faith and motivation to live and Ellie hardens, and becomes more cynical, losing her grace. Her red and loose hair from the opening is exchanged for gray and tied-up hair (and even short in the second season), she never goes back to being the person we know, something that Gedeon warns her from the beginning would happen. He knows that ‘that’ Ellie exists, but he doesn’t force her to return. It is an interesting way to understand the process of pain, trauma, and the difficulty of dealing with grief.

Therefore, when they meet again in the second season, this arc is still ongoing. One year later after Gregor’s arrest and death, Ellie is a woman suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but still working. Gedeon was saved and operated on, but he still has a bullet in his head that only a few professionals would dare or be able to operate on. Even putting his life at risk, he returns to work because once again crimes that unite Austria and Germany depend on a task force. Once again, ritualistic crimes are being a façade for something more sinister, but Gedeon and Ellie are unable to revive their previous partnership as she is very emotionally weakened. It is junior detective Yela, who has Ellie as a mentor and Gedeon as an advisor who maintains their bond.

Obviously, there is another serial killer who tortures, rapes and revives his victims before killing them, using folkloric rituals to confuse them, but the problem here is that now the culprit(s) are from an ultra-powerful family in the region. Neither politicians nor police officers are immune to pressure and corruption and here we will have our duo following opposing sides in a surprising way, when Gedeon, who had changed because of Ellie, decides to return to his worst version when he sells himself so that the bullet in his head can be removed. operated and removed, covering up the real criminal. The confrontation between friends who become enemies, who will have another opportunity to face each other in the third and final season, sends a chill down the spine and a sinking heart.

Seasons connect, destinies intersect

I’ll confess: the first season is great, the second is electrifying, but the third, although conclusive, is dragging. At this point, another wave of ritualistic and Satanist crimes is almost a joke, we are more than used to the formula of the previous seasons and we are left with the feeling of wasting time with the way the pieces of the puzzle are distributed. What holds is our curiosity about the relationship between Ellie and Gedeon, none of the violent and absurd deaths make sense or arouse excessive curiosity.

Six months have passed since they broke up and Ellie remains determined to prove that Gedeon helped Yela’s murderer escape justice. As Salzburg appears to be the Satanist center of the world, once again they have to work together to identify another serial killer, but this time neither the deaths nor the victims seem to have any connection. It doesn’t help that Ellie is more obstinate with Gedeon than the killer and that Gedeon is in poor health (in the place of the bullet an aneurysm appeared) and committed to a personal revenge that led him back to drugs.

The turbulent relationship between the two is the source of all suspense. We discover that Gedeon ended up in this self-destructive spiral because he was sexually abused as a child and that he spent his life trying to capture the pedophile painter who destroyed his and many children’s lives. When Ellie understands that this irrecoverable trauma is what destroyed her former friend’s soul, she is touched. Likewise, she discovers that Yela and Gedeon are more than friends, so his pain at having betrayed his ex-lover is greater than Ellie could have anticipated. From then on, she helps him, without judgment, and without thinking twice. But too late.

Because they are geniuses, Ellie and Gedeon can decipher the crimes, but they are unable to connect the mastermind – a man who lives in the forests and manipulates vulnerable people to kill for him – to the motive for the crimes. When he is close, Gedeon collapses and is taken to the hospital. Fighting against death, he finally discovers the reason and method that caused the wave of deaths, but it is too late. Both the criminal disappears and Gedeon dies, in the arms of a disconsolate Ellie.

An open ending for some, but definitely exciting

Ellie ends the series gray, cynical, and emotional again. She eliminates all evidence against Gedeon, to prevent the truth from coming out. The final scene, of the two dancing to the sound of singer Wolfgang Ambros, Gedeon’s favorite, is a punch in the stomach to effectively make us cry.

Ellie leaves the hospital crying after doctors try to revive Gedeon. She gets rid of the weapons and the flash drive that would end her friend’s career and returns to a cafe where she finds him clean, smiling, and happy. She is playing the song I Drah Zua, which confirms the worst: it is a farewell.

The song talks about the game of life, the consequences of each choice and ends with the singer saying goodbye, that his partner will find someone else for a new departure. In this excerpt, we see Ellie lose her smile, holding back tears. She never changes her clothes while Gedeon is all dressed up – there is no subtlety or doubt in the message – nor do the writers warn us about the passage of time. Unfortunately, Gedeon is dead. But he’s at peace, he’s light and that’s what sweet Ellie wanted to keep by preserving his memory. Flaws or not, he was a genius detective. And life without him, even dirty, annoying, or drunk, will no longer be the same.

I avoided discussing the crimes or the investigations because De Pass‘s soul was precisely how Ellie and Gedeon transformed themselves in the face of the violence and incoherence of life. The series does not reinvent the noir, drama, or even suspense genre, but it is intelligent, intriguing, and engaging, proving that it is not necessary to invent the wheel but to know how to make it turn. Great content that is worth every second. Ellie and Gedeon are in the pantheon of greats. Unforgettable.

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