*Not to steal Cinema Sins' livelihood, but... spoilers (duh).
Indulge me for a moment, and imagine the following:
Two figures, both clad in dark-colored trench coats, stand stock-still and gaze at a spot twenty feet away, cordoned off with yellow tape. Uniformed police officers and white-coated CSI technicians dart in and out of frame, as the clicks and flashes of a camera cut through the murmurs of many hushed conversations. Beneath heavy cloud cover, the scene is unmistakably somber, though the figures' faces remain passive. One reaches into his pocket and lights a cigarette.
"That shit'll kill ya," his partner says.
"Yeah? We all gotta go sometime," replies the smoker, glancing up at the yellow tape.
The other figure snorts amusedly in response, shaking her head. An officer approaches, looking weary. "They're ready for you," he says, averting his eyes.
"About time," the woman says, as her partner reluctantly stomps out his cigarette in the sparse grass. "You ready?"
"Yeah I'm ready." They walk assuredly forward, neither dreading nor anxious for the gruesome scene ahead...
That is a word-for-word opening from an episode of Castle. Kidding! It's just a scenario designed to put you into the head space for this post. And if your thoughts brought you to a show like The Killing, The Fall, The Bridge, Broadchurch, Top of the Lake, True Detective, or something similar, you're right on.
Because that scene is really bleak, right? It's a crime scene, a murder—on all accounts, a very somber occasion. And with those criteria, shows such as the ones listed above should try to set the tone for the bleakness that is to come (i.e., in order to make crimes and police investigations feel real).
The only problem is, an increasing number of gritty crime dramas take this bleakness too far.
In their attempt to be "realistic," to depict the dark, pessimistic, morally ambiguous, messed-up world that is homicide detectives' lives, many of these series apply such adjectives to not only each of their characters' personal lives, but to the B plots, the tone, the setting, and/or the look of the show itself. But in making every facet of the show so depressive, so grim and complex, I would argue that the show actually becomes less realistic (not to mention nearly unwatchable).
Fade in ... to darkness
The worst offender, in my mind, is The Killing. (And if you doubt me, just take a look at the first few hilariously over-the-top depressing events on this season 2 recap list).
We are introduced to protagonist Detective Sarah Linden the same way as we are to most drama leads these days—jogging along some bleak, overcast landscape. We soon learn that she has entered the series with a lot of baggage: she was abandoned as a child and grew up in the foster system (writers' go-to excuse for characters not being sociable or emotive); she is a divorcée and has a strained relationship with her teenage son; she had a long-term affair with her former partner; and she spent a month in a psychiatric hospital following a mental breakdown (due to overwhelming guilt from an unresolved case). And things only get worse for her. The apex of her misery comes when her son leaves to go live with his father because, well, she's a fairly neglectful mother (but only in terms of providing food, shelter, and love). After her son, I honestly can't name a single other person with whom she has a positive relationship. Her boss? An ex-lover. Her husband? I think you mean ex-husband. Her mother figure/social worker? Oh, that woman on a boat who she's always yelling at? Her season 3 boyfriend? Yeah, I can't remember his name, either. Her partner? Well, actually, yes—her immature, recovering drug addict partner is her closest friend. He is the only one messed up enough himself to put up with her shit, and even he can't handle her all the time. It's like Linden walked straight out of a Gillian Flynn novel, flaunting her unlikability and emotionlessness within an otherwise fantastic and intriguing plot. (No offense to GF; it's just an observation.)
I'm not saying Linden should be upbeat or even anything less than cynical. I get that the "murder business" is a grim and dispiriting affair, and I wouldn't ask for shows with this sort of "faux-true crime" atmosphere to imbue their dialogue with witty banter or fill their rosters with moral and optimistic characters. The Killing, and shows like it, are simply in a different category than the 42-minute, open-and-shut case, primetime police procedurals. These series don't shy away from the darker, amoral, screwed-up world of murderers and victims—I just wish this dark, amoral, screwed-up-ness didn't also extend to every character's personal life (among other show elements, which I'll discuss later on). Because as I've said above, Linden's unrelenting pessimism and depressiveness are just... too much. As in, I watch the show despite her (not to say that the other cast members are blameless). I mean, I'm not heartless, but there is a limit to how much sympathy I can give before I say, "all right, this is too much depressing shit...for everyone...all the time." And yet, it seems that in recent years (as far as American television is concerned), there's been this tonal re-evaluation, wherein the more complex or messed up a show is, the more depth it achieves and the more real it feels.
And to a point, that type of thinking is correct.
As Bambi Haggins points out in her How to Watch Television essay, "quality" police dramas were born out of such "commitment to realism" (13). Speaking specifically of the 1990s crime drama Homicide: Life on the Streets (along with Hill Street Blues and The Wire), Haggins likens the seeming-authenticity of the society, culture, history, and place depicted in each of these fictitious TV crime dramas to meteorologists' "RealFeel" index (which denotes what the weather feels like, beyond what a thermometer might say). Basically, she identifies certain elements that make the show "feel real" in emotional, intellectual, visual, and narrative terms. In her words,
[There are] signifiers of realism that build upon each other, resonate for the viewer, and make the televisual world of Homicide [or any comparable crime drama], its people, and its stories feel real: socio-culturally charged, unpredictable narratives with crisp and edgy dialogue; a sense of verisimilitude in terms of both the historical moment and the place; a cast of complex characters in a culturally diverse milieu; and the sampling of generic conventions combining dark comedy, gritty police drama, and contemporary urban morality tale within each episode. (14)
Sound familiar? Modern series may not always achieve the "culturally diverse" criterion, but the rest of Haggins' list checks out—The Killing, The Fall, and especially The Bridge engage with their specific settings and cultures, trading glamour and flash for grittiness and imperfection, and they portray police detectives not as saints, but as brooding, isolated, and pessimistic humans. Such sullied characterizations of the lead detectives, in fact, are another big piece of their series' "realism":
The lives and the work of homicide detectives are not easy: they deal daily with death. By spurning, for the most part, the violence of chases and shootouts typical of conventional cop shows, [these gritty dramas] achieve their "RealFeel" by offering a condensation of the everyday drama of being Murder Police—the cynicism, the frustration, the humor and the responsibility of "speaking for the dead." (Haggins 15)
This much is true. It's the "boots on the ground" policing, the stop-and-go casework, the hitting walls and finding new leads, and the painfully slow evidence-building and multi-round interviews that set these types of police dramas apart; certainly, the lead detectives need to portray the pessimism inherent in their profession and forego the wise-cracking of the more palatable, light-hearted procedurals, so as to match the "RealFeel" of an actual crime and ensuing investigation. As Haggins writes, we must remember that for homicide detectives, "...exposing the darker side of human nature is commonplace and...every victory is tinged with loss." This, she says, is what rationalizes their oftentimes "casual lack of empathy."
And again—to a point, she is right. But it's as if crime show writers have taken these notes and amped them up to never-before-seen degrees, wherein the "complexity, conflict, and contradiction" present in everyday life now run rampant. Because what Haggins praised in Homicide as "fleeting glimpses of detectives' internal angels and demons inflect[ing] the narrative"—their "complex backstories, idiosyncratic dialogue, and ticks of persona"—has become a runaway grimness effect in the current TV landscape (18). I understand (and encourage) the impulse to make characters in any genre complex, but since when did complexity become synonymous with cheerlessness? With an oppressive lack of morality, happiness, or hope?
Somebody get these shows a Xanax
Think again of The Killing, The Fall, The Bridge, (and I suspect Broadchurch, Top of the Lake, and True Detective season 1—yes, even I have my knowledge gaps). These shows go out of their way to make their characters hard to watch (much less root for), as if their deepest need is to separate themselves from the buttoned-up cases and buddy comedy-rooted crime shows like Castle, Bones, Rizzoli and Isles, Unforgettable, or even Rookie Blue. Because in a way, The Killing et al. are those shows, if all the smiling, joking, witty banter, fun, shenanigans, airtight morality, romantic tension, facial expressions, meaningful relationships of any kind, and general happiness were drained out of them.
In many of these shows, it's like the writers started with the (reasonable but oversimplified) belief that all homicide detectives either a) would get really messed up by the job or b) were already messed up, thus attracting them to the job in the first place. It's this messed up-ness, after all, that allows them to get into the mind of a murderer, to suss out where he/she will strike next and how to catch him/her before that happens. Or maybe these shows just like floating the cop-or-criminal, "could have gone either way" trope.... In any case, what started as an effort to "take detectives down a peg," from the uber-moral righter-of-wrongs and catcher-of-criminals to the mundane yet dogged, screwed-up human being, has quickly descended into amoral chaos. So instead of increasing viewers' ability to identify with these characters, by taking this screw up-ness too far, such efforts have had the opposite effect (at least for me).
Because to be frank, these shows give us people who are too unhinged to be employed, much less issued a fire arm. Let's jump to season 3 of The Killing: our three main police detectives are an emotionally unstable loner (Linden), a former-ish drug addict gangster-wannabe (Holder), and to top it off, a serial killer (Skinner). And we trade them in, respectively, for season 4's serial killer killer, serial killer killer accomplice (and ill-equipped father-to-be), and a new, normal but casually misogynistic detective (or serial killer killer investigator, if you prefer). I'm just saying, Linden is twice termed "mentally unfit for duty" over the series' four seasons (and at the start, is dating her therapist), yet is allowed to remain on the force even after the truth of her felony murder is uncovered. Is "conduct unbecoming" not a thing in The Killing's universe?
Det. Stella Gibson of The Fall isn't much better. Aside from some killer feminist lines, Gibson's character also suffers from some sort of socio-emotional detachedness and a host of forced eccentricities, like obsessing over a dream journal, sleeping with her colleagues, constantly ordering female officers to get her clothes from her hotel (maybe that one's just me), and just generally acting aloof and/or passive. I will say, however, that The Fall does a much better job of framing Gibson's strange investigative tendencies as peculiarities (instead of defects), what with people frequently questioning her seeming-infatuation with Paul Spector (especially after she runs to him, and not her partner, during the shooting in the season 2 finale). [And this is a bit of a tangent, but why so many police series are choosing to make their detectives complex by giving them kinky, inappropriate, or shall we say liberated sex lives, I have no idea. The Fall, The Sinner, The Killing, The Bridge—they all do this to some degree. And, on a completely separate note, when did beach murders become the new thing? (see Big Little Lies, The Killing, or The Sinner)].
Beyond the lead detectives' lives, these shows would have you believe that the secret each one of their characters is keeping is terrible. As in, "I was an unaware accomplice in killing my niece" terrible (The Killing S2), "I left my son in a room with his mother's dead body just to avoid being at the scene of a crime" terrible (S3), or even "I let my child be raised by an abusive father, and only stepped in once he committed, like, four murders" terrible (S4)... Again, it absolutely makes sense to craft a flawed protagonist with whom viewers can connect—but there's flawed, and then there's this I-killed-my-boss-and-slept-with-my-partner-and-put-an-innocent-person-in-prison-and-it's-only-Wednesday nonsense.
Nordic Noir, the gateway genre
This recent slate of gritty crime dramas—including the ones I'm complaining about here—didn't come out of nowhere. (Surprise!) In fact, these series actually belong to a genre called Nordic Noir—"Nordic" because of its affiliation with the tone and setting of the books, films, and yes, television series produced in Scandinavia, and "Noir" because of its association with the bleakness and melodrama of mid-1900s American "film noir." (If you haven't seen any of the aforementioned shows...and are still reading...think Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.) In their Oxford Research Encyclopedia article published online earlier this year, professors Annette Hill and Susan Turnbull offered this summary: "The term Nordic noir is associated with a region (Scandinavia), with a mood (gloomy and bleak), with a look (dark and grim), and with strong characters and a compelling narrative." They are sure to point out, however, that though it started as a "northern European trend," the genre has become "a global brand that attracts transnational audiences," with shows set all throughout Western Europe and the US (not that this detracts from the genre's "specific style of storytelling that has the look and feel of a regional, moody, and compelling crime narrative").
Throughout their article, Hill and Turnbull stack up quite a few (by now) familiar-sounding descriptors: either they themselves or quoted persons call works from the emerging genre "dark and thrilling"; "[depicting] a dark, gloomy, brutal reality”; "[having an] emphasis on moral ambiguity and 'broken relationships'"; "[featuring] the pairing of a male and female detective, one social and approachable and the other awkward and socially inept"; “[drama] typified by its heady mixture of bleak naturalism, disconsolate locations and morose detectives”; and "[dramas with] a gloomy atmosphere evoking melancholy and fear, strong characters struggling with emotional issues, police procedural details, and a critique of society and politics." Or, to really beat that dead horse, they also quote British TV scholar Glen Creeber, who identified the genre's key features as “a dimly-lit aesthetic (hence its implicit reference to film noir) that is matched by a slow and melancholic pace, multi-layered storylines, and an interest in uncovering the dark underbelly of contemporary society.” What examples do they provide, you ask? Forbrydelsen/The Killing, Borgen, Wallander, Broen/Bron/The Bridge, Livvagterne/The Protectors, and Broadchurch.
I am pleased to note, however, that European audiences and critics react to these shows with their own senses of (dark) humor. British TV critic Sam Wollaston, credited as the first person to use the term "Nordic Noir" in print, commented on an upcoming Swedish series called Sebastian Bergman, saying, "Ah, a new Scandi thriller show [...]. It's light and fluffy, packed full of lols, a sort of Nordic Midsomer [Murders]... no, don't be daft, of course it's not. It’s gloomy as hell, with a sociopath at its heart. And, of course, it’s excellent, [...] it takes a hold of you and draws you in […]. That part of the world seems to be this bottomless treasure chest of bleak, wonderful character-led thrilling drama. Nordic noir, the gift that keeps on giving."
Similarly, British critic Clive James ribs on the lighting, pacing, and mood of Nordic Noir, writing, "[T]he lights are turned off even indoors, so that sometimes you have to search for the little green diode to make sure your TV set is still on” and "it’s hard to get a job as a cop [in a Scandinavian crime drama] unless you are as boring as hell [and spend entirely too much time staring at walls or waves]."
While I can appreciate their humor, (as this post may have alerted you) I'm done laughing. There's only so much wall-staring I can take. And only so much I should have to take—not to mean the burden is on me to stop watching the shows, but that these shows shouldn't be so deeply rutted in what have quickly become tropes of the genre.
Plus, as many of my sources were sure to note, such tropes extend past plot and characters. For instance, here's Hill and Turnbull again: "One of the most distinctive aspects of Nordic noir is the careful layering of aesthetics and sound to evoke a melancholy atmosphere." First up is location—these shows just look dark. It's like the location scouts were asked to pick the blandest, most remote places they could find (with 100% cloud cover, of course), and on top of that, the editors were instructed to color grade everything so as to "really bring out those grays" (not unlike recent Marvel movies). God forbid we get a glimpse of brightness in this bleak, exhausting, unhappy world of ours. I mean, sure, as Haggins points out in her essay on Homicide, it could be that "...scenes are drained of color as if to signify the soul-sapping nature of the job" (16). Or, as Hill and Turnbull report, this is simply the "use of the landscape to reflect the psychological state [read: the dark side] of the characters." Oh, and the constant fogginess? But of course, "The very mundanity of the weather becomes a backdrop to the narratives of fear and melancholy in the crime drama."
Beyond that, this "realness = dreariness" crusade extends to the hair, makeup, and costume departments, as seen in the characters' haggard appearances and ill-fitting outfits. For instance, when she played Det. Sonya Cross in The Bridge, Diane Kruger joked that "it's actually a pleasure to not have to spend a lot of time in hair and makeup." I do appreciate, as Haggins points out, that part of the realism for Nordic Noir characters [not that she used that term] is that they attain only average attractiveness (as opposed to primetime's "'majority hotness' requirement" [17]). And I get it—an untidy appearance makes sense in detectives' line of work. It's just that this, combined with so many other "dreariness factors," adds up to a lot of dreariness. I mean, even the music associated with these series (especially the opening scores) is meant to "[establish] a tone of foreboding," and "create] a sense of unease" (Hill and Turnbull).
So yes, Hill and Turnbull are right to point out that Nordic Noir has a certain drab similarity "in the images, the color palette, the musical score, the themes, the pacing, and the types of characters that are deployed." As they tell it, Nordic Noir is deemed "quality drama" because "every detail of landscape, color, light and sound, snowfall, dialogue and plot twists, editing, and acting pulls audiences into a powerful narrative that has long-lasting cultural resonance." But the problem with something being called "quality," being widely sought after and adored, and having transnational appeal, is that a host of lazy imitations are bound to spring up (ahem, Marvel). In this case, these imitations don't add anything new to the genre (especially considering how many American remakes there have been); they just max out the elements that made audiences like it to begin with—and they trick us into liking the extremized version. I, for one, cringed when I read the following comment from a study group participant who was asked to share her thoughts on these gritty crime dramas (italics are mine):
Right. The more depressing something is the better it is … if everyone was happy and everything was going well … it’s a bit stupid, a bit naïve. You can tell how well made it is, the gloomier and more serious it is. (qtd. in Hill and Turnbull)
No. Just...no. I'll say it again: pessimism does not equate to realism, dismality does not equate to complexity, and gloominess does not equate to quality. While those elements can add to a drama's "RealFeel," they do not, in and of themselves, constitute reality. Realism is when things aren't wrapped up nicely, not when things are torn into unrecognizable pieces. In bringing together so many of the diegetic (and nondiegetic) elements I mentioned above, in crafting a whole, stylized world to enhance the realism of a fictional crime story, some crime dramas have been terrific—and others really overshot the mark.
Hey crime dramas—lighten up already (or don't)
Let's take a step back for a moment and look at some positives. After all, I have watched many shows belonging to this genre because, more often than not, I liked them. I freely admit that their carefully crafted mysteries, their engaging and captivating murder investigations, are really good. Even despite their main characters doing their best to suck all the emotion out of it (sorry, had to). Because it can be quite fascinating to take things slow, in seeming real-time, devoting an entire season (as opposed to a 45-minute episode) to a single murder investigation. As enraptured audience members, we get to delight in each twist and turn, each clue found upon revisiting evidence, each realization upon interrogating a new witness. We get to see in these shows how the puzzle is put together, how a murderer is caught or a crime solved. Sometimes, as is the case in The Fall, we even get to see the killer's perspective, a further insight into how and why horrific crimes occur. This sort of slow pace is completely necessary for Nordic Noir's success, for its realistic investigatory and informational build-up. (That said, The Killing's episode where Linden is looking for her son and The Fall's episode where Spector is in surgery—the main plotline of each hour—were pretty much snore fests).
Even with the knowledge that the police will eventually solve the case, viewers are encouraged to hang on every clue and every piece of evidence until that happens—just like the detectives do. (Though we are often privileged to other characters' points of view.) We have time to consider different suspects, motives, and timelines; in a way, we become detectives within these shows, trying to figure out the unknowns surrounding the "who" and "why." We are given time to see the social and emotional fallout of guilty people being publicly identified (e.g., The Fall S2 and 3) and innocent people being publicly accused (The Killing S1, 2, and 4). All of these thoughts and observations are swirling in the background, and in the meantime, we sit with the police during their stake-outs and stress out with them as they scrutinize a particular case file; it's only through these shows that we even begin to appreciate the time involved, the energy spent, in real-life investigations. And yet it's not boring. The pacing, the plotting, the melodrama—when done right, these types of shows can be a massive success (even though that last element should have no place in series that are striving for realism). Each on-screen moment corresponds to world- or character-building, and we learn to appreciate the minds of these detectives for figuring out what we (most often) cannot.
And by and large, these series are popular. Audiences love the complexities, the tensions, the mysteries. At their best, these shows "[bring] a messy and unsettling slice of American urban life to network television" and in doing so, "[manage] to convey a sense of immediacy and intimacy that can be as disquieting as it is engaging" (Haggins 13). Viewers and directors alike deemed works of this genre "uncomfortable pleasures" (20), and as having "a chilling stillness," portraying "the bittersweet nature of life" and "the creepiness of the mundane" (qtd. in Hill and Turnbull). Like shows with antiheroes, Nordic Noir is the type of genre that blurs the line of "good" and "bad"; these crime dramas ask us to consider how every person, from the wrong-place-wrong-time "victim", to the misguided or carried-away "perpetrator", to everyone in between, are each loved, each filled with jealousy, each secretive, and each prone to make mistakes. There are no black-and-white heroes or villains, just humans, all dealing with their own problems. Hill and Turnbull's study participants picked up on this as well, prompting them to comment, "This feeling of being weighed down, the vulnerability of human relations, is strangely compelling to audiences and their engagement with the genre." Some viewers liked the feeling of hopelessness that drapes over these characters from start to end, while others praised the persistent glimpses of hope, saying, "I suppose that’s where the suspense comes from. Things are always on the brink of destruction [but never quite fall off that ledge]." And indeed, Hill and Turnbull paraphrase TV scholar Glen Creeber in writing, "Unlike American film noir, [...] in its focus on communities that support each other, and the promise of redemption, Nordic noir is characterized by 'an overriding sense of hope' that in the end, good will overcome evil."
Of course, to be true to the genre—to never portray anything as wholly good or bad, rather sticking to the gray tones of life—you would think the epitome of "hope" in these series lies in solving the case, not in wrapping up every loose end or resolving every unsatisfactory element in its characters' lives. (Instead, you'd expect the message to be more along the lines of "life shittily goes on.") I don’t know why shows rooted in existential bitterness, featuring brooding, despondent, isolated leads would even want to try for a happy ending (though The Killing sure went uncharacteristically head-over-heels for one—yet another issue I have with the show). Though for the most part, they don't—and the resolution of the crime is enough for me.
Step back from that ledge, my friend
I suppose I will just end this...rather verbose post...by cautioning against what I consider to be the number one consequence of the current rash of Nordic Noir series: that audiences will come to associate visual and narrative bleakness with "quality TV," and that they will rate any new series with the mere semblance of those elements too highly. (I'm gonna go ahead and throw 2017's The Sinner under the bus; for all of CBS's promotions, this German "whydunnit" crime novel adaptation consistently fell below my expectations.) This isn't to say that many of these series aren't excellent (including those I have yet to binge-watch), just that we, as viewers, need to be more discerning when it comes to choosing between "dark, tonal cohesion" and "over-the-top depressiveness." And hey, if you want to see this sort of stylized darkness done right, go watch Big Little Lies or The Handmaid's Tale. (You can thank me later.)
*If I'm really being honest, I think my biggest ax to grind with The Killing is its criminal underuse of Jewel Staite.
*If only because I may never have the chance to make this relevant again: for any The Bridge (US) fans out there, check out this delightfully random review of Det. Sonya Cross’ leather jacket.
*Update: It seems more than a little coincidental that the Sept. 15 issue of Entertainment Weekly would contain this season finale review by Ray Rahman: "Ugh. Ugh! Just when I thought I was finally over the whole 'superdark antihero-cop murder mystery' thing, the excellent second run of Jane Campion's Top of the Lake pulls me back in with some of the most mesmerizing hours of television all year." Nordic Noir, at it again.
Similarly, see EW's series preview for Bellevue in the Jan. 12 '18 issue: "Yet another 'sad cop investigates a mysterious disappearance in an even sadder town' show. This one stars Anna Paquin."