Entrapped

As someone who really enjoyed Trapped, I was looking forward to this. Sadly, it is not as gripping a tale. Even the Icelandic landscape and weather seemed less fascinating and forbidding. Trapped involved lots of artic ice and blizzards, whereas this is set mostly in a biker gang's hideout and a pagan cult's compound. There's lots of back and forth between the two on a coastal highway. Bikers and police, back and forth, back and forth. Every time a new issue came up, there was a road trip to one or the other.

The show attempts the obligatory task of making every character seem like a potential suspect for at least five minutes, but not all of these attempts succeeded. Without giving any details away, I didn't find the resolution very satisfying or worth the time I had invested.

It's a police procedural that is actually a six-episode third season of "Trapped" that I reviewed a little while back. It remains set in Reykjavík and more remote areas of Iceland. It follows two police detectives and a local police chief as they solve three murders, one of which occurred seven years earlier.

Andri Ólafsson (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), the older detective, and Hinrika (Ilmur Kristjánsdóttir) remain the core of the story. Trausti (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) is another detective from the earlier series who had conflicts with Andri, but now they're working together. Andri gets pulled into a crime from his past that seems related to current crimes in his old town.

The plot involves a group living communally and engaging in nature worship and a local motorcycle gang that joins a Danish motorcycle gang involved in drug smuggling. There are family relationships between the two groups and conflicting claims on the land's ownership.

This season, we learn much more about Andri's background and the murder case that he botched years earlier. His suspect in the earlier case has now been murdered, and both murders seem linked to the current commune-motorcycle gang conflict. By the end of the series, Andri faces a full reckoning for his actions while he and Hinrika also solve the current crimes.

It was good to get more depth on Andri's background, though some of the complexities of the commune/motorcycle gang storylines were a bit complex for a short series. The series also introduced some new characters who begged for further elaboration. Still, it's a worthy successor to "Trapped."

This Icelandic detective series marks the mind thanks to different components. The first component is the geographical background of Iceland with its scenery, its landscapes, its deserts, its rhythms and the travel by car or motorcycle or helicopter. The other component is its police team, which is a trio, with a laid-off inspector, a policewoman and an investigator: they are not super-cops. They don't have a technological arsenal to carry out their investigations; and in the course of the different episodes, elements about their personal lives are given, and moreover they make mistakes. And the last one is the plot, a murder, a multitude of stakeholders who could have committed the murder, and we will learn the name of the culprit at the end of the last episode, having suspected many of the characters met during the dramatic progression.

All this is well done and gives a rather slow pace, but which suits well the still inertial movements on the island. And the various stakeholders in this story allow for a variety of social engineering: a cult of enlightened people, bikers, grieving families, a previous unsolved murder perhaps related, the police team. All this gives a whole that has its own rhythm and its own aesthetic.

A series that meets its specifications: keep the viewer captive until the last minute of its last episode.

As Episode 1 of "Entrapped" (2022 release from Iceland; 6 episodes ranging from 41 to 54 min each) opens, a rather weird group of meditating pagans is interrupted by a gang of bikers who feel the pagans have stolen their land. Late that night, one of the pagans is brutally murdered. Meanwhile Andri, a recently divorced cop, volunteers to assist in the murder investigation when he realizes that he knows the guy who was killed... At this point we are 10 minutes into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: some 5-6 years ago, there was an excellent Icelandic crime series called "Trapped" that stretched out over 3 seasons and 28 episodes. This new series is a sequel of sorts, with the main returning character being Andri, who based on a technicality is able to join into this new murder. We eventually learn that the murder may well be connected to one of the murders in the "Trapped" series. Unfortunately, as good as "Trapped" was, this new series doesn't come anywhere close in quality. It's not that it's outright bad, but the difference in quality, in particular in the writing, is quite stark. Also the fact that there are only 6 episodes should tell you something. It's like someone said, "hey guys, people are still talking about "Trapped", so we need to come with something, anything, that picks ups the pieces and gets this going again". "Entrapped" ultimately feels unnecessary but with just 6 episodes, it all goes by rather quickly.

"Entrapped" recently premiered on Netflix, and I couldn't wait to check it out. While it wasn't a complete waste of my time, I neverthele4ss feel like it was a letdown as compared to the original "Trapped" series. Of course don't take my word for it, so I encourage you to check it out, and draw your own conclusion.

"Trapped" was a pleasant surprise: A taut, emotionally-driven series with tight plots and engrossing environments. Sure, it was slow in parts but still amazing that a country of 400K residents can come up with something that blows much of Netflix programming away.

Saying that, this series lacks some of the tight scripting of "Trapped." Too often my mind wandered when it should have been glued to the TV. There just too much superfluous stuff, too many soap opera moments that the previous series avoided.

Still, it's an admirable show. I stayed with it and felt fully engaged with the characters. Perhaps a little too much at times as I would lose my place in the story. Thankfully, the ending neither disappoints nor insults the audience. Respect.