The Troubled Man

Having seen the Swedish version of this final episode, I have to talk about a spark. As Kurt begins to succumb to Alzheimers, he becomes even more morose than he normally is. He finds himself trying to find his daughter's father-in-law, who has some connection to spying. As he does this, he becomes more and more confused. He at times is almost zombie-like. Granted, this insidious disease takes the soul out of a person, but early onset isn't presented with much reality. Wallander is awfully lucid most of the time but occasionally drops off the face of the earth. The performance is dull and that is the problem. One of our greatest actors interprets the role with a single dimension and gets by on pure luck. Branagh is so stoic as to appear catatonic. A bit of a disappointment to end this series.

The fourth series of Wallander has not been the best vintage. The opening episode set in South Africa was a bit off and too out of the ordinary. This series has a whole has never crackled and the stories were a little bit too slow to justify the longer running time. We have hardly seen Kurt's colleagues which were already decimated in the previous series.

Kenneth Branagh continues as the stoical Kurt for the final time. His actions affected by the early-onset of Alzheimer's he agrees to help when his daughter's father in law, Hakan goes missing.

The previous episode laid the foundations as the father in law told Kurt of an incident in the 1980s where he was an officer in the Swedish Navy and an incident with a Soviet submarine entering Swedish waters and the government did little about it which he felt was treasonous.

As the mystery unfolds there are conflicting loyalties. Kurt suspects his son in law, Hakan's wife is found dead, an old American friend of Hakan turns up and Kurt thinks Hakan himself might have staged his disappearance. All this in a background of Kurt struggling with his forgetfulness and moments of incoherence.

This episode ends with a coda of an old acquaintance of Kurt making an appearance which rounds the series off. Kurt in some ways ends up like his father at the end.

The Wallander books have finished and the final episode was dedicated to the author Henning Mankell who died 2015. I think this was the right time to stop as the show was on the verge of a decline.

I just step over the edge of 50 and way the wallander present aging.... Hit me like train. There should be some kind of international award for this level of acting.

Kenneth Branagh and his supporting cast send off this wonderful series with a dense, troubling, and ultimately satisfying final two- part episode. "Wallander" has brought back the "masterpiece" in Masterpiece Theater.

For those who don't understand the moments of both lucidity and the moments of pure confusion in Branagh's portrayal of early outset Alzheimer's disease, you evidently haven't been around anyone who has suffered from this horrible disorder. I have had a close friend who suffered from the disease, and I found his portrayal to be painfully accurate.

I would have liked for this series to continue, but the death of Henning Mankell in 2015 evidently put an end to any hopes of future episodes.

Wallander embarks on his last case, which hits close to home, just as he is diagnosed with the onset of dementia.

His daughter Linda's father-in-law has disappeared, and Linda asks her father to investigate along with Detective Yttenberg.

Kurt learns that Haken was a submariner thirty years earlier, and perhaps was keeping secrets from that time of his life, even from his wife. Haken also had a disabled daughter whom he visited secretly. Kurt also knows that Haken received a card on his birthday that disturbed him.

The detective fights his dementia as he attempts to find evidence from the 1980s in order to learn what Haken was involved in, and if it is connected somehow to his disappearance so that he can close his last case.

It's a sad episode as Kurt endures bouts of dementia and finally has to tell Linda the truth. That scene is very touching. It is disturbing to watch his moments of horrible confusion - I can't agree with one of the reviews here that it wasn't realistic. Even in the beginning of the disease, there are times of both confusion and clarity. I thought Branagh gave an excellent performance.

A moving ending to a fine series.