There were points this week when, if I weren’t recapping this show, I would have been tempted to throw in the towel. I can pinpoint them exactly: the moment when Claudia gives the “Energreen is working towards a better and cleaner world” spiel, clearly shoved down the throats of all employees on day one, to the hapless editor of Financial News. I’m not sure how many more times I can hear the words “major”, “player”, “market” or “green” without wanting to go and burn some petrol.
Then there’s the moment Mads turns up at his new colleague Alf’s door, after his wife tells him that she doesn’t think they should be together any more and expects to move in. Is there something about colleague relations in Denmark that I’m not getting? And the moment Mads left his kids asleep at Alf’s house to pop, not once but twice, to sit outside his old house and watch for this swanky new fella in the sports car.
But then I had a realisation that left me feeling less gripey about the thought of four more episodes: this is just not in the same league as The Bridge et al. Judge it by shows like that, and it’s going to come untacked. Judge it by, say, Inspector Montalbano, and it just about stays together. Fine, there might be more holes in the plot than a crocheted blanket, and more daft dialogue than an episode of Sunset Beach, but as things began to ratchet up – and ratchet up they did this week – it began to matter less. Of course, there’s a natural endpoint to this logic (see season six of 24, which has a nuclear explosion or chemical weapon attack every 30 seconds) but, at least for now, upping the ante was precisely what Follow the Money needed.
This week we started to see just what happens when the man I’ve been calling Beardy (I don’t think we’ve heard a name yet) starts to flex his muscles. And, for a man with so much calculated menace, it’s pretty shambolic. First off, he runs over journalist Mia, who has been investigating Energreen and its oddly highly valued factory in Poland, where apparently they have been doing their best to develop this superconductor thingamabob.
But he’s a tardy would-be assassin – she had already published the blog he was trying to nip in the bud. Plus, he does a terrible job of running her over, so she is now in a coma and likely to wake up – this apparent blossoming of Alf’s love life surely can’t come to nothing. Besides, we could do with more from straight-talking Mia, whose response to another of Claudia’s attempts to talk about Energreen with evangelical zeal is “It’s just hot air … people who want to save the world don’t have designer shoes and purses … Look in the mirror.”
Next up, Beardy takes aim at Erik – Nicky, Bimse and Jan’s vaping accountant – having already clobbered Nicky. Beardy’s also doing a bad job of coercing Nicky, who is too impatient to wait for the laundering cash to filter through, to give him back the stolen iPad, complete with records of all the dodgy accounting, which Nicky is trying to use to blackmail Energreen out of 10 million (currency unclear).
Mads and Alf’s dynamic has progressed in leaps and bounds this week, too – perhaps too far – but it’s quite sweet seeing them drive to Poland with Mads sleeping soundly, and watching a patient Alf stop a tanked-up Mads from attacking a security guard at the Polish factory. In my new mindset of not expecting too much of this show, I also didn’t mind the scene where the fraud squad crack the code: the one remaining folder on Mia’s computer can be opened by typing in Alf’s birthday.
There’s a corporate clock ticking throughout these two episodes: Energreen is going public, but before it does, it needs to get all the investors it can, so it can launch on the stock exchange with a bang. (This gives us some of the scenes where I think, if you know anything about this stuff, you might struggle to suspend disbelief. But, luckily for me, Aditya Chakrabortty I am not.) So the Energreen gang private jet their way around Europe, trying to rally the cash. They leave Frankfurt victorious, but come unstuck in London, where a frightfully smart chap at Waterson and Price (is this meant to sound like PWC?) quizzes Claudia about some contracts she has left at home. Apparently, this is enough to make him think that Energreen is not an ambitious company, and it is only interested in backing those who are as ambitious as it is. Is this how people really talk in investment meetings?!
She turns it around, though, when she gives old boyfriend and rekindled flame Tobias a misleadingly optimistic take on the company’s fortunes, I think because she realises he is trying to use her to get inside information.
But perhaps she doesn’t, and she really is that willing to put her career before all else. This leads his company to triple their investment, just as hers was about to go under. Shame, really, because these two, with their thumb wars and aquarium trips, seemed sweet. But she has made her choice and, as Sander so pithily puts it, she is now a fully paid up member of the rich people’s club – I fear that choosing this pathway, her career and cash over love and family, may now be irreversible.
After developments this week, it’s a pathway that seems increasingly treacherous. Mads and Alf have tracked down Mia’s insider informer, The Voice, and Claudia’s son has identified Beardy – in a brilliantly creepy moment – as the man who ran over Mia. I’d put my ISA on Energreen and its slimy cohort eventually coming a cropper. But will Jens Kristian, AKA The Voice shelter Claudia, who he seems to genuinely care for, from the shit when it does hit the turbine?
Thoughts and observations
Funny that Mads’ password is “Bmw1965”, with a capital B.
Am I being an uptight Brit/naive, or does anyone else find it odd how much office hugging and snogging goes on – I can’t say I’ve ever spotted anything like that Alf/Mia frisson in Guardian HQ.
Is anyone else struggling to sort the Jans from the Jen from the Johan?
Is it really possible to pack up and move a factory from Poland to India overnight?
“Wipe your mouth, chew some gum, and pull yourself together” – Sander’s firm words to Ulrik could be the start of a great country song.
Who else clocked Alf in that sweet, woolly, Lund-ish jumper?
I quite enjoyed Sanders’ response to Beardy’s “Småland is lovely this season”, alluding to his plan to lay low for a few weeks: “Stop talking like a haiku poem. It pisses me off.”
