Steget Efter / One Step Behind (2005) & Pyramiden / The Pyramid (2007)

The final two Wallanders that were on over Christmas were theatrically released in Sweden, and thus shorter than the other mini-series, and appear to be the last in the series starring Rolf Lassgard. They’re also the best Wallander stories and productions I’ve seen so far.

One Step Behind (which comes chronologically before Firewall) is a very emotional piece of cinema, centred around Wallander’s colleague Svedberg who tragically commits suicide in the opening 10 minutes, following the discovery of a macabre scene of recently dug-up and posed corpses. It turns out Svedberg was actually murdered, and as Wallander and his colleagues delve further into Svedberg’s life they discover some surprising things about a man who was supposed to be their friend.

Svedberg certainly was Wallander’s friend, and he also turns out to have been gay and harbouring a crush on his portly colleague (I don’t know it is about Lassgard’s Wallander that has women and men throwing themselves at him, he’s not at all attractive). Hidden desires and jealousy are at the centre of an atmospheric, beautifully filmed episode. The ending features some real jeopardy as Kurt and Anne-Brit are kidnapped by the crazed killer of Svedberg – and when Wallander shoots him finally and then administers mouth-to-mouth so that he doesn’t die and take the easy way out, it opens up the lead character to interesting questions and motives.

In The Pyramid, Wallander is haunted by a case from his past in which he failed to pull the trigger and shoot a killer, leading to the death of one of his friends. Rather than being a hackneyed way of joining Kurt’s first case with what turns out to be his last, the conceit works well and allows Lassgard some meaty scenes of internal struggle as he tries to shoot the long-ago escaped killer at point blank range but ultimate decides he’s not that person.

This is a less stylishly filmed story, but it is no less cinematic, with explosions going off with gay abandon, and a particularly nasty villain with a heart of stone. Seeing Wallander resign in the final moments of the episode is sad, as I’ve really come to like Lassgard’s portrayal – he’s more bombastic, less introspective than Krister Henriksson, but he’s a bigger hit with the ladies (I love how shy he gets with ones he fancies, it’s endearing), and he’s still pretty dour – and the movies have been top notch, with an excellent supporting cast. That said, the ending feels believable – Kurt is visibly relieved to be free of police work that has subsumed his life, and it is good to see him off happy.