If you’re a fan of Scandi crime shows (often referred to as “nordic noir”), you generally know what you’re going to get: Dark, brooding protagonists with seedy pasts, small Scandinavian towns bubbling with corruption underneath, mistreated youth, dead bodies floating in rivers or fjords. The action is as understated as the acting, the cinematography a muted array of whites (if it’s snowy) and browns (if it’s not), and the plotting a head-scratching series of complexities. Well, to ring in the new year, Netflix (already home to several Scandi scandals like “The Åre Murders” and “Deadwind”) has another five-party mystery to unfold for those looking for the feel-bad story of 2026. Trouble is, if you’re already a fan of Nordic noir, this particular story has very few new tricks up its ärm.
“Land of Sin” (or “Synden” in Swedish) comes courtesy of creator/writer/director Peter Grönlund (who already got his feet wet with crime shows like “Goliat” and “Beartown”), and plops us in yet another iteration of this same formula. This time, we’re thrown into a mystery involving the disappearance of a teenager in a small farm town along the Scanian countryside. His dying father, Ivar, calls on police investigator Dani (Krista Kosonen) to solve the case; she has a checkered history in that town, and what’s more, she had previously been a foster mother to the boy, Silas, whose biological parents resent her for taking him away from them.
On her last legs, and estranged from her biological son, Oliver, Dani travels back to Bjäre with her rule-following new trainee, Malik (Mohammed Nour Oklah), in tow, to dredge up old wounds and find Silas. Naturally, a missing persons case quickly turns into a murder case, and Dani must now battle both the demons of her past and the already-hostile townspeople to find justice.
If you’ve seen any given Scandi show, or even domestic crime dramas like “Broadchurch,” “Mare of Easttown,” “True Detective,” et al., there’s not much in “Land of Sin” that’s going to surprise you. Dani, with her downcast eyes, messy ponytail, and brittle personality, channels Kate Winslet’s dogged Philly detective; Kosonen, who’s cut her teeth on similar crime shows like “Bullets” and “Beforeigners,” acquits herself with the appropriate world-weariness, but Grönlund’s script gives her little to play beyond cynicism and anguish. Oklah, for his part, gets even less to do, simply the fly in the ointment who reminds Dani of all the rules, written and unwritten, she’s breaking in her personal pursuit of justice.
The real standout, for his part, is Peter Gantman as Elis, the family patriarch, who is similarly interested in seeking justice for Silas’ death, guided by more personal codes of familial loyalty. In the early stretches, he serves as an antagonist to Dani, but his role softens and grows more complex as his relationship to the case evolves. His wearied, wrinkled face, his melodic monotone, all cut an imposing, vulnerable figure that helps his scenes channel the series’ oppressive muck into something cogent.
It’s fitting, really; “Land of Sin” carries a grimness commensurate to its title, with sad, angry people walking through muddy rural landscapes and fighting tears to an oppressive degree. The banjo-laden score lays bare the threat our heroes have not just from the killers, but from the hostile townspeople who don’t want police (especially ones with a history like Dani’s) sniffing around their business. There’s drug trafficking, unstoppable poverty, generational trauma, and squabbling over land deals galore, all plot elements that both clarify and obfuscate Bjäre’s bleak atmosphere; you’d think they would offer more complex ingredients to the stew, but they all cancel each other out and make the plot feel overstuffed and flat.
While that literal and spiritual darkness is the point of shows like this, seeing it play out so unrelentingly over five (admittedly brief) episodes is a lot to take in, with no deviations from that one note. As thankful as I am that these Netflix shows are at least digestible (you can bang through this in about three and a half hours), such a complex story honestly requires a bit more time and pace to unpack. As is, we’re thrown into the middle of Dani and her journey, with little but the exposition she gives Malik to grasp the stakes.
By the time “Land of Sin” limps to its sigh of a finale, it’s hard to justify watching this one over the scores of other, more interesting takes on the cold-blooded crime show out there. If you’ve seen those already, this one offers little but reheated tropes of the “troubled city cop solving a small town murder” story you’ve likely seen over and over again. If you haven’t, well, why watch this one before those?
