Up In Smoke
Episode 2 of Anxious People is all about the witnesses. With numerous different hostages, Jack is determined to interview the Bergvalls first and find out what they know. Jack’s sister, Jill, hasn’t shown up yet either, which certainly suits Jack as he heads up to the estate with Jim. Now, Anna-Lena and Roger were actually at the apartment that day because their job involves renovating flats. They both buy them together, with Roger doing the renovations and Anne-Lena focusing on interior design. They then sell for a profit. They’re both pretty proficient at their job, given they’ve been at it for 20 years, and flashbacks reveal more of this. Estelle and Knut were the couple who owned the flat at the time, while the shifty, shy woman with the blue envelope last episode is apparently an estate agent. Now, Anna-Lena has a secret she’s hiding, and it comes in the form of a guy called Lennart. Anna made numerous calls to him between Christmas and New Year, but she shrugs it off, claiming it’s “private”. Lennart is actually a performance artist and someone Anna-Lena knows personally. Lennart’s purpose is to help drive down the price of an apartment through causing mischief and chaos with the intent of helping Roger get the best deal. After taking their statements, Jack checks out the schematics for the apartment and believes there’s a hidden space behind the wardrobe. When he investigates though, that theory sadly doesn’t hold weight. While Jim wants to give up, Jack is not letting it go. Interestingly, the CCTV reveals that the note handed to the bank teller read “give me 6500.” Jim is clearly hiding something as he deletes the surveillance footage behind Jack’s back. Jim learns that Zarah Carlstrom is the name of the woman who works for the bank – and the one responsible for holding the blue envelope. She’s not an estate agent after all.
The Episode Review
The second episode shifts the focus over to the witnesses from that day. With Anne-Lena and Roger both there, the relationship all these characters have with one another is now starting to come into focus. It still doesn’t explain how the robber managed to get away but it does help to shed light on the supporting players in this bizarre crime. The humour is still here, in the periphery vision of this series at least, but it very much plays second fiddle to the mystery. This is really the dominant part of the show and the ending hints that the mystery is going to be drip-fed across the season, with a big reveal at the end. Anxious People is certainly not without its flaws though, and the hybrid blend of ideas mashed together doesn’t quite work as effectively as it perhaps should.
