Annika Season 1 Episode 2 Review

Annika Season 1 Episode 2 features multiple explosions, (another) suicide attempt, and some thorny questions about justice. It’s all a part of the show finding its rhythm.

That rhythm is largely that of a standard procedural, one with a tone more familiar to network crime dramas than public television. It’s definitely episodic, with very few plot threads carrying over from hour to hour.

What does carry over is the personal drama. The lion’s share of that continues to go to Annika’s interactions with her daughter. Here, Morgan’s seems quick on the path to early age alcoholism after bringing a water bottle filled with vodka to her school.

It’s a serious issue, and is handled as such, but there’s a lightness and lack of preaching in the approach that I appreciate. Morgan makes an uncomfortably astute point about just how accessible booze already is in their home.

We’re also seeing them in a far better point in their own relationship now, one that makes it easy for Annika to encourage her daughter to get help. It’s a bit of a quick turnaround, especially for a teenager, but I do like the way it works.

She’s at least lucky to have never run into a man named Ronnie, who turns up stabbed to death in the opening scenes. In life, Ronnie was an art teacher—one who groomed at least one of his underage pupils.

As you can imagine, this leaves us with a host of potential suspects even before one of his victims, Sigga, attempts suicide in front of her father. (She also happens to meet Morgan just beforehand, leaving the poor girl to consider herself cursed.)

Would we blame either of them for seeking revenge? Or the fellow teacher who tried and failed to force Ronnie out? Or even Ronnie’s shame-ridden brother? Perhaps not. Instead, the killer is the teacher’s wife, who we only meet as she’s fleeing capture.

In fairness, this brand-new suspect is also Sigga’s godmother and has her own strong motivations against her abuser. Still, with this many red herrings, I wonder why they don’t just go down the Murder on the Orient Express route with our host of possible killers.

Annika does briefly reflect Poirot in her very minimal efforts to stop her suspect from literally flying away. In the end, she’s caught by Irish authorities—a touch of realism to the kind of vengeance-focused justice typically only found in fiction.

It’s all a bit anti-climactic, though there are two separate explosions to amp up the pace a little. One blows up the crime scene and the other does some damage to Blair’s hearing, but neither results in seriously injury or death. Frankly, I prefer it that way.

The moments where Annika addresses the camera are no less strange than in the show’s first installment, but I’m taking them for moments of insight and wit that give this series something different. That, or I’m just getting used to them.

Other Notes

• I might like Morgan’s scenes with Blair even more than those with her mother. They have an almost sisterly feeling to them
• On that note, Annika seems to be making things work better with everyone in this hour—not just Morgan, but her team and her boss as well
• And on that note, said boss almost definitely ships her and Michael (who we barely see in this episode). …Suddenly I have a bad feeling that all these tensions are being played down only so they can come back later.

 

What did you think of this episode of Annika? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Annika airs Sundays at 10/9c on PBS.

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