Baptiste, episode 5, review: this stifling Nordic noir remains enjoyably slippery
The penultimate episode of Baptiste was as enjoyably slippery as ever. Julien Baptiste (Tcheky Karyo) reclaimed the dirty money pinched by Edward Stratton (Tom Hollander) to buy young Cristina’s (Freya Kingsley) freedom from pimps and people traffickers, blowing it instead on a yacht in the name of thuggish Romanian Constantin (Alec Secareanu), thus making the latter look suspect to his even more unpleasant bosses.
But Constantin’s superiors got to him before he could run or turn supergrass, leaving Baptiste back in his default position of quiet despair: despite his enviable record for recovering missing people, Julien explained, he still fretted over Cristina and the rest in “the ocean of the forgotten”.
Cop-with-a-secret Niels (Boris van Severen) also had a bad hour of telly, first discovering Baptiste was his dad (a bit like Luke Skywalker discovering his father was Yoda) and then having his mother’s double-dealing revealed: one more loose cannon to add to all the others.
It was pretty absorbing, the schlockiness redeemed by its leading men. Karyo’s twinkle of mischief ensured his enduring moral rectitude in a cesspit of humanity never became insufferable, while Hollander’s way with a jaded quip (“you’re on a Romanian gangster’s kill-list, sorry about that”) livened up Stratton’s lost, tormented soul.
By contrast, Jessica Raine’s Europol officer feels underwritten, while the villains haven’t progressed beyond sullen, hirsute menace. And the many bewildered, disgruntled relatives dragged into the mess (and perhaps bumped off for their troubles) remained peripheral to the important business of cross, double-cross, murder and detection. The fate of café owner Kim Vogel (Talisa Garcia) also suggested that a crime thriller may not be the best forum in which to explore issues of trans identity, however good the intentions.
Everything, ultimately, was sublimated to the plot which, while decent enough, has lacked the gut-wrenching grief and humanity that underpinned both series of The Missing. Karyo and Hollander will keep me watching, but retirement should probably follow for series and character.
