MovieChat Forums > Ófærð (2017) Discussion > The key (SPOILERS Episodes 7-8)

The key (SPOILERS Episodes 7-8)

posted 8 years ago by !!!deleted!!! (41638798)
9 replies | jump to latest

There are a lot of moving parts to this 10 episode saga.

So, maybe I'm just losing the plot, literally.

But am wondering what motivation Eirikur would have for burning Hrafn alive?

Is Eirikur the mysterious man seen in the shadows at Hrafn's house with Hrafn's wife in her negligee?

Was Eirikur simply exacting revenge on Hrafn for beating his wife all the time, because Eirikur is involved with her and loves her; is he involved in the trafficking plot; or is it connected to the dead torso, the Chinese port, or his daughter's death by fire 7 years before?

Geesh. What a can of worms Andri is now dealing with after episode 8!

Wow.

[–] CrzyFudg 8 years ago

I believe the father in-law has killed by fire before...remember the daughter who burned to death. I believe he's an unassuming psychopath. I must admit Andri finding that key was a shocker. At first I thought those were the jeans of his ex wife's boyfriend. I just never ever suspected the old man of doing anything. I am so looking forward to the last two episodes....so many loose ends to tie up.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (41638798) 8 years ago

Yes!

I actually thought the same thing--that the jeans belonged to the boyfriend. (What a great moment that might have been--thought the boyfriend had ingratiated himself to Andri's ex to keep close to the town's goings on to protect the syndicate. So, thought he was a Reykjavik member of the trafficking gang.)

But alas, apparently not.

It took me a bit to realize it was Andri's father in law.

Also, glad you brought up the previous fire--that also gave pause for thought. Previous fire, new fire? Same arsonist?

That really would be a turn-up for the books. Though why he'd want to kill his daughter is baffling--unless he thought only her boyfriend was in there OR he was setting the fire for another reason not realizing his daughter and her beau used it as a love nest.

These 10-parter Scandi shows are so wonderful. The 10 parts (like The Killing and Bron) allow the writers to go off on tangents, misdirections and include loads of red herrings.

It's a wonderful format. And it's being used to great advantage here, too.

[–] nsimdb 8 years ago

You guys have some smart ideas there. Before I watched e08 a second time I missed the fact that the owner of the jeans was named, and I also though it might be Sigvaldi, but then I thought this had to be too obvious. The function Sigvaldi plays in the plot is that he is a nice person, and Andri's (beautifully unforced) recognition of this his fact helps increases our image of him as a perceptive person who can solve difficult cases by using his ability to accurately access a suspect's characters as much as anything else. If is turns out to be Sigvaldi then all of this is undone.

I think the same about the Eirikur theory. The scene where he makes his peace with Hjörtur, which I think wsas the most powerful in the whole thing thus far, only can make sense if he had previously genuinely thought that Hjörtur was to blame. So I am convince it cannot be him.

When I watched e08 the second time and got the fact Eirikur,s name was mentioned, I thought: a) it was was pity because I'd rather not be spoon fed clues like that, and b) the line was very clumsy when compared to the quality of script in general.

So, I'm pretty sure we are being sold a dummy here.

My best guess so far is that it is Dagný's sister: mostly because of the clue about the killers weight, but also because she has not featured much

Also, I am increasingly coming to believe this script is it is not fundamentally about murder or clever detectives, or anything like that, but about love. So I do not expect we will get some crude Deus ex machina ending.

[–] nsimdb 8 years ago

Also: she is pretty much the only person other than Andri who has defended Hjörtur, and if whatit (mr. torso person) lit the fire then she would have a motive for killing him

[–] Midgegirl 8 years ago

After Andri finally found the report on the fish factory fire he showed it to Erikur, saying something about the insurance; Erikur replied something to the effect that he knew all about the insurance. At the time I wondered if it was Erikur's profession or if it went deeper than that. Either way- that was the moment the script linked Erikur to the fire beyond having his daughter die in it.

Sadly I can't remember which episode I saw this in because I've just finished binge-watching all 8 eps over two days so they kind of merge into 2 big episodes.

But I reckon many of the town's professional types have fingers in shady pies and that Erikur may have a slight connection to Leifur's dodgy factory fire. Maybe out of guilt he preferred to blame Hjorter but once he was put in the clear he had nobody else to blame but Hrafn; Erikur somehow knows Hrafn killed torso-man which became the final straw and he killed Hrafn the way Hrafn killed his daughter.

Leifur & Hrafn are businessmen dealing with the economic fallout from 2008 so they seem to be prepared to do anything to make/keep money- insurance fraud seems one way, human trafficking another, and leaning on people to sign contracts for the Chinese deal yet another.

Just a theory on that one strand- haven't got any on the human-trafficking or what torso-man did to annoy Hrafn. But it's bound to be something to do with the Chinese deal.

[–] srm-1 8 years ago

I think torso-man was the arsonist, instructed by Hrafn (in cahoots with Leifur & Guoni) to burn down the factory in which Erikur's daughter was inadvertently killed.

Torso-man is then ordered to leave the country and stay away forever, and it is his return, seven years later, that seals his fate: Hrafn kills him (and Sigurour is cajoled into helping dispose of the body).

This is all connected to protecting interested parties in the proposed Chinese deal, which the sudden and unexpected return of torso-man somehow threatened. I think the link that ties them altogether may be in the photograph that Andri found.

Quite how Erikur pieced everything together isn't clear, yet (not sure if he saw the photograph when Andri gave him the file on the fire to read) but he at least knows one of those responsible for his daughter's death, Hrafn, and exacts his revenge.

I think the human-trafficking storyline is a diversion from the main crime(s).

[–] Midgegirl 8 years ago

^^Sounds good. But I think that although the human trafficking might not be directly linked to the murders, similar people will be involved. (The real town has a population of less than 700- bound to be an overlap!)

Only a few hours to wait and then it's over; one more day and then Happy Valley's over. Quite the weekend for great crime-drama endings.

[–] nsimdb 8 years ago

Well I think you got over 50% there, but what a neat ending it was. I was kind of hoping they would avoid a scene with Maggi and a knife to his throat, but they did to this was such an obvious homage to The Shining i'll forgive then this one cliche. There was a nice clue to this in a ether ep1 or ep2 where we see Maggi playing on the kitchen floor that was an obvious reference to the Danny playing in the hotel. So at the end we got the same deal with the boy being told to hide to avoid the mad killer, etc.

But it was the last scene that was heartbreaking. They have really redefined the cops-and-robbers TV movie with this series, mainly, I guess, because at its heart it had so very little to do with either cops or robbers.

[–] Midgegirl 8 years ago

Yep- I'd say in the end it was a lot about how innocent people's lives are ruined by the actions of others. My strongest feeling was how achingly sad it was that Andri ruined his own family ties (and potentially reuniting with Agnes) by being a good cop and not throwing away the key when he stood at the end of the jetty.