2024-04-10 21:10:39
Detectives Malá and Černý are back. The second season of the series Shadows in the Mist was supposed to appear on the screens of Czech Television in January. However, after the pre-Christmas tragedy in the building of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, the premiere was postponed, because the theme of the third episode, entitled Easy Targets, is mass shooting.
Undoubtedly, this is the strongest moment of the opening three episodes, when a young man armed with a Remington semi-automatic rifle walks through the elementary school locker rooms, which are empty for now.
A dirty blond with a pretty face doesn’t look like he has a room decorated with swastika wallpaper. But a clear determination can be seen in the calm face. It is an impressive, unsettling scene, at the same time restrained and without trying to shock. It’s a shame that it vastly outshines most of the previous goings-on. Viewers can see for themselves from Monday evening, when television starts broadcasting the new series of Shadows in the Fog.
Similar to the first series from 2022, the criminal from Ostrava focuses on individual murder cases, into which the line connecting all 12 parts gradually penetrates. Petra Špalková as Magda Malá and her colleague Martin Černý, played by Jiří Vyorálek, are once again not only looking for the reason and perpetrators of various murders, but also become personally involved in a criminal case.
While in the first part it was Malá whose daughter was abducted, now her fierce colleague Černý has to face a difficulty crossing the professional line. However, he is not a relative of the victim, but rather of a potential perpetrator. His son Filip has moved in with his girlfriend, whom he barely knows. He ends up in custody suddenly and mysteriously for his parents.
If anything works better in the second series than the first, it’s the engagement of this line that stretches across the episodes.
Petra Špalková does nothing wrong in the role of Magda Malá. Jiří Vyorálek as Martin Černý seems cynically morous. | Photo: Miroslav Kučera
While last time director Radim Špaček and screenwriter Zdeněk Zapletal kept it secret for a long time, now it is clear from the second part what it will be about. And it succeeds in building tension based on the fact that the viewer, like the accused Filip, knows much more than everyone else.
Even so, however, the creators rely too much on cheap “cliffhangers” or exciting open endings that entice the next episode.
Individual cases are already weaker. The more than one-hour format of the piece manages to be filled only on the basis that the camera excessively often looks at how the characters are going somewhere, and the events are further slowed down by views of passing vehicles or casual conversations of the heroes.
It doesn’t add much to the atmosphere or the characters. After all, we already know you by your last name.
The little one is inconspicuous, doesn’t worry about anything, likes her daughter and watches understandingly as her ex-husband builds a new family with a younger partner. Černý is a cynical morous who is suspicious of all suspects. Although the very fact that his son ended up behind bars and he, a decorated hero and a long-time criminal, is unable to help him, contributes to revealing his more human side.
The second season of Shadows in the Fog starts broadcasting on Czech Television this Monday evening. | Video: Czech Television
Shadows in the Fog is quite a civilian crime story. While the first series tried to increase the attractiveness by, for example, drawing the audience into the environment of illegal MMA matches, this time the authors – at least in the first three parts – rather stick to the ground.
Even though the theme of the third part is a mass shooting, they handle the theme decently and devote minimal space to the acts themselves. However, the given moments are all the stronger.
Even the murder on the train was decently handled by the creators. On the left is Petra Špalková as Magda Malá. | Photo: Martin Popelář
Temperance applies right away to the opening murder on the train. We only hear a shot behind the closed curtains of the coupe. But in order for the twelve-part series, each episode of which has almost the footage of a feature film, to strike a similar moderate note, it would need to more dynamically capture the process of the investigation itself.
Although the creators work with a fairly realistic basis, the cases often break down into a series of smaller crimes that overlap and connect with each other. However, the police work itself is somewhat hampered precisely because of the mentioned “downtime”.
Too often we see Mala picking up her daughter somewhere, too often glossing over her own work with her colleague Černý. Although the short dialogues are supposed to sound succinct and laconic, they only bite into the plot.
In the end, the viewer is drawn in more emotionally than the investigation by the fact that quite often children somehow figure in the cases. After the first quarter of the series, it seems like too simple a gimmick. We don’t learn much more about the criminalists than that they care about their relatives, that they are parents themselves.
Although it is not processed in a blackmailing way, we are not watching a direct attack on the audience’s feelings, but it is still not enough. Especially with a criminal who can’t be captivating in the very way of detective work.
Instead of catching up with some more precise character study, Shadows in the Mist remains somewhere halfway. And they test the audience’s patience in episodes that feel a quarter of an hour longer than they should be.
If the creators are counting on some final resolution and connection of personal and criminal lines, it should be noted that this is still a long way off. For now, the viewer is rather trapped somewhere in the fog and does not know, it seems, to continue searching for this imaginary goal.