User reviews

This eight episode series, made up of four two part stories, follows Stockholm lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, who returns to her home town in Sweden's far north after the death of somebody she knew as a child. Initially it looks as though the woman, the local vicar, died in an accident but evidence soon suggests otherwise. Rebecka gets involved in the investigation, sometimes going beyond what is strictly legal. Various suspects arise but when the killer is identified it comes as a surprise and leads to a tragic conclusion to the first story. After the series opener Rebecka is offered a job working as a local prosecutor before her planned move back to Stockholm in the summer. Further stories involve the murder of a woman connected to a local mining company; the death of two divers exploring a Nazi aircraft and the murder of a woman whose family has suffered a number of tragic 'accidents'.

In some ways this is a fairly traditional murder mystery series with its distinct stories that are wrapped up in two hours; however the events of one episode do have effects on characters that last beyond that story. There are also some fairly dark moments that will shock anybody expecting a Swedish 'Midsomer Murders'. Ida Engvoll does a fine job as our eponymous heroine making her believable even when she was breaking rules. Rebecka may be the title character but there are others who are almost as important; most notably police woman Anna Maria Mella and dog handler Krister Eriksson; Eva Melander and Jakob Öhrman impress in these roles. There is plenty of great scenery to be seen without it feeling like it is being shown just to show us how beautiful the area is. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of Scandinavian drama who are looking for shorter stories than most such series that have aired here in the UK. I hope there is a second season.

These comments are based on watching the series in Swedish with English subtitles.

The teasers before the title credits got me interested each time and how each story played out kept my interest. The characters were given real depth and quirks - Some of them are shown to be quite imperfect and therefore very human. I really like the format of 4 x 90 minute contained stories. Afterwards, I found myself looking up several of the cast member's back catalogue and that's always a good thing. Quality stuff.

With continuous blooming of Scandi Noir, particularly from Denmark and Sweden, this decade has seen dozens of crime dramas focusing on events in smaller places, not in major cities, enabling to fill the scenes with the beauty of nature and emphasising the mood. The smaller the place, the more the focus on family and community ties, often paving the way for more or less concealed crimes, with the roots decades ago.

Another example of all this is the series Rebecka Martinsson where the leading character with the same name, a lawyer, has to deal with her personal issues and solve crimes which motives seem odd at first, if any - mildly speaking... People are mostly indrawn, living with their routines and modestly (in Swedish terms), but the wild nature in the middle of nowhere of/in Kiruna area is majestic and beautiful - at least to be enjoyed in front of TV, in a heated room :)

The series in question is more into the "old" approach, with 1 major case per 2 episodes, and it is only due to the main character that one might see the season in succession - for full comprehension of her motives and notions. Ida Engvoll is good, distinct (I have noticed and remembered her before, in other films), but she does often solo, her co-characters are often perfunctory, and the cases are not too interesting, plus the wrongdoers can be guessed too easily, too early (as they are performed by more known actors-actresses unlikely to appear in a brief role only). There are some twists and catchy moments, but still, I have seen many catchier stuff recently, e.g. Innan vi dör. Springfloden, where you are eager to watch all episodes "at once and promptly"...

My wife and I had watched Season 1 years ago. We watched Season 2 and then went back and watched Season 1 again. We didn't remember the plots or who did it. The actress playing Rebecka in Season 1 is better than the one in Season 2. The episodes in Season 1 are also better scripted. We want to give Season 1 a 7.5 and Season 2 a 7.0, but we can't so the series gets a 7.0. We would recommend Season 1.

Just as good and right as season 1 was just as bad and faulty season 2 gets. Everything built up around the characters in season 1 just went lost when replacing actor for main character Rebecka Martinsson. She becomes insecure and all the things you loved with the quirkiness and the magic around all relationships are gone. Since the stories and production is fantastic I really hope for a season 3 but only with Engvoll back as Rebecka

Watched this series on the Acorn streaming service. Even with the subtitles I was surprised at how good a show it is. Some of the scenes are hard to take. This show was much better that anything on air here in the US. Highly recommend.

First episode didn't foretell just how interesting this series would become. Very dull first episode with weak cliffhanger ending. BUT, after that, the interest level of the stories really picked up for me. I almost didn't stick with this one, but glad I gave it a chance.

8 episodes are each 2-parters and self-contained stories with ongoing characters and some slight overlap for all 8

Hope to see a season 2, with possibly more suspense and thrills.

British police procedural(s) get pretty predictable after awhile. So I try Rebecka Martinsson and I really liked it a lot. Being minimalist in concept, scenery, dialogue, and acting is refreshing after the endless chattiness of the Brit shows. I agree with other reviewers that the actress who plays character Maria Mella (Eva Melander) is the acting class must watch BUT I thought Ida Engvoll was excellent. All the details concerning her back story are a bit irrelevant since the episodes don't really hinge on those (much). Sweden (in this series) looks cold, brooding, a bit mysterious (diving for Nazi plane?) and beautiful and that also describes Rebecka Martinsson. Engvoll correctly underplays her character a bit instead of overplaying it, like so many of the British coppers do. Hope there is a season 2.

Overall, I enjoyed this addition to the Scandi Noir TV cannon. The character of Rebecka Martinsson has so much promise. Sadly, this promise did not seem to be fully embraced by Ida Engvoll. Of course, this may be because Ida Engvoll chose to deliberately hold back her portrayal of Rebecka in order to reveal more about her character in a potential second series. Nevertheless, I would have liked to have seen at least hints of a more rounded Rebecka in the first series.

The true strength in this Scandinavian drama, apart from the lovely scenery, lies with the supporting characters. In particular, the very capable and very human police officer Anna Maria Mella, Rebecka's potential love interest and police dog handler Krister Eriksson and her kindly elderly male neighbour Sivving Fjallborg.

I do hope there will be a second series. The first certainly created enough interest in the characters to care about how they develop.

An outstanding cast spellbinding from start to finish! Highly recommended!

The atmosphere and ambient of gloomy but astonishing Norther part of Sweden, has been achieved fully. Thats why I watched this show. Also, minimalist, but still very compact police station crew is excellent. The main inspector, Ana-Maria Mella, local with three kids at home, but still with all skills necessary for the police inspector, is a brilliant character. The other supporting characters, who all don't talk much, but say whats necessary, are all well done. The only real misfit, for completely unknown reason, badly written and poorly conceptualized character is the lead character - Rebecka Martinsson, who is wage and unclear from the beginning, but still not a mysterious at all. It seems she is a girl who has everything, a spoiled, educated, rich, who simply despises everything due to some traumas from early life, and finds her fulfillment in solving murders . However, we don't see why and how someone who had lost her parents early in life, and had to struggle heavily to achieve something, would behave like a spoiled careless diva, who wonders around and does what pleases her. Also, nobody understands how all of a sudden a corporate layer age 28 can become a chief criminal prosecutor, and how come she is qualified for that. It seems that her character is simply badly written and badly incorporated in the plot. Also, the acting in itself fails in this cases - no charisma, no chemistry at all between the actress and her role. In general, good show, with a wrong lead character. The authors should think about it.

Rebecka Martinsson really needs to be available on more mainstream streaming platforms. This series is well written, with engaging stories and character development, enhanced by beautiful photography and a nicely fitting soundtrack. Previously unknown to me, Ida Engvoll representation of this strong, smart and independent character is just wonderful and is without doubt one of the main foundations for the fantastic final result.

This series definitely suffers from losing Ida Engvoll as the eponymous character. Rebecka is now more insecure and less interesting. The stories are pretty straightforward with little in the way of red-herrings, false leads or plot twists. There cannot be too many dramas with the line "do you think this has anything to do with the dead reindeer."

Åsa Larsson is one of the least popular Swedish crime authors, nevertheless, her body of work constitutes a noteworthy addition to the Nordic noir genre. Her series featuring Rebecka Martinsson, an idiosyncratic young lawyer from Stockholm, has won critical acclaim and the total number of novels in the series so far is five. The first season of Rebecka Martinsson consists of eight episodes that are divided into pairs of two for each novel written by Larsson. Thus we have: The Blood Spilt (episodes 1 and 2), The Black Path (episodes 3 and 4), Until Thy Wrath Be Past (episodes 5 and 6), and The Second Deadly Sin (episodes 7 and 8). The producers chose not to include an adaptation of the first installment in the series, Solstorm. Perhaps this is due to the prior shooting of the titular movie in 2007 by Leif Lindblom, with Izabella Scorupco as Rebecka Martinsson and Mikael Persbrandt. Lindblom's movie was a mediocre adaptation of a mediocre book, as in Solstorm, Larsson's narrative style and plot coherence haven't yet been developed in the high standards that they did in the later novels and the plot apart from being implausible, had several holes. In the movie, Scorupco gives a convincing performance as the protagonist even though the rest of the cast seems to be out of their depth.

In this series, Ida Engvoll, the Swedish actress that the audiences have seen in plenty of movies and television series like Arne Dahl: Europa Blues, Beck, A Man Called Ove, proves to be the perfect fit for the role of the brilliant, though emotionally and mentally unstable, young female prosecutor. The setting is the little village of Kuravaara, near the town of Kiruna on the northernmost part of Sweden where the temperature is freezing and the landscape is known for its wild, almost inaccessible, beauty. It should be mentioned thatÅsa Larsson, even though born in Uppsala, was raised in Kiruna, so she possesses a deep knowledge of the landscape that is reflected in her prose, especially in the excellent descriptive parts. Rebecka, who lives in Stockholm with her fiance and works in a big law firm, returns to her hometown to attend the funeral of a person who was important to her, Mildred, a kind of substitute mother for her. She is first believed to be a victim of a terrible accident, though Rebecka soon finds out many holes in the original investigation and suspects foul play. Anna Maria Mella (Eva Melander) is the chief police investigator in Kiruna and an old friend of Rebecka's and she attempts to launch a homicide investigation for Mildred's death. This is a brief synopsis of the first two episodes of the show and I will not write anything more as it would spoil all the fun.

What makes Rebecka Martinsson stand out from other Scandinavian crime shows is the intense, powerful performance by I. Engvoll who is very similar to Rebecka's image that I created when I was reading the books. Engvoll is an actress with a wide range of skills and her acting in the episodes where she plays Rebecka having a total nervous and mental breakdown is top-notch. I cannot remember a female performance of similar fortitude in similar Swedish TV shows, perhaps with the only exception of Miranda Richardson's in Before We Die (original title: Innan vi dör). Furthermore, the producers were careful not to alter the plotlines of the books, retaining the main story and plot points. As a result, the show numbers among the best Swedish crime television series of the last five years along with Before We Die, Spring Tide, The Lawyer, etc. If you enjoy a proper Nordic crime/mystery series, then Rebecka Martinsson should be one of your top choices.

I like Nordic crime drama but I have to say I've found it hard to warm to "Rebecka Martinsson".

I suspect my chief criticism, is the characterisations lack a certain something. I did not find the lead or other characters terribly engaging and the story lines, felt uneven, pedestrian and rambled at times. This tended to make the cases hard to follow, which is somewhat frustrating.

Things did improve as the series progressed but for me this is still one of the less enjoyable crime series from the icy North.

In short,moderately watchable but nothing special.

6/10.

Rebecka Martinsson

Watched the lot!

Some aspects were good, the camera work, the music the styling, but this show was riddled with problems. Firstly it was just so repetitive and shallow, the same predictable murder, the same locals accused of it, the same semi-botched investigation and then our heroine gets her man, this is lazy formulaic script writing.

Had it not been for the mesmeric acting of Ida Engvoll in series 1 I would have turned it off. However it is difficult to judge anything through the medium of sub-titles but this actress dominated the screen. Had it not been for the forensic pathologist who was as idiosyncratic as the doctor in Montalbano I would have turned this off!

Series 2, what a disaster, who fails to sign up the lead star for a minimum of three seasons, the replacement just failed to convince and the bland script became more and more clunky.

The indigenous "Sami" issues were just badly handled from start to finish as I could see nothing different, special or exceptional that made them "other'd" from anyone else.

Season 2 Episode 5 with a drug case this drama stepped into a new gear, it really was great.

Lastly why was everyone just rude to everyone for no apparent reason. Note to self rural Sweden is not a holiday destination!

Overall this was a mixed bag of stories, it really had no consistency, I'm going to give the whole lot a weak 6, meaning worth watching hang in there!

I was excited to begin watching Season 2 when I saw the main character, Rebecka, is played by a different actress and I don't like the actress as well. I'm trying to get into the series and I'm disappointed. The actors now seem scripted to the point that I'm losing interest. Season One was full of intrigue and a little romance. I'm always pleased to see so many women supervisors in foreign series. The women are strong and gritty, not like American actresses who still play the "I'm sexy" card. One of the outstanding parts of this series is the scenery and culture that I wasn't familiar with. Season 2 animal abuse is a bit difficult for me to handle.

Yellowbird creates some great programs. See the Swedish version of The Bridge Broen. Four seasons a must!

Really like the first season, with the lead actress and the stories. A bit slow at first but the more you watch the more i was into it. However, I did not go thru the second season due to the change of the lead actress....not as involving nor as good acting.

First of all I enjoyed both seasons. There overall movement of both seasons was a slow burn but I've learned to love the Scandi Noir projects. With Season 1 I came to admire the character as portrayed by Ida Engvoll. So I was concerned after reading some of these reviews with the change in actors for the lead role to Sascha Zacharius. I did note her appearance as a minor character in S1. It took getting used to her through episode 1. But beyond that I enjoyed her portrayal of Rebecka. And the plots in S2 remained strong. We got to know the demons Rebecka was dealing with in S2 and that was thanks to the work of Sascha. It's hard to believe that Sascha is about six years older than Ida.

The shift from Ida Engvoll to Sascha Zacharias is not seamless. Zacharias does not fill the roll as Engvoll did, the chemistry with the other actors is missing, the depth Envoll brought to the character is lacking, and the storyline is now lackluster and disappointing. The lead actress change has killed this show.