Bordertown Part 2

Ville Virtanen as Kari Sorjonen

We just finished watching the first season of Bordertown and it's pretty great. It took us two weeks to watch all eleven episodes, each of which ran about an hour. It was interesting that it was set in Finland near St. Petersburg. Haven't heard much about that part of the world other than Nokia phones and Peter the Great. The show is dominated by old folks. They have all the big important roles. There are a few young, cute faces but compared to the world-hardened adults and they are kids and are treated as such. The adults command center stage, the youngsters are important, but do not play central roles in the story.

The series of eleven episodes covers four or five major cases. These cases involve some pretty heinous crimes. Maybe there's a reason your parents warned you not wander off into the deep dark woods, which is what Finland is covered with.

The best part of the series, for me, came in the last episode. I have been watching these people (the detectives) for ten hours now and I've sort of gotten to know them, but they are characters on a TV screen, how well can you really know a person if all you see is a projected image? But you watch them long enough, and some of that personality starts to come through, and for me, I really got a feeling of knowing a couple of the lead characters in this, the final episode, and that was pretty cool.

Update November 2017. Map of locations.

Bordertown Mural Murders

Bordertown: The Mural Murders - Official Trailer | Your Trailer Suck's | 2021
Your Trailer Suck's
A grisly serial killer murder mystery. This time have a movie, it's a follow on to the series we watched and watched and watched. It's got all your standard elements, but I think the best part was seeing all the old familiar characters like Kari, Lena, Olivia and Katia.

Update December 17 replaced missing video. WTF YouTube?

Bordertown

Bordertown

Started watching yet another European crime series on Netflix last night. At first I thought it was set on the US-Mexican border, because that's the one that everyone is talking about these days, but no, it's set on the Finnish-Russian border and we have cops from both sides of the border investigating cross-border crimes. The Finnish title (Sorjonen) comes from the star character's name, who is also the star Finnish investigator. It's pretty good. It's subtitled, which I prefer, even for films where the dialog is in English. It makes it easier to catch those just audible phrases that are often key to the plot.

Bordertown Part 3

Bordertown - Sorjonen Season 3 trailer
Watching this was kind of like old home week, seeing all the characters we became familiar with in seasons 1 & 2 a couple of years ago. This one was set in the winter, all snow, all the time. Don't think I've seen many shows like that. We've been watching a lot of historical dramas and in those, nothing much happens in the winter. All the big military campaigns have to wait for spring. So another benefit of petroleum powered technology is that we get murder mystery TV shows set in the winter.

There's been a couple of things (stunts? techniques?) that I've noticed here. One is we have the lead detective talking to someone who died sometime earlier in show. We saw it here and in The Break. The other is having a series of gruesome murders arranged to expose a corporate environmental poisoning disaster. That happened here and in The K2.

Update March 2021 replaced missing video.

Finland

Thunderstruck by Steve'n'Seagulls (LIVE)
Steve'n'Seagulls are from Finland and will be touring the USA next month. The comments on the YouTube page are great. My favorite: "Bro I heard ACDC covered this song". Via Detroit Steve.

Must be Finland's turn in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we started watching the second Season of Bordertown, which is set in modern day Lappeenranta, which is just across the border from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Akso started watching a Lindybeige video about the Battle of Bomarsund, which took place on a Finnish island in the Baltic Sea back in the mid-19th Century.

Hooked

Acorn TV | Hooked clip
Mother of his child shows up 16 years after running off after giving birth, so we've got some emotional turmoil going on. The actress is Matleena Kuusniemi. She was in Bordertown where she played Paulina, the wife of the lead detective. I think she looks a lot like Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order SVU fame.

Mariska Hargitay

On her advice a cocaine peddler buries his stash in the woods and uses his phone to record the GPS coordinates. Could your phone record the coordinates accurately enough that you would be able to locate the stash again? Sounds kind of like geocaching.


The coordinates are given to 6 decimal places: 60.252425, 25.140787 which is in the woods outside Helsinki, Finland. Google Maps only goes to five. If your phone can actually give you GPS coordinates to 6 decimal places, you should be able to find your stash.


Bruce Lee : Ping pong with Nunchucks
When the lead detective's girlfriend asks him about his Nunchucks, he mentions that there is a film of Bruce Lee playing ping pong using Nunchucks, so I had to see if I could find it, and here it is.

10 Episodes on Amazon Prime

Pic of the Day

Neva River seen from the Bolshoy Obukhovsky Bridge in St Petersburg, Russia

Bordertown got me looking at St. Petersburg and this photo turned up. Pretty cool I think.