We kneel on, get stuck with everyday life, smoke on our children, fail, abuse confidence and / or drugs, but when the terrorist act strikes, all that is bad.
So you could sum up the sentiment in Danish When the dust settles (at least after the seven out of ten episodes released in advance). No, there is not much to subtitle but on the other hand we get a lot of "overtext" in this very ambitious and complexly knotted series.
One evening, two terrorists step into restaurant Svin, in the middle of the Copenhagen's hot bar district, Köttbyen, and start mowing down people with their automatic carbines. It is a tough introductory scene that we get to see in the middle of the series in its entirety, but which otherwise comes back in both forward and retrospective. We must follow a bunch of individuals and their lives, from nine days before the deed to a time after the same. Not unlike the latest fiction about the Utøya massacre, the Norwegian acclaimed TV series July 22.
It is a Danish microcosm we encounter; the working family Dalsgård with the drugging teenage son, Palestinian Jamal, homeless Ginger, the Swedish pop singer (played by Malin Crépin), the old racist Holger who lives at home, said Marie and her single mother, the Pig Chef Nikolaj and, in some kind of lead role, Justice Minister Elisabeth Hoffman.
Everyone is bound by the bloody attack but also, it turns out, by other more hidden and unexpected threads.
So this very act has not really taken place, at least not right there or then, but in many other places, in similar life-disgraceful form. Not least on Drottninggatan in Stockholm. An act that I unfortunately witnessed on the spot which made this look extra difficult. When the bullets began to spin around nine-year-old Marie, the critic's brain went down and I had to press pause. The victim of reality suddenly stood and knocked me on the shoulder.
It is impossible not to spend time wondering whether it is speculative to create drama from such tragedies, or if the terrorist act has become such an obvious part of our existence that they are suitable for fictionalization. Difficult, but in the end it is mostly about implementation and in this case it is definitely not speculative. The creator of the series, Dorte W Høgh and Ida Maria Rydén (also Dicte), takes the grief and pain seriously, lets it take time; concentrates on the people and their lives more than on the massacre.
The political track is weaker and has also received some whip in the home country where some reviewers considered the series to be "typically Danish politically correct". And, of course, there is a slightly upbeat tone in some of the replicas, most notably the convicts of Elisabeth Hoffman who are fighting for a more humanist refugee policy.
"I do not want asylum policy to be guided by the fear of terror"
"We are chasing terrorists, not a whole population group"
Here at home, we probably hadn't raised eyebrows for such quotes, but in a country that was seriously considering sending refugees to a deserted island, they might have greater emphases and effects.
But it is not for politics that one should see this, but for the many well-written everyday scenes and the ever-shattering relationship between parents and children.
For it is undoubtedly a solid and intricate script building. Although any line feels unnecessary, some turn a little clumsy, it is largely a cleverly woven web of happenings and circumstances.
After all, most comics make us fictional addicts. If you have invested X number of hours, you still want to "see how it goes". For example, I long for the closing season of Vikings, even though my aesthetic mind says that there is not much to hang in the fir tree.
When the dust settles are better than that but not one of the big series. Despite this, I am nevertheless so deeply involved in Nikolaj's restaurant plans, in the Dalsgårds family trouble, Marie's fate and the resolution of the deed itself that I long for the next fix.
The grade refers only to the first seven sections. What the whole looks like, we only find out on Saturday when the series is published in its entirety on SVT Play.