Moksha World

This Finnish mini-series really surprised me. I considered skipping after the first ten minutes because of the flashback scenes. In this case it worked very well and added dimension to the mystery. I’m glad now that I stuck with it.

Seppo and his father both receive disturbing messages at the start of the series. It is the anniversary of the death of Seppo’s son. The messages appear to be related to this, but details are slow to come. The flashback scenes come periodically, each time giving us a small piece of information to fill in the blanks.

Meanwhile, a family holiday to Greece has been planned but Seppo decides not to go. He feels that he needs to remain in Helsinki to protect his family and find out who is sending the messages. The rest of the family arrives in Greece and Seppo’s father is convinced that his grandson’s killer is a guest at the hotel. He has no evidence to prove this, he simply believes that this young man looks like the grown up version of the twelve year old who killed his grandson (Seppo’s son). This assumption leads him to act erratically, frightening his other grandson and embarrassing him in front of his new friend (the alleged murderer). Seppo comes to Greece believing this assumption by his father and confronts the alleged murderer. None of this goes well but things are also happening in Helsinki with Seppo’s daughters. Perhaps they have the wrong man?

The writers worked in some interesting surprises in the right places. Each time I thought everything seemed obvious, I was wrong. Although the circumstances of the murder seemed a bit far-fetched at times, the consequences were completely believable. I’ve seen many shows where the characters make all kinds of assumptions. Usually things turn out to be a simple misunderstanding and a few laughs or awkward discussions clear everything up. Seppo’s father never considered that he could be wrong or how it would impact his family. He did not consider that he could be accusing an innocent man of murder. Human nature often leads us to present our opinions as facts. This can be harmless, but it can also be dangerous and affect our relationships in many ways.

I’ve seen a few other Finnish shows, mainly police dramas/mysteries, that I really liked: Roba, Deadwind, Bordertown. Finnish as a language sounds rather strange at first, any knowledge of Danish, or Swedish, won’t help you. Finland is a Scandinavian country, but Finnish is from a different language family. As as child, I remember hearing someone tell me about how much alcohol abuse and depression there was in Finland. It really didn’t sound like an appealing place to me. But watching modern TV series has updated my opinion. In fact, Finland has topped the World’s Happiest Countries poll for the past four years. The United States and Canada are 14 and 15, respectively. Finland seems to be doing something right, in addition to making television shows.