— This article contains spoilers for the first two seasons of Those Who Kill. If you haven’t watched those already, we suggest you head to and start from the beginning. —
Danish profiler Louise Bergstein (Natalie Madueño) has been through a lot. Head-hunted by the UK police because she was so good at getting inside the minds of killers, she turned her back on chasing murderers to work at a woman’s shelter counselling victims of violence and rape. It didn’t last, and by the end of the first season Those Who Kill of she’d put an end to a string of brutal crimes. But there was worse to come.
Those Who Kill’s second season saw her on her own and dealing with a crime much closer to home, as a dying family friend asked her to investigate the cold case killing of her teenage son. Racing against time and facing a killer whose smooth facade was starting to fray (and getting more violent in the process), it’s safe to say the investigation did not go smoothly.
In those two seasons Bergstein was something of a crime-fighting machine, a reserved and efficient operator who was able to stay detached when faced with stomach-churning horrors. So, it’s legitimately shocking to see her coming apart at the start of the appropriately named season three: the show gives its seasons titles – season 1 was Darkness, two was Blinded and now three is Lost.
Season 3 sees a more challenged Louise Bergstein (Natalie Madueño). Credit: Viaplay
As the third season begins, gone is the polished professional who coolly took down a string of killers. Shattered by her last case, she’s now suffering from PTSD, compulsively searching her apartment for signs of the break-in she’s convinced must have taken place.
She’s seeing a therapist for that; for everything else, the cure is more work. So when a middle-aged couple is found murdered outside their house in Copenhagen, the local police call her in. It’s little more than a formality, as they’re convinced a local man killed them as part of a robbery gone wrong. Bergstein comes in and throws that theory out: the victims knew their killer, the police have got the wrong man, and can she go now?
The first two seasons of Those Who Kill teamed Bergstein up with a variety of detectives, none of whom ever quite felt like a match for her. With season three they finally get the chemistry right; Detective Frederik Havgaard (Simon Sears) has been her partner ever since. He’s the one who brought her in on this double murder, sensing there was more to the open-and-shut case than it seemed, and her verdict justifies his suspicions.
Detective Frederik Havgaard (Simon Sears). Credit: Viaplay
Or does it? Bergstein might have been a legend once, but now she’s jumping at shadows. He’s put his career on the line bringing her in, and it’s not going to be enough to just agree with her that they need to keep looking. Now she’s involved, the only way out for the pair is to track down the real killer. What starts out as a relatively straightforward and singular crime turns out to have much wider ramifications over a much longer period of time, as one broken family’s issues lead back to a farm that turns out to have a sinister legacy.
Often Bergstein is dealing with a small case that turns big; other times the surprises come from where the hunt takes her. While season three is all about straightforward cases that develop twists, season four sees her dropped into the high-profile murder of a gang member newly released from prison. The killer’s motives might be personal, but there’s a wider angle as well. If the system is putting criminals back on the streets, does the public have the right to turn to street justice? And for someone like Bergstein, who’s seen the worst that killers can do, what side of the line will she end up on?
Louise Bergstein (Natalie Madueño) at work in season 4 of 'Those Who Kill'. Credit: Viaplay / Per Arnesen
Those Who Kill has always split its focus between the police and the killers. We know who the killers are almost right from the start, seeing them at work and on the run while Bergstein tracks them down. It’s an approach that’s a constant source of tension, making it one of the edgier (in an edge-of-your-seat way) Nordic Noirs. We know things that Bergstein and Havgaard don’t, which means we know when they’re getting in over their heads.
In earlier seasons, Bergstein was sure about herself and her work, relentlessly tracking down the guilty. What’s striking after the events of the second season is that now she makes mistakes. She starts down the wrong path and doubles back to try again, and all the while the killer is getting away. Havgaard might have faith in her, but Bergstein isn’t what she once was.
Now she gets things wrong. And in her line of work, mistakes can be fatal.
Those Who Kill season 3 premieres on Thursday 12 September on SBS On Demand. Those Who Kill season 1 and 2 will also be available on SBS On Demand on the same day. Season 4 coming soon.
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Those Who Kill
