Land of Sin (Synden) Recap ‘You’ve Been Warned’: Missing boy sends city cop to a small, hostile town

Land of Sin Season 1 Episode 1

Spoiler Warning: This recap of the first episode of Land of Sin contains spoilers. Please watch the show on Netflix first before reading on.

Once upon a happier time, Dani Anttila (Krista Kosonen), an experienced Malmö cop, was foster mother to a boy called Silas, whom her own son Oliver adored. Silas was not an orphan, he had a family in Bjäre, but social services took him away from them. His parents were farmers with alcohol and violence issues. Eventually, his parents took him back, and Oliver resented Dani for letting him go. By the time we get to Bjäre, it was obvious why. There were places where the stench of the soul’s poverty was obvious; this was one of them. This was a place where people could waste their lives talking about other people and the pettiest of concerns, because there was nothing else to do outside of the work with their hands and the alcohol to fill their bellies and numb their pain. Anyone would have done their best to get out.

Dani did not want to go to Bjäre. When Silas’s father Ivar called her and told her Silas has been missing for four days, she advised him to call the police. Ivar, like practically everyone in their little town, resented the police. He wanted Dani to drive up there and look for Silas herself. 

Dani might have been able to resist Ivar’s plea, but not the anger of her own son, and so she lied to her boss and took her new partner Malik (Mohammed Nour Oklah) with her to Bjäre. Malik was not a rookie (though Dani treated him like one) and he was clearly no fool. He was secure enough in his skills to not feel threatened by Dani’s dismissal of him, and several times in this episode he quietly showed that he understood more than she thought he did, that he could keep up with her, and did.

At Bjäre, the new partners found Ivar dying; he probably used the last of his strength to call Dani. Silas’s mother Boel bitterly resented Dani as the woman who at one point took over her duties as mother to her son. Silas’s brother Kimmen was helpful; he gave Dani the password (‘Nathalie’) to unlock Silas’s computer. There, Dani found that Silas had purchased two ferry tickets.

‘Not everyone wants to be found’, Malik reminded Dani, but in this case, what Silas wanted did not matter. His body was found in the river, drowned. At first, the locals thought it was a case of accidental drowning. Perhaps Silas fell into the river after falling asleep drunk. But the forensics team found black seaweed and saltwater sea snails inside his mouth. He drowned, but not in the river. His body was moved. There was also bruising on his neck. All signs point to a third party being involved in the death. 

Dani lied again to her boss, so she and Malik could stay and investigate the murder. She claimed she knew the people there and they trusted her. Malik pointed out the locals hated the police and hated Dani even more. When a second body was found — the blacksmith Silas worked for, and whom he has been blackmailing — Dani called in the troops to come help with the investigation. 

But there was a wrinkle. Ivar’s brother Elis gave Dani one week to solve the murders. Afterwards, the people in town would solve them in their own way. As the opening scene showed, one week later, a woman who was very likely Dani was on the ground, breathing heavily whilst surrounded by a group of men.

From this first episode alone, Land of Sin looked to be a solid mystery with a dangerous edge, as a city cop tried to impose her will in a place to which she was very much an outsider. When Dani and Malik first questioned the blacksmith, a group of men, at least one of them with a gun, another with a dog, blocked their way out as though trying to intimidate them. They had not done anything nor have they discovered anything particularly useful at that time. Yet there was that group already telling them to stop poking around. Whatever secrets the town had, at least some of them jealously guarded them. Dani was sharp enough to know she was on dangerous terrain. She simply did not give a damn, and with this active, action-oriented personality, she would drive the drama as the investigation went on.

Rating: A

Strays

⛰️The title ‘You’ve Been Warned’ was initially uttered by Elis to Ivar’s wife Boel, who said some rather unkind things about his son Jon. Later, Dani used the same words in warning Elis off her investigation.

⛰️Silas’s immediate family whom we’ve met so far: Ivar (father), Boel (mother), Kimmen (brother), Vera (sister)

⛰️Elis’s family, those who have been mentioned so far: Katty (wife), Harald (son), Jon (son)

⛰️Ivar told Dani there was something fishy about the blacksmith. When she and Malik interviewed the blacksmith, they both noticed his hand was trembling. His claim that he was paying Silas for his services did not ring true because Silas was supposed to be an unpaid trainee.             

⛰️Boel heard Silas and his girlfriend Becka arguing, and Becka threatened to send some guys to hurt him. Silas was seeing someone else. Dani sent the police to look for local girls named Nathalie.

⛰️'Synden' is roughly translated to 'the sin'.

⛰️Dani wanted Oliver to go to rehab, but he just kept leaving.

⛰️Ivar asked Elis to find out who killed Silas.