Stream It Or Skip It: ‘100 Code’ On WGN America, Where A New York Cop Follows A Serial Killer To Stockholm

Remember when WGN America had great original shows like Underground and Manhattan? Those days are over, but they are still importing shows from other countries that haven’t been seen here in the states. The latest is 100 Code, a Swedish-German show starring Dominic Monaghan (Lost) and the late Michael Nyqvist (John Wick). Will it make fans forget about the original shows?

100 CODE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of the New York skyline with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

The Gist: New York police detective Tommy Conley (Dominic Monaghan) is chasing who he thinks is a serial killer, after the nude body of a young blond woman is found in a field. He chases the perp to the roof of a building, and in the melee, he not only lets the perp run, but he accidentally shoots and kills his partner in the process.

Cut to a year later in Stockholm, Sweden. Conley arrives to work with the Stockholm PD because he thinks the killer is in the Scandanavian city. He’s paired with detective Mikael Eklund (Michael Nyqvist), who is two weeks from retiring from the force and joining a private security company. The guy is burned out and without passion, and resents his captain pairing him with this “dwarf” from New York. Conley is aggressive to say the least, and gets carsick, airsick and sea sick, so he insists on driving everywhere. He also is hiding details about the murders.

This murderer has a very specific M.O.: he rapes one young blond girl but leaves her buried alive with a breathing tube near a field of asphodels. Then he rapes and kills a second one, buries her nearby, then goes back to the first girl and crams the breathing tube with asphodel stems, cutting off her air. He does two killings per month in the winter, all of this is based on the story of Hades and Persephone.

Why is Conley so determined to catch this guy? One of the pictures on his hotel wall is of either his daughter or sister, found in much the same manner. And the case seems to energize Eklund, even though he can’t look at the dead girls anymore.

Our Take: 100 Code isn’t exactly new; it was produced by a Swedish production company and it first aired on Germany’s Sky Krimi network in 2015. Nyqvist passed away in 2017 from lung cancer, so this limited series is truly limited. But WGN America has lately been buying up shows made in Canada and Europe with actors known to Americans, figuring it’s a ton cheaper than producing shows like Manhattan. Of course, the problem is that the shows they’re buying aren’t as good as the ones they produced themselves.

Monaghan is supposed to be playing an intense, embittered NYPD detective with the accent to match, but he only manages to barely hide his British accent under whatever he thinks is a New Yawk skwak. There’s not much to Conley but quirks and anger, and the usual distrust of any cop that’s not himself.

Nyqvist’s character is much more interesting. Eklund wants out of the police game, and the security job he’s going into, in a company led by one of his old police buddies, watches rich people who want cameras on their entire lives. That feels like a more interesting show than the standard grade, “Let’s hunt down a serial killer before he kills again!” genre. There’s a scene where Eklund’s daughter Hanna (Felice Jankell) looks at a picture of her mom and (assumed) late mother and has tears in her eyes. Will we be looking into that story, or just looking at Monaghan scrunch his elfin face and try to speak New Yawk more?

Sex and Skin: The corpses are naked, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: We see the killer burying his latest victim after putting a plastic bag over her head, tearing a hole, and inserting a breathing tube in her mouth. Asphodil blooms are seen floating in a nearby lake. Creepy.

Sleeper Star: We like Charlotta Jonsson as Eklund’s boss, Karin Hammar. She gives as good as it gets without looking like she’s doing the usual order-barking captain trope.

Most Pilot-y Line: Suspicious that Conley is holding an illegal gun, Eklund asks him, “Are you packing?” “Packing? Have you been watching Law & Order?” Conley replies.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Monaghan’s terrible accent and brooding character aren’t enough to make us follow Nyqvist’s character. It’s a shame Nyqvist is no longer around; we’d have loved to have seen Eklund be that private security guy.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch 100 Code on WGN America