‘Bordertown’ on Netflix: The Gritty Finnish Drama Is Back

Netflix’s Finnish crime drama Bordertown has returned with new episodes and a new mystery, ready to consume your weekend!

Created by Miikko Oikkonen, the Nordic noir series follows Detective Inspector Kari Sorjonen (Ville Virtanen), a police officer who moves to a small town on the border of Russia in search for a more peaceful life. He just wants to relax, spend some time with his kid, and celebrate his wife’s successful recovery from brain cancer. Unfortunately, the fates of crime dramas have other plans for him. As a series of grisly murders proves, life in Lappeenranta is anything but calm.

As Decider has covered before, Bordertown doesn’t feel like your typical serial killer drama. Sure, there are a trail of bloody crimes and a cat and mouse game, but more than that it’s a drama all about the traumatized and loving family at the core of this series. Kari just wants something close to a normal life for his wife and kid. It’s not his fault that the SECRI, or the Serious Crime Unit, is filled with so many life-disrupting cases.

And Season 2 promises to be more traumatic than ever before. Last season mostly followed Kari as he tracked the mysterious murderer haunting this town before taking an unexpected turn at its very end. Janina (Olivia Ainali), Kari’s teenage daughter and the one person in the world he wants to protect more than anyone else, ended this first installment covered in blood as a prime suspect in his murder investigation. Has Janina been hiding secrets? Is the answer to Kari’s biggest case actually living in his own home? Or is there something even more sinister at work?

No matter what the outcome, the record-setting, most-watched series in Finland is sure to deliver a gripping answer. If you like murder dramas, great. Check out Bordertown Season 2. But if complicated and emotional family dramas about moving forward are more your speed, you’re covered on that front as well.

Watch Bordertown on Netflix