Spooky smart Nordic Noir perfect for AMC
The show: Jordskott, Season 1, Episode 3 The moment: The floating man We’re in an ancient forest outside a rural town in Sweden. Three teenage boys are shooting cans beside a swampy stream. A shot goes awry. A hideous squeal fills the air. A dead-white, webbed hand reaches out of the stream and pulls in one of the boys. The others struggle to beat back the creature, of whom we see only glimpses. It slips away.
A few scenes later, two girls sit on a wooden walkway over that same stream, dangling their feet. A ripple splits the water behind them.
The white-webbed-man-thing drifts up right beneath them, face down. Its body flips over. Its chest is a bloody hole. Then its eyes open, unnaturally round and black. The girls run.
This flagship series for AMC’s new horror-streaming service hits my sweet spot: spooky and smart without being gory. It’s Nordic Noir, combining gripping police procedural with otherworldly mystery, like a Borgen-Stranger Things mashup.
The plot starts with a ghostly girl (Stina Sundlof) who appears in town and the determined detective, Eva (Moa Gammel), who believes she’s Josefine, her daughter who went missing seven years earlier.
There are corporate baddies scheming to wreak environmental havoc, fringe-y citizens who know more than they say about a weird plant virus and a creeping sense that nature itself is exacting revenge.
The title is part of the mystery, entwining Josefine’s name and the word for “root” or “soil.” The show knows exactly how to parcel out revelations and visuals in jagged pieces, to work our brains and our goosebumps. Jordskott streams on AMC Shudder. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.