Good to see this Danish import return to British TV screens, my wife and I much enjoyed the first series shown here last year. This opening two-parter started with a bang as Dicte's long-lost Jehovah's Witness father shows up out the blue at a New Year's Eve do where Dicte and her new beau, Bo are in attendance, asking to speak to her for the first time in years. Of course this is Dicte's world so naturally at the same hotel, the violent murder of a high-class call-girl takes place, with the killer compounding a felony by running over her dad in his panic. Cue Dicte interacting again with thin-man Wagner and his precocious and indeed promiscuous gay female sidekick as they uncover a lurid tale of trafficking young Nigerian girls, the sleazy millionaire who puts them to use, his son, married himself to a black woman but with a propensity for domestic violence and eventually a Dutch villain who turns out to be a key character in the conclusion.
It's all mashed together very well, certainly up to the standard of the first series with the only vaguely inconsistent element being the apparent voodoo hold on the African girls by their white controllers. Meanwhile, in Dicte's private life, as usual there's loads going on, with her daughter getting involved with a temperamental football star, her best friend the nurse now pregnant with a child by her ex-husband, her fractious mother still shutting her out after all these years and her relationship with Beau percolating in the background. The only person missing that I noted was her other friend Ida. Meanwhile there's the whiff of romantic interest for Wagner from his female boss while most of the humour comes from tales of the party lifestyle of Wagner's assistant.
More than just a series scene-setter, this episode seamlessly continued the good work of the first series and so long as the producers keep up the happy union of gritty crime stories with Dicte's everyday life, I'll be satisfied.