Compared to the other episodes in the series, "The Family" turned out to be a little confusing. It involves the murder of a gangster (Cedomir Djordjevic) who is at first shot at in the street, then killed in cold blood at home. Beck (Peter Haber) and Gunvald (Mikael Persbrandt) uncover a complicated plot involving the gangster's widow Charlotta (Marie Robertson), her father (Björn Andersson) and a dentist who turns out to have a rather shady past. The resolution turns out to be rather complicated and slightly illogical; there are too many set-piece scenes involving the police where information is exchanged very quickly - so quickly, in fact, that it becomes difficult to viewers to grasp what is going on.
Nonetheless there are incidental pleasures en route to the denouement. Director Mårten Klingberg focuses more on Gunvald's personal life, as he becomes romantically involved with Charlotta but finds to his cost that business and pleasure do not mix. We also see him becoming highly jealous of computer whizkid Ayda Çetin (Elmira Arikan), who becomes very useful to Beck in solving the case. As a more traditionally- minded cop, believing that cases can only be solved through trudging the streets and visiting suspects, the idea of crimes being solved solely through virtual means is anathema to him.
The production also focuses on Beck's personal life as he discovers that his grandson Tomas (Daniel Sjöberg) continues to receive abusive texts from a fellow-learner at school. Unsure as to whether to exercise his authority as a police officer - and thereby incur his daughter's ire - Beck tries to solve the case in a softy-softly manner, but finds to his cost that circumstances are very different from what he anticipated. We also see that pathologist Gunilla (Anu Sinisalo) develops an attraction towards him; at present, however, Beck feels emotionally incapable of responding.
BECK is a cut above other detective thrillers in the way it focuses on the protagonists' personal lives, even while showing them solving crimes. What a shame, therefore, that the complications of the plot tended to divert our attention away from the characters.
