Netflix
Again within the early 2010s, some pundits actually thought politics had been solved. A majority of Europeans thought of themselves liberal; People had been assured that they had been dwelling in a everlasting Democratic majority. Into this context strode Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen), protagonist of the Danish TV drama Borgen.
In Borgen’s October 2010 sequence premiere, Birgitte, the late-thirtysomething chief of the Reasonable celebration, pulls off a shock victory in Denmark’s federal election, turning into the nation’s first feminine prime minister. By means of the present’s first three seasons, audiences watched Birgitte increase her children, get divorced, and full breast most cancers therapy—all whereas sparring with political adversaries in varied skilled roles.
Once we noticed Birgitte off in Borgen’s third-season finale, it was in a brand new posting as Denmark’s international minister. How arduous may or not it's for a center-left politician like her in 2013 Europe? Absolutely the worst she might need to face within the coming years was boredom, ha ha, sigh.
On June 2, Netflix dropped a brand new season, now referred to as Borgen: Energy & Glory. As she was within the Season 3 finale, Birgitte is Denmark’s international minister, however just about every thing else has modified: the architect she was courting is gone; the brand new prime minister in whose cupboard she’s serving is a lady; a large oil deposit has been found in Greenland, an autonomous territory inside the Kingdom of Denmark; and, in fact, the media atmosphere during which Birgitte is making an attempt to observe politics is now completely poisonous.
It’s this final side that almost all clearly distinguishes Energy & Glory from Borgen’s first three seasons, and which feels just like the story it most urgently wants to inform.
Media is established as a battleground nearly instantly.
When Birgitte exhibits as much as a press convention to announce the mortgage of a Chinese language panda to a Copenhagen zoo, the occasion is poorly attended as a result of her boss, Prime Minister Signe Kragh (Johanne Louise Schmidt), additionally scheduled an unrelated press convention on the similar time, and didn’t inform Birgitte’s workplace till 20 minutes earlier than it began.
Due to Denmark’s parliamentary system, Signe, like Birgitte earlier than her, has assembled a coalition authorities of a number of completely different events. Signe is the Labour chief, whereas Birgitte heads the New Democrats. So at the same time as Birgitte has dedicated to help Signe’s agenda, the 2 usually are not ideologically aligned on each concern, and predictably chafe towards one another on condition that they solely should be allies till the following federal election makes them rivals once more.
Birgitte and Signe are additionally divided alongside generational traces; although their age distinction—Signe is 41, Birgitte 53—shouldn't be important chronologically, it'd as effectively be a century technologically; we might infer that Signe has basically lived her whole skilled life on social media. When Signe slides in forward of Birgitte with Denmark’s press corps, does it denote a scarcity of respect on her half for Birgitte’s work within the international ministry, or is it as a result of she charges legacy media much less extremely than she does the direct tackle of her personal Instagram feed? (She definitely doesn’t appear to understand the irony of hashtagging each single put up she makes with #TheFutureIsFemale whereas additionally sidelining her personal feminine colleague.)
The static between Signe and Birgitte solely will get louder after the information breaks in regards to the Greenlandic oil. Having gained on a very talked-about inexperienced platform, Birgitte can see all the hazards that lie forward: the drilling would happen very close to a UNESCO World Heritage website, committing to extractive vitality will derail Denmark’s zero-emissions objectives, and entry to grease income may give Greenland’s pro-independence politicians a stronger footing.
Birgitte is disgusted when Signe’s assertion on the topic is aggressively impartial, and eagerly tells a TV1 reporter that she, not less than, intends to honor the local weather commitments she ran on. However as you may count on in relation to an oil deposit that (a) is price billions of dollars and (b) is in a location of appreciable strategic significance to the U.S. and Russia, extra info solely makes Birgitte’s job extra difficult.
On orders from varied native and worldwide stakeholders, Birgitte should obfuscate the scenario each in personal conferences together with her friends in authorities, and in TV information hits, every of which chips slightly extra off her extremely revered legacy. Not like Signe, Birgitte lacks an instinctual understanding of find out how to use social media feeds to assemble her personal picture and narrative outdoors the normal shops of the press.
When Birgitte isn’t submitting to adversarial TV1 questioning with regards to Greenland’s oil, she’s volunteering to seem so she will do harm management on her house life. Her son Magnus (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, taking on from Emil Poulsen, who performed the function as a toddler within the first three seasons) is a school pupil whose views are far to the left of his well-known mom’s.
Within the Energy & Glory premiere, we see Magnus and a few associates steal a truck from a pork farm and drive it to a discipline, the place they launch the pigs to freedom. The pigs are in the end euthanized, so Magnus’s protest has no impact past embarrassing Birgitte as soon as the press connects the incident to her. However by this level within the sequence, Birgitte has decided that, greater than some other, exhibits how determined she is to protect her profession, regardless of the associated fee: she’s requested Michael Laugesen to be her spin physician.
Laugesen (Peter Mygind) began the sequence as the top of the Labour celebration, who meant to win the federal election by smearing the sitting Prime Minister with a narrative about his momentary misappropriation of funds. As a substitute, Laugesen’s transfer simply made him look sleazy, emboldening others in his celebration to unearth their most damaging tales on him, and main Laugesen to depart politics to edit a disreputable tabloid rag.
It's on this capability that Laugesen ran with the story of Birgitte’s daughter Laura (Freja Riemann) and her in-patient psychological well being therapy. There’s no query that Laugesen is a scumbag, however now he occurs to be a scumbag who’s keen to defend Birgitte on TV for having the desire to outlive her scandals. Birgitte by no means solely loses her distaste for Laugesen as an individual at the same time as she lets him put up bland posts on her Instagram feed (and presumably purchase her a bunch of followers), hunt down dodgy local weather scientists to defend the Greenland drilling plans, and persuade her to seem with Magnus on a female-targeted speak present that may let her current herself as a stern but fond mother who fosters passionate political debate at house.
Earlier within the season, we realized that Signe meant to nominate Laugesen, an previous Labour buddy, to a strong place in her authorities till aggressive reporting made it politically untenable for her. It appears he’s utilizing the identical empty “woman energy” script to outline Birgitte that has labored so effectively for Signe… additionally at Laugesen’s path? Whether or not he’s Signe’s Svengali is unclear, nevertheless it does seem to be there’s a number of alternative for somebody like Laugesen to construct a profession for himself as Denmark’s Steve Bannon. As we proceed to see on this nation, politicians’ race to the underside could be wildly profitable for the aides who encompass them—and if the political tides flip, these aides can simply take all of it again of their tell-all books.
Again to TV1, which additionally finds itself in a state of flux as we rejoin the characters we bought to know in Borgen’s first three seasons. The community’s scores are tanking, and Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) has been named the brand new Head Of Information Operations. A TV and newspaper journalist who additionally served as Birgitte’s comms head within the earliest days of the New Democrats, a celebration Birgitte based, Katrine adapts uneasily to a managerial place, significantly with on-air anchor Narciza Aydin (Özlem Saglanmak).
A queer lady of shade, Narciza calls out Katrine for an offhand comment about an editorial selection being “too politically appropriate,” and their skilled relationship by no means actually recovers. At the same time as different reporters attempt to get Katrine to mood her criticisms, Katrine can’t cease discovering fault with Narciza, ultimately pulling her off the air solely. The response by Narciza’s followers is swift and fierce, as Katrine turns into the topic of Fb feedback and tweets about her administration—an all-too-real expertise for girls in public life throughout all fields. It’s most likely solely the shortage of latest footage of Katrine at work that has spared her from turning into a hateful meme on TikTok; Amber Heard has not been so fortunate.
These develop so hostile that Katrine lastly has a panic assault at a celebration conference from which her companion, Søren Ravn (Lars Mikkelsen) should evacuate her. Within the finale’s final moments, we be taught that she’s left her job and is planning to write down a ebook about Danish politics, whereas Narciza has utilized to succeed her as information head. This plotline is, sadly, much less thoughtfully developed than the character of Katrine deserves after the three earlier seasons we’ve identified her. Is Katrine tormented by unconscious racial biases she is unwilling or unable to confront? Or is the problem that she’s a born journalist who's ill-suited to administration?
One can think about a model of a fourth Borgen season that hewed extra intently to the primary three. Credit score the wholesome Nordic life-style for the truth that none of its stars actually look a decade older than they did after we noticed them final; it wouldn’t have been that huge a attain to set a season in 2014, and allow us to spend time with Birgitte in a pre-Brexit, pre-Trump timeline.
There’s precedent for such issues: when the forged of The West Wing reunited for a particular in 2020, there was no try to talk to the present second; as a substitute, they simply re-staged an episode that initially aired in 2002. However Borgen has at all times been bolder and extra bold than The West Wing, and Energy & Glory proves it: it’s arduous to acknowledge the present state of politics and information, however nothing will change if we don’t see them, even fictionally, as they really are.