The first season of the Danish noir series The Chestnut Man was creepy AF, given how the killer being investigated left little figurines made from chestnuts and toothpicks with his victims’ bodies. The new case, titled Hide And Seek, is equally creepy, but just without the chestnuts.
Opening Shot: “1992. Hornsherred.” A group of kids go on a nature walk with two chaperones, one of whom shows how cuckoo eggs get pushed out of their nests by one cuckoo chick trying to survive. In a game of hide and seek, one kid finds a body, curled up inside a nest-like structure.
The Gist: In present day Copenhagen, Zara Solak (Ellaha Lack) gets texts with videos showing that someone is watching her. Along with those pictures and videos are counting rhymes that indicate that someone is coming after her. The final text says “Found you!” right before she’s grabbed inside her house.
Naia Thulin (Danica Curcic), a Copenhagen police detective on the IT team, is packing to go on a school camping trip with her teenage daughter Le (Ester Birch), which Le is completely embarrassed about, since Naia will be the only mom there. But Naia is called to the house of Zara Solak by her boss, Sandra Lindstrøm (Katinka Lærke Petersen). Zara hasn’t been missing all that long, but her ex-husband and daughter were concerned when she wasn’t at home that morning.
In the meantime, Europol agent Mark Hess (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) is on his way to Copenhagen from his home base in The Hague. He’s called back home to see his brother, who is in a coma after surgery to treat a brain hemorrhage. He hasn’t spoken to his brother in years. Also in the meantime, Marie Holst (Sofie Gråbøl) is having a hard time after a court ruling closed the case of her daughter Emma (Bjørk Storm), who was murdered two years prior, and the killer was never found.
When Naia and Sandra trace some of the emails from Zara’s stalker back to the same server used to stalk Emma Holst, they need to contact Mark Hess, their Europol liaison. Naia and Mark, who worked the Chestnut Man case together, dated for a few months, until he left without even saying as much as goodbye to Naia or Le. Le still has an attachment to Mark, as we see when she goes to visit his hotel room; she still tracks his phone like she did when he was still in Copenhagen.
The police start closing Zara’s case when texts from her start appearing. But what they don’t know is that she’s being held captive in an empty house across the street. When Mark starts looking at the evidence from Emma Holst’s case, he sees a connection that was previously hidden.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Chestnut Man: Hide And Seek is a new case (no chestnuts) involving Naia Thulin and Mark Hess, based on Søren Sveistrup’s novels. It’s ostensibly the second season of The Chestnut Man, whose first season was in 2021, but it really stands on its own (in fact, the title sequence doesn’t even mention chestnuts, just shows the Hide And Seek title).
Our Take: Despite being a new story, The Chestnut Man: Hide And Seek has all the gruesome creepiness of the show’s first season, but with a fair amount of personal and relationship drama mixed in.
There are certainly scenes in the first episode that gave us the ick, like the flashback that shows us what a dead cuckoo embryo looks like. Besides the nest imagery that the killer seems to use with their victims, we’re not quite sure yet what the idea of the stronger cuckoo chick pushing eggs out of the nest has to do with the case at hand.
However, the stalking and the counting verse that gets sent is creepy as hell. And the creepier the killings are, the more incentive the viewer has to see who would be depraved enough to perpetrate them.
But Naia and Mark’s personal relationship is a big part of this story. It’s obvious that, despite Naia’s stoicism on the matter, the two of them meant something to each other. Mark certainly meant something to Le, despite Maia’s claim that both of them moved on. But Mark has other things to deal with besides the case at hand; he has to settle his brother’s affairs and take care of his bird. How all of these entanglements will affect how they investigate this “hide and seek” killer will certainly be interesting to watch.
Performance Worth Watching: Danica Curcic’s character Naia Thulin is determined and dedicated to both her job and to her daughter, and it shows in Curcic’s performance.
Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Zara’s body is found in a nest-like structure, not long after Naia and Mark figure out that she was being held in the house across the street from hers.
Sleeper Star: Sofie Gråbøl’s character Marie Holst will factor in this case in a big way, because it may be her avenue to finding out who killed her daughter Emma.
Most Pilot-y Line: As Marie walks down the hall of the university where she teaches, she sees people staring at her. They all know the verdict against her family on Emma’s case came through, as it was all over the news. Seems like a supurflous scene.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Chestnut Man: Hide And Seek is as creepy as the original season of The Chestnut Man, with the case at hand enhanced by the now-established personal and professional relationship between Naia and Mark.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
