Anita, a DI in her thirties, accepts a job in her hometown, which is the only position on offer for her after having been forced to resign in Reykjavik.
She’s returning, for the first time in 14 years, to find the village turned into a tourist trap, surrounded by black sands. Worst of all is that she has to move back in with her mother, Elin (Steinunn ÓlÃna Þorsteinsdóttir), with whom she has a strained relationship, tormented by a difficult past.
When Anita (AldÃs Amah Hamilton) comes back to the village, a body of a young woman is discovered on the sandy shore, who seems to have fallen to her death from the cliff above the beach. The investigation starts with the current captain, the village M.D. Salomon (Kolbeinn Arnbjörnsson) and the local police. Nothing criminal seems to have occurred until a friend of the deceased is found later that evening, cold, confused and covered in blood.
While the investigation continues to take unexpected twists and turns, Anita finds herself in the middle of a fiery love triangle, which doesn’t make matters any easier for her. It becomes apparent that the local police haven’t handled the investigation as well as they should have and there is a possible connection between this and other cases.
A reckoning with her mother is inescapable. Anita is dragged down into the dark abyss of her past, looking for a possible serial killer and the reckoning turns into a nightmare.
In Icelandic with English subtitles.
I found Black Sands disappointing. Nordic Noir is one thing but a lot of the blackness in this series seems to be a product of not turning the lights on. The hospital, the police station, the hotel all seem to be permanently in blackout mode. The only well lit building is the Convenience Store. When they search Raggi’s house at one stage no one turns the lights on – they search by the light of their tiny torches.
The police are overall beyond bumbling: even when they know who the killer is and who he has targeted apart from tourists they make no attempt to protect other potential victims. When they catch up with the killer they make no attempt to secure him with a very predictable outcome.
I found the main character Anita the cop, really dislikeable. I can’t work out if it was the bad script or just bad acting. She just came across as sleazy and an unconvincing police officer.
The smirking police officers at the post mortem and elsewhere, was a turn off. This basically had the makings of a good crime series, but the script was awful and some of the acting pretty bad.
Yes I have to agree, an incredibly disappointing show with extremely unlikable characters. The first episode got 3/4 of the way before it bothered to explain any of the main characters back story. The only dialogue was sleazy, unprofessional chat about the dead woman and how hot she was. It seemed that nobody cared about what they were doing -handling a dead person, this would not be how it would happen in real life policing, there would be a modicum of respect shown to the dead. This made this series seem like it was not believable at all. The only highlight of this would be the dramatic landscapes that was it, absolutely atrocious acting and dialogue, switched off after 40 min.
I don’t know about “not convincing”. How much time have you spent with Police around deceased people? It’s surprisingly accurate.
I couldn’t warm to Anita in any shape or form, nothing about her character was convincing.
Majority of the other characters were no better.
This had great potential to be an excellent drama with some good twists & turns, which all seemed to fizzle out.
The scenery/landscape was the most dramatic part of this show