Borgen s1 ep 5; s1 ep 6

I’m still agin the double-bills, of course, but this week’s two episodes shared a sort of theme, one familiar to political drama: how do politicians, once elected, balance the idealism which got them into office with the necessary pragmatism which keeps them there. (I’m always amazed that people are surprised by the latter. Maybe I’m just cynical myself.) If you were going to compare the two, perhaps you’d say that episode 5 was marginally the more enjoyable. It was called ‘Men Who Love Women’, presumably as a sort of hat-tip to ‘Men Who Hate Women’, the original Swedish title of ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’. It wasn’t easy to see to whom the title applied, though: Kasper, who stumbled through these episodes with the bearing of a man who really needed to get laid? Increasingly pouty First Husband Philip? Katrine’s new boy-toy Benjamin?

Anyway, the main political action of the episode revolved around a Government-led initiative to require companies to have a quota of women in the boardroom. Fronting this was minister for business affairs Henriette, the next-in-line of Denmark’s apparently steady supply of MILF politicians. She has a Past of the sort which wouldn’t greatly bother anyone in a male politician (apart, I suppose, from the lingerie modelling), and Birgitte holds the line pretty firmly when old adversary Laugesen tries to make trouble. Entertainingly, though, it’s pretty obvious from the first couple of minutes that, years ago, someone very close to the Prime Minister went there, and Birgitte finds out that even when you’re the most powerful elected politican in the land you can still be the last to know that sort of thing.

The threat to the Government comes from shady plutocrat Crohne, who doesn’t want too much oestrogen in his boardrooms, and tells Birgitte that he’ll be obliged to remove his companies from Denmark if the initiative becomes law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Danish economy. So the question is whether Birgitte can find a way to balance the competing interests, keep everyone happy, and still sleep at night.

And in episode 6 it’s human rights which are up for grabs: President Grozin, of fictional Turgisia, is in the house, offering to purchase lots and lots of lovely Danish windmills. Grozin and Turgisia have a complicated relationship with democracy, though, and high-profile dissident Bayanov is also in town making trouble. The leader of one of the other parties observes that once upon a time Birgitte would have been joining the anti-Grozin protests “before you got all pragmatic”. Then Bayanov is arrested on suspicion of terrorism in Turgisia, and there’s a more or less explicit link made by Grozin between the windmill purchase and the extradition of Bayanov. Slightly disconcertingly, the conversations between Birgitte and Grozin take place in English – where are my subtitles? –  from which we find out that Sidse Babett Knudsen has a phenomenally good English accent.

At home, though, the First Marriage is under a little more stress in both episodes. I’m calling this one a score-draw – I’m more fed up than I can say with the recurring device in TV drama which requires the partner of someone in a demanding job to resent the situation. (We even got it in The West Wing, and sooner or later it turns up in every police drama ever.) So Philip doesn’t come out of this one smelling of roses, but Birgitte is, perhaps, unnecessarily mean to him. And Philip has to put up with Birgitte’s annoying father. There are, though, the usual beautifully written and acted scenes between the two of them – my personal favourite being the one where Birgitte insists that she’s never sought the approval of men before playfully asking Philip how she looks.

Not remarkably original in subject-matter, then, but Borgen has more than enough about it to make it a must-see.

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