Borgen season 4 review: A return to a state of grace on Netflix

It was actually over with “Borgen”, the world’s best political series, after three seasons. Then came Netflix – and the story of the fictitious Danish ex-Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg is now continuing. Lucky for those who aren’t politicians.

The foreign minister is a bit flustered when she says that. Alcohol, they say, is a drug of truth. And she just had plenty of alcohol. It’s almost night in Copenhagen. The day was full.

Some kind of crisis – that’s what Adam Price, the inventor of “Borgen”, so to speak the gold standard of all political series, wants it to be since he invented it three seasons and a good dozen years ago – is always in Birgitte Nyborg’s life. She ate almost nothing.

That the job cost her her family, she admits to the rather young man who is currently her most important diplomatic weapon, sitting across from her and sometimes acting as if he could be her son. That she would do it all again, even if she knew what the consequences would be, what the price would be. And she also admits that it’s easier now – alone, lonely, without children.

“People like us don’t lead normal lives. We come home late, get up too early, and disappoint too many of those we love. Wouldn’t you rather choose one who works hard than one who picks up their kids at four?” she asks. “Yes,” is the answer, “but it’s sad.” Then Nyborg bursts out, arms raised in triumph, but she still looks a bit desperate: “But that’s how we are!”

Rise, fall, return

The way they are, the politicians, why they do what they do, how they do it, what power is doing to them, that was not the case in any European and – apart perhaps from “West Wing” – also in no American series observe precisely.

“Borgen” was the story of Birgitte Nyborg, her rise, her fall, her return to power. And this story was told like the pictures of Herlinde Koelbl tell: How power, how insomnia, the being torn between values, attitude and what is enforceable eats into the faces, into the lives of those in government.

The fact that Annalena Baerbock does what she does today, for example, must either be because politicians are actually what Birgitte Nyborg thinks they are and how they always were in “Borgen”. Or because she has never seen “Borgen”. In any case, we keep our fingers crossed that her fate will not be that of Birgitte Nyborg. Or that of Andrea Nahles.

When we last saw Birgitte Nyborg, nine years ago, everything was actually fine. She was sitting on the sofa at home, her life companion next to her.

Nyborg was in his mid-forties. The children fled. An election was won. We had made our peace with politics – the nice thing about “Borgen” was that although it shed light on the mechanics of political action like an x-ray, it didn’t provide anti-democrats with any ammunition.

Denmark’s three-pronged policy

You should stop while it’s still good, said the broadcaster, Denmark’s premium public television. However, that has always had a fairly rigid three-season policy, which is why “Kommissarin Lund”, the Danish predecessor success series copied worldwide, had to be ended after three seasons. A principle that can actually only be welcomed.

The story of Birgitte Nyborg and of “Borgen” (that’s the popular name for the wonderfully winding Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, with its corridors, its wonderful square, which is wonderful to film and the seat of several authorities in Denmark) would have needed a sequel just as little as Sidse Babett Knudsen and half a dozen actors who made it from “Borgen” into all series and film worlds.

Netflix, on the other hand, where the first three seasons of “Borgen”, like many regional hit series from public broadcasters, ended up on Arte after the European premiere, apparently needed them. And so there it is, the fourth season.

Adam Price wrote the eight episodes. Everyone is back. Some of Birgitte Nyborg’s previous companions only briefly (possibly due to the tight schedule of her world career after “Borrowing”). And to get straight to the point, “Borgen” isn’t just good anymore, it’s better.

Adam Price had a brilliant idea. He got Birgitte out of the must-pot domestic policy, made her foreign minister of a precarious coalition of her New Democrats with the Labor Party (the fact that Denmark has a parliament in “Borgen” made up of what feels like a dozen parties, some of them hostile to spiders, made the series particularly lively). And under the leadership of a social-media and power-conscious Prime Minister who is, so to speak, Birgitte in cold-blooded.

Between Signe Kragh and Birgitte there is what you could call a catfight if it were ultimately nothing more than a gender-neutral power struggle that follows all the rules of a male Machiavellian duel. They drive themselves mad, they bring the utmost and the worst out of themselves.

The fact that you remain Team Birgitte – no matter what she does, and she does some things that you don’t do – is the highest calculation and at the same time the highest art. At some point, they tell themselves, it took almost a third world war to find out what they are capable of doing together.

However, World War III would not have broken out because of Russia (the Ukraine crisis does occur, but is more a reflection of Russia’s annexation of Crimea), but because of Greenland. As big as Western Europe, as many inhabitants as Bad Salzuflen.

How China makes countries dependent

High alcoholic and suicide rate, colonized by Denmark, semi-autonomous, always on the verge of independence. That’s where oil is found. A deposit as big as Ekofisk, the basis of Norway’s wealth. Estimated to be worth 2000 billion crowns. It would make Greenland independent.

There are diplomatic complications. Between Greenland and Denmark. Between Denmark and Russia (a rather nasty oligarch and Putin friend is involved in the promotion company). Then the Chinese get involved. It is played out very precisely how mercilessly China makes itself dependent on economically interesting parts of the world. “Borgen” is the series of the moment.

A drone crashes, a submarine appears, a boy commits suicide. In the “Borgen” Birgitte stands lonely at the window as if painted. She is now in her fifties. Environmental protection is their program. But she also needs the nice money from Greenland.

So she wanders around. In herself, between her attitudes. Struggles with morals and her son. He’s an environmental activist. The razor-sharp dialogues between them are a highlight. There are funny characters, a fine love story. Greenland is a great idea for the beguiling pictures alone.

Price leads women – Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen), Birgitte’s ex-media consultant, has been promoted to news director of a TV station – to the brink of a nervous breakdown. As big as the gaps are sometimes, as many dramaturgical balls land abroad – you can’t stop because “Borgen” shows so glamorously unglamorously as it is.

You should stop while it’s still better. Sidse Babett Knudsen has already announced that he wants to retire. Birgitte Nyborg will not stop. That’s how she is. That’s how she will stay. But we don’t want to watch her anymore. It’s terrible where she’s going now.