Season 2 of the Polish series Ultraviolet is now streaming on Netflix. Ultraviolet is a police procedural with a twist: a group of private citizens who are adept with digital media help the police solve crimes. The group calls itself Ultraviolet.
The star of the series is Marta Nieradkiewicz as Ola. Ola is the center of the Ultraviolet group. In season 2 the police have stopped resisting the help of the net savvy team and work side by side with them.
The cop, Michal (Sebastian Fabijanski), that Ola worked with in season 1 is only there for 2 episodes. He is replaced by Jakub (Piotr Stramowski). Jakub’s friends call him Kuba. His partner is the same partner Michal had, Beata (Magdalena Czerwinska).
The Ultraviolet team have gone public. They have a web site and are often contacted by people needing help. That team consists of Ola, the hacker Piast (Viet Anh Do), the sisters Dorota (Karolina Chapko) and Regina (Paulina Chapko), and the new father Tomek (Michal Zurawski)
One of the things I really appreciate about this series is the way it handles the digital material. Phone screens, computer screens, faces on Skype or Facetime – they are all thrown up on the screen in large size so you can see what’s happening. In a series where the Ultraviolet team is seldom physically together, and where their style of crime solving is mostly digital, that is so important to making the story work.
This is a drama, but there are touches of humor. For example, almost every time there is a group phone call to discuss a crime, everyone is eating. Ola eats like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes the person eating is Tomek’s infant son. There’s food in every group call.
The series is a love song to the cities of Poland, particularly Lódz where most of the action takes place. Beautiful shots of the city, including aerial shots, show how lovely it is.
Each episode has its own crime, which is solved by the end of the episode.
There are 12 episodes in season 2. Some storylines are ongoing. Ola is still trying to figure out her brother’s murder from season 1. In season 2 Ola and her mother, Anna (Agata Kulesza), learn that they’ve inherited an empty tenement building. That begins a season-long story about many empty buildings and who is buying them up.
Anna’s live-in boyfriend Henryk (Marek Kalita) helps solve the crimes.
The ongoing storylines build to a dangerous and exciting season climax. The season ends with a surprise and a cliffhanger that may mean there’s going to be a 3rd season of this well-done Polish crime drama.
Wendy West created the series. She is an American writer who also worked on Dexter and many other series. There are a number of women writers and directors in season 2.
The only trailer I could find at YouTube isn’t very helpful. The version on Netflix is much better.
Have you seen season 2 of this series? What did you think of it?
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