Review: Ultraviolet, season 2

Marta Nieradkiewicz in Ultraviolet

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.

Piotr Stramowski in Ultraviolet
The new guy Jakub takes over with the police

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).

Piotr Stramowski and Magdalena Czerwinska in Ultraviolet
Kuba and Beata on the job.

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.

The Ultraviolet team on a phone call
Shall we dine?

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 team on a group call

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.

An Ultraviolet poster

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?

23 thoughts on “Review: Ultraviolet, season 2”

  1. Thanks for the recommendation! I started with Season 1 yesterday after reading your post and really enjoyed it. Needed a new show (just finished Balthazar, not sure if you’ve seen that?). I appreciated the smart characters and unique approach in Ultraviolet. Looking forward to the series

  2. I really enjoyed this show. Love the humour, and Ola is an entertaining lead. Kuba and her are an interesting mix, and I think they have better chemistry than Ola & Michal, whom seemed more like friends. the almost friendship between Ola & Beata was a good touch. It certainly seems set up for a season 3. I hope it gets renewed, I want to see Ola and Kuba, and some of Ola’s demons resolved.

  3. I like this show. The procedural whodunits in each episode are mostly predictable, but that’s almost beside the point. You watch the show for the quirky Ola and the likable bunch of characters of Ultraviolet. You get invested in them. And little details like her throwing some amorous passengers out of her car and then getting her third one star rating as a result is not really something you see in other shows.

      1. I want to know too! It seemed very sudden (although they did keep alluding to his character as not being ready/healthy and Kuba called him the saddest cop so maybe they were leading up to it). I really liked the Ola and Michal dynamic and it was nice to see his walls slowly coming down.

    1. When Sebastian left the show that was the end of watching for me. Had hoped for an “encounter” with Ola.

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  5. I came across Ultraviolet by trying to find a show to sharpen my Polish language skills. I expected to see something from the remnants of the old Communist regime but was so pleasantly surprised when I came across such a fresh concept in a television series. The first season had me captivated. It was filled with plot twists and turns, although sometimes predictable. The visual effects with using social media and video chat were truly innovative and are great for capturing young and not so young audiences. The second season was also engaging, however, played more on the character interaction rather than the dichotomy of the Ultraviolet team and the Łódź Police Department. Outside of the first two and the last episode, the plot was very predictable, less edgy, more humor, and there were far too many ‘tells’ in the characters that it seemed like it was geared towards an American audience. I think that this was evident in the reason that the ratings dropped for season 2 in Poland. I am happy that the second season ended with unanswered questions leaving the opportunity for season three. Hoping that the scripts will return to the dark and less predictable version that season one had.

  6. Me encanta la serie, es muy dinamica, divertida, suspenso y acción. Me gustaba muchisimo la relación de OLa y Micah, no veo el sentido de eliminar el personaje de Holander???? era una parte muy esperada de la historia…. so Shame!!!!!

  7. Sad about Michal’ s death! I liked Season 1! I am looking at the season 2 and i am sorry, i dont Like it too much! Much of the first part is lost, but..it is a matter of tastes!!!

  8. The show was leading up to him and Ola finally getting together and then they kill him off? I stopped watching after Michal died.

  9. The chemistry between Ola and Michal was spot on. All of season one gave us the impression they would end up more than friends. I’m not enjoying the series without Michal. Why did he leave the series?

  10. I stopped watching too after Michal’s death. There was no fun anymore. Besides, Ola’s obsession with her brother’s death, above everything else, became very annoying.

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