The Glass Dome review, a Skandi noir mini series

The Glass Dome brings dark Skandi noir to Netflix in a mini series about abducted children who were kept in a glass box like specimens.

The Glass Dome has one of those plots where the main character goes back to their small town and solves crimes while they are there. In this story it’s Lejla (Léonie Vincent), a criminologist living the the U.S. who specializes in the psychology of men who abduct children. As a child, she was abducted and held in a big glass box for a long time. She escaped, but has made dealing with that trauma her life’s work.

When Lejla escaped, she was adopted by the chief of police, Valter (Johan Hedenberg), and his wife. Now it’s years later, Valter is retired and his wife just passed away. Lejla returns to her home in Sweden for the funeral.

Valter’s younger brother Tomas (Johan Rheborg) is the chief of police now. He’s dealing with unrest in the town because of a toxic leak from the coal mine. There’s lots of anger at the mine from the townspeople. Some of it comes from the fact that the owner of the mine, Said (Farzad Farzaneh), has the nerve to be an Arab living in Sweden.

Almost as soon as Lejla hits town for the funeral, Said’s daughter Alicia (Minoo Andacheh) is kidnapped. Is it the same kidnapper from long ago? Then Lejla’s friend and Alicia’s mother (Gina-Lee Fahlén Ronander) is found by Lejla in a bathtub full of blood from cut wrists. Was that a murder? Is all of it somehow connected to the mine?

Valter still has photos of missing children with long dark hair on his den wall at home like a murder board, even though he’s retired. Lejla thinks the same kidnapper – her kidnapper – has Alicia and thinks there are many more missing children besides the one she sees on her adoptive father’s wall. Lejla is the only one who got away.

Lejla gets involved in helping the police. Valter goes back to help as well. Of course there are lots of twists and turns in the mystery with several characters appearing guilty. A few of them are guilty of something, even if it isn’t the kidnapping of little girls.

The acting style for all the characters was pretty stoic most of the time. It seemed appropriate to the place. The whole mini-series had a calm demeanor even though it was about horrible things. I’m tired of stories about horrible men torturing children. I rate this one as about average, not excellent.

The series has six episodes. It was well paced as the clues and the dangers spread over the episodes. The Glass Dome was written by written by Camilla Läckberg. IMDb only lists one woman director, Lisa Farzaneh, but I’m not sure that information is complete. The entire series is available on Netflix.