Now that we’ve reached the halfway point (!!! seriously, this show is only six episodes long! ), it seems reasonable to state that compared to Too Old to Die Young, Copenhagen Cowboy is a step down from the sublime to the merely spectacular. Even yet, creator/co-developer/director Nicolas Winding Refn has nothing to be ashamed of. Most shows are not even close to being great! And very few shows have ever looked and felt like this (except than obviously TotDY).
And if it wasn’t evident by now, I’m pleased with how it appears and feels. The repeated zooms and pans, glacial pacing, minimal dialogue, and neon-and-synths neo-noir nightmare atmosphere: I understand that NWR’s style is not for everyone. Nonetheless, it is for me! As I’ve previously stated, I think it’s a mistake to classify his style as arrogant or self-indulgent, since he deliberately rewards patient viewers by providing so much empty space and time for the sight and mind to wander, rather than frog-marching them through markers of his own authorial genius.
Anyway, the plot is simple to summarize: Miu has jumped from the frying pan into a series of rising fires. She quickly discovers that the restaurant she went to in order to escape Rosella and André’s home of horrors, Dragon Palace, and its owner, Mother Hulda, are under the control of another criminal boss, Mr. Chiang (Jason Heudil-Forsell). He is a formidable street fighter who suffers from migraines, which Miu treats with her talents. In the process, though, she experiences a vision of Mother Hulda pledging her daughter to Chiang as collateral for a loan. If she fails to pay or protests when Chiang uses her pigs to dispose of corpses, she will never again see the unfortunate child.
The creepiness increases from there. After the death of one of her most valuable pigs, Hulda goes Miu to a nearby farm to purchase a new pig, the hungrier the better. She must negotiate with the owner of the property at the main home in order to purchase a free-range pig that is more avidly omnivorous than the confined ones.
This is when we discover that Nicklas, the man who murdered Miu’s friend Cimona, also resides at this home. It is evident that he has seen visions of Miu. We observe that he has lengthy conversations with himself in which his mother’s voice urges him to become a great killer in the tradition of “Grandfather” and “Uncle Blood Tooth.” We learn that his mother Beate (Maria Erwolter) has an emotionally incestuous relationship with him, and that his father Michael (Thomas Algren) is some sort of terrifyingly happy sex-cult leader who believes that the cock is the Lord’s gift of power to those who possess one, such as himself and his adorable son. Nicklas stabs a gift from his father with scissors, causing blood to spurt forth as his parents applaud and holler. We observe that he maintains a casket for unclear reasons.
Miu warns Hulda, after the spirit of Cimona has led them on a tour of the mansion, that there is something nefarious above the estate. “Yes,” Hulda agrees. It has existed for generations. Miu resolves to return to discover what Cimona was attempting to tell her, and if we know Miu, to exact vengeance.
As you may have deduced from the preceding paragraph and the discussion of a place where evil has recurred for millennia, things have taken a very Stephen King–specifically Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining–like turn around here. Refn hits Kubrick notes hard with his long slow zoomout from Nicklas’s staring, obviously psychotic face, a Kubrick trademark; with Miu’s goggle-eyed vision of Chiang’s kidnapping of Hulda’s daughter, which echoes Danny Torrance and Dick Halloran’s visions; and with certain shots of Miu, who is made to resemble one of those two little sisters gone solo. The score, provided primarily I believe by frequent collaborator Cliff Martinez (though a team including Peter Peter, Peter Kyed, and Julian Winding is credited), is heavily indebted to the soundtrack of The Shining, with synths reminiscent of “Dies Irae” and paranoia-inducing low-volume screeches and hums.
Miu’s return to Nicklas’s residence may be the episode’s sole concession to the normal Netflix binge model. In terms of genre, I’m curious to see how she deals with these monsters, how she rescues Hulda’s daughter from Mr. Chiang, and how many more crime families she can become involved with before Copenhagen is cleaned up like Gotham City in Batman’s most fulfilling dreams. The absence of people to punish is either a dream or a nightmare for vigilantes.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about television for Rolling Stone, Vulture, and The New York Times, among other publications. His family resides on Long Island.
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