Indeed, we do not know who A Hero of Our Time is. We don't even know who is watching Lucija from the car. The duel between Lucija and Pečorin was interrupted by the budding youth. Their message "Enough!" is a message to both viewers and potential assassin. Each of us, viewers, must decide what will happen next. Ambitious and unprecedented in the Croatian series. Viewers are trusted so much to be left with such an important decision? We can approve it or not, but the decision is brave anyway.

It is somehow appropriate that "Rest in Peace" on HRT ended just before the spring equinox. Winter is leaving, "Rest in Peace" is also leaving. Lucija Car, a journalist who likes to stick her nose where it doesn't belong, has reached the end of the road and has to grow up. Because, whether I want to admit it or not, many times in these three seasons Lucija was a child, even a brat, who plunged into unknown dangers. It is so imagined, it is so written, it has crept under our skin. The moment in which she symbolically grows up is the moment in which she reconciles with herself. Mate Šušnjara is gone, the baby is on way, and she will find a new job with her family. This is where the circle closes. We could say that she ran away from her family for three seasons, just to come back to them in the end. The circle and the end, however, are associated with Enes Kišević. "The point outside the circle is mocking." Indeed, we do not know who A Hero of Our Time is. We don't even know who is watching Lucija from the car. The duel between Lucija and Pečorin was interrupted by the budding youth. Their message "Enough!" is a message to both viewers and potential assassin. Each of us, viewers, must decide what will happen next. Ambitious and unprecedented in the Croatian series. Viewers are trusted so much to be left with such an important decision? We can approve it or not, but the decision is brave anyway.

The third season told a deeper story than the previous two. The killings of the "golden youth" are taking place under the radar of the media and the police. The link between corruption, crime, and politics is visible at every step. Young politicians are instructed by the old ones, army generals must learn the modern way of warfare, and bankers do not have the same rules for everyone. If it seems familiar to you, you are not wrong. The line between fiction and reality was nowhere as blurry as this season. Judita Franković as Lucija plays her role quite well. Although there are moments that seem forced (talking to a psychiatrist, talking to the sister of one of the victims), the character of Lucija Car enters the annals of Croatian television production simply because we have never had a TV character who went through such a demanding journey. If we talk about appearance, Franković showed it in subtle nuances and expressions. If we talk about the character, the transformation from the first to the third season leaves us speechless. "Rest in Peace" is probably the only Croatian series so far that is suitable for binge-watching, and the ability of Judita Franković to keep the central character interesting all the time is one of the main reasons for that. 

The lever of the story that revolves around Lucija Car and Mate Šušnjara is completely exhausted here. Lucija has gone from a naive journalist to a traumatized woman who has to finish a story she has started, while Mate has gone from a stenciled antagonist to a complex protagonist of a story dating back to the 1970s. UDBA, the former state secret agency, as the too-often mentioned demon of the Croatian public space and "lustration" as its echo is the context of the classic story of revenge, which, as the famous proverb says, is served cold. Mate will carefully prepare revenge, which is why the relationship between him and Lucija culminates. Two people who otherwise would probably not even drink coffee together met at a common goal. As in the cult series "La Piovra", they are in a strange symbiosis. Their rival is "the web" that has neither head nor tail, and is everywhere. The question of the justification and futility of the effort arises by itself. You can cut off a tentacle from an octopus, but nothing changes. Removing one means that two more have slipped under your radar. That's why the criticism I've had the opportunity to hear, as this season doesn't have a clear antagonist, doesn't hold up. The antagonist is clear if one wants to recognize it. The pamphlet read to us in the tenth episode also suggests this. After three seasons, the question "has anything changed" is completely justified. If we ask ourselves whether everything is really like that and whether everything was in vain, I am afraid that we - like Lucija - will have to go to a psychiatrist.

This season, Dragan Despot was joined by Danko Ljuština and Slavko Štimac - the dream team of Croatian acting. It was wonderful to see the three of them complementing each other as Lucija's support and - each for his own reason - trying to find a way to get rid of the past. Kosta Mandić, as a former UDBA operative, is one of those characters that we could comfortably change a bit so that they would be Number One from Alan Ford comic. The black humor that surrounds the character is one of the most entertaining refreshments of the third season, and his explosive departure that the creators of the series honored us with will remain one of the iconic moments of Croatian television by which we will remember "Rest in Peace". The music of that scene, for which Arsen Dedić was unexpectedly chosen, is a great dedication to one of the greatest Croatian composers. If someone had described the scene to me and said that he had chosen Arsen as the soundtrack, I would have told him that he was crazy and that Mišo Kovač would be more suitable for something like that. The context that accompanies Costa, however, proves me wrong. This "man with an omniscient notebook" was drawn from the Balkan nightmares and the already mentioned Alan Ford comic. It’s a character who deserves his own series, as a spin-off of this one. In the introduction, we could say: “Somewhere there is a nightmare of all those in power. Somewhere where you least expect it, there is a guy who knows everything."

On his return to Croatian screens, Slavko Štimac confirmed that he is a phenomenon. Miki, a boxing coach - who takes on the role of Lucija's conscience/assistant from Miodrag Krivokapić - is a father figure in accordance with all the laws of the genre. The problem I have with this season is in the insufficiently well-developed reactions to Miki's end. Here we come to the point that maybe an episode or two was missing throughout the season. Although Dario Vince and Saša Podgorelec did a great job, I have the impression that the story of killing the "golden youth" could be deepened and elaborated, and that the character of general Koretić (Dejan Aćimović) as a brilliant amalgam of several recognizable phenomena of the Croatian transition could have been better used. It is worth mentioning the memorable Tena Nemet Brankov, as well as the excellent episode by Katarina Strahinić and the breath-taking Inge Appelt. I’m sorry there wasn’t a strong older female character this season. All the female characters are reduced (except Nina Erak who is there to make you laugh and relax) either to characters with trauma or too weak, addicted women. Lucija's mother Katja (Jasna Odorčić) and journalist Zora Agnezi (Jelena Miholjević) are an example of characters who did not overcome their shortcomings from the first season, so I still stand by the fact that the second season benefited from their absence. Refreshment is Lucija's brother Goran (Ivan Ožegović), who is probably the first character in a Croatian feature production to show a person with a disability who is not completely incapable and dependent on someone else's help but has a function and knows what to do with life. While in the first season he only watched pornography and called his mom/sister from the next room, here he is a more independent and realized man. He is not completely without flaws either, but he is a big step in the right direction.

It's time to mention rock band Pips, Chips & Videoclips whose song "K1" has been haunting me for several weeks now, forcing me to think of different possibilities of fictitious and real answers to the question of what it means to "be good in an evil world". The answer to that question is not given to us by the third season of "Rest in Peace", that is, it is not unambiguous. Is it Lucija who sticks her nose in or Lucija who quits from everything to build her own future, leaving it to some new generation to say "Enough!"? This, too, could be the subject of some next Ring Production series if there is interest in it. A series in the same world as "Rest in Peace", with some similar links and references, one of which would be the "Enough!" movement, might make sense. In fact, it would be a shame for this team to stay on this alone. The series "Rest in Peace" paved the way of Croatian TV production for a more demanding audience. Matanić's "Newspaper" also grew on that foundation. We can only hope that "Rest in Peace" will not be a rarity as a series that goes beyond fiction and seeks to educate and bring change.

Something like Kišević's, already mentioned, "point outside the circle".

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