Where will Lucija Car character go after this exhausting and emotional season finale? Where will the story go in the third season? Is season three even possible? These are questions that are not easy to answer.
"Wire in the Blood", "Forbrydelsen", "Engrenages", "Luther", "Salamander", "Bron/Broen", "Line of Duty", "The Shadow Line"... A string of series that "Rest in peace" successfully continues.
After the season two finale, I have to say that the comparison is by no means exaggerated, and also look at possible further perspectives in the development of the series itself as well as the character of Lucija Car. Lucija threatens to become something like Harry Hole, Hieronymus Bosch and Sara Lund in one, but while they are all primarily detectives Lucia cannot escape her journalistic background. At times she reminds of Annika Bengtzon, also a reporter from the Swedish author Lisa Marklund, and at times she is so close to the Croatian reality that Sweden remains (like for many Croatian emigrants) only a utopian ideal from the pages of the sales catalog. It is difficult to play that combination well, and the authors of the second season of "Rest in Peace" achieved the most they could, in my opinion, within the budget. "Rest in Peace" is the first Croatian series in which we could see a double ending, the first series in which parallel stories were expertly unraveled, but also the first series in which (in a production-demanding way) an effective ending was shown with some things unexplained. In the perspective of a possible third season, I can only say that the right move has been made.
Where will Lucija Car character go after this exhausting and emotional season finale? Where will the story go in the third season? Is season three even possible? These are questions that are not easy to answer.
Nikica Gilić once said that the purpose of public television is to ensure a quality program. Public television, unlike commercial television, should provide its subscribers with a program worth their TV subscription, and HRT has avoided doing so for years. It is clear that due to the limitations we live in, BBC quality production cannot be expected, but it is good to know that a top-notch screenplay, choosing life instead of polished topics, and a more ambitious (not to say more intelligent) approach can make a product as good as those listed above. "Rest in Peace" is in that sense a truly pioneering series. We can look at the first season as a kind of procedural test balloon. Each episode had its own story, loosely connected by the background action. That background action came to the fore this season, and the series itself underwent a transformation on several levels. The effectiveness of the second season, and especially its ending, can be seen in the closing scene of the final episode. Lucija, surrounded by ghosts of the Globin (but also her own) past, realizes all the sinisterness of that statement from the season's teaser: "In order for the dead to rest in peace, the living must pay a high price." The price Lucija paid (and still pays) is the price of her mistakes and estimates that allowed the situation to escalate. This escalation, however, could be sensed at the end of the penultimate episode because, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
It is precisely in this segment, that the evolution of the series gains its full momentum. In this format, it seeks the viewer's participation, seeks constant attention, and insists on speculation about the final outcome. Such a format is something that the Croatian audience is not used to from domestic production and is so different from the first season that it is not surprising that critics said that the first season was "more understandable." Certainly, the first season was a warm-up for such an intriguing format of season two, but it should be noted that in this format, the interaction of the quality of the creators of the series and the TV company itself is required. In this format, the series deserves several reruns during the broadcast. In some future pay-per-view service, "Rest in Peace" could become a real hit because the series, as written in the second season, was created for such viewing.
Critics of the series have varied throughout the season. From those according to the dialect I referred to in the previous text, to the appearance of celebrities (Gustafi, Alen Vitasović) and the "illogical" behavior of the heroes in their presence to the origin of some folk songs performed by the group "Veja". Haters will hate, the proverb says. Criticizing Lucy’s drunken behavior in the first episode is only possible if you’ve never seen a drunk person with psychological trauma and if you’re looking for something worth criticizing with a magnifying glass. As for the origin of folk songs, oral literature has one specificity. Namely, it is recorded and spread by transmission. It is very possible that someone on the trip heard, recorded, and brought the song to Istria, and a motif that is not specific to the environment remained (gendarmes slaughter women in the song "Anka"). Sometimes it is necessary to know the nature of the media being criticized before criticizing. Since these are the only objections I had the opportunity to hear during the broadcast, I will conclude that "Rest in Peace" successfully transformed the series from a procedural format into a more detailed and extensive one, where the choice of Istria as a location is truly commendable.
Further elaboration of the theme of the series was seen in the excellent dynamics of the relationship between Lucija Car and Mate Šušnjara. The already mentioned big plus in the acting of Dragan Despot (who, in accordance with his last name, resembles Stalin in some shots) was even bigger as the season drew to a close. The dynamics of these two actors are especially strong in the series itself, and until the very end of the series, the actors kept only two (somewhat) weak points. Despite the improvement, Anja Šovagović Despot did not fully adapt to the series, nor was she too convincing in the key moments of the ninth episode, and Jelena Miholjević as Zora Agnezi remained just as pale as in the first season. We recently had the opportunity to watch her in the series "Black-White World" and I find it hard to get the impression that she actually acted in the same way in two completely different series, with a different approach and theme. Luckily, her role this season is secondary and she didn't get the space as she did before. The appearance of Lucija's brother, whose character was unconvincing and problematic in the first season, is also commendable. Here we see him older and older, but still with an emphasis on the disability complex which, given the potential of the character in the main plot, should not remain his main feature. It would be interesting to see him as a counterweight to Lucia's mental disorder in the third season, but also as a possible source of motivation for the expected depressive black hole she could fall into after the tenth episode. Ines Polić emphasized the possibility of Lucija's mental decline, and a very emotional scene in which both Nina Violić and Judita Franković excelled could resonate strongly in the third season. Here I see the strong role of Lucija’s brother, as I am still waiting to see in the feature series a person with a disability who will turn his disability into an advantage.
The tenth and final episode of the series deserves a special passage in the text. Production-wise, probably the most demanding episode of the season brought Lucija Car to the threshold of facing truths that she did not want to know, but also forced her to face herself. The relationship between her and Šušnjara culminated in that episode and it was completely clear that these two characters closed the circle started by the prison scene in the fourth episode. As much as it was disastrous for Lucija's self-confidence, it is clear how Mate Šušnjara respects her, but also that the two characters are not so different as could be concluded at the very beginning of the first season.
Goran Dukić is certainly the winner of the series, he gave it a darker and more human tone, so the scenes (so far avoided due to public morals) seemed closer to real life than the theatricality we are used to. "Rest in Peace" is, as the name suggests, quite a down-to-earth series. A series in which blood on asphalt is nothing new or unusual. A series in which nothing is a taboo topic. I will emphasize once again that I hope that it will be just the beginning of some new winds in domestic TV production and that the forced and theatrical sitcoms will really "rest in peace". There is a breath of optimism after these two months in these waters and I must say that after a long time I am looking forward to the waves that could rise after the broadcast of two demanding domestic projects on national television.
It would be a shame to ignore them and get back to that toadstool when the horizon towards which we can sail finally opens up. I hope for the third season of the series "Rest in Peace", just as I hope that the plot could move to the often neglected Gorski Kotar, which also has its own stories and legends such as "Demon of Gorski Kotar Forests". You will forgive me for this outpouring of local patriotism, everyone has the right to at least a drop. The third season opens new vistas and has completely different potentials. I hope it doesn’t cross roads with some smartass to postpone it out of his own complex or helplessness.
Let Lucija Car rest a little. What she experienced is not easy. I rely on her to tell us new "untold stories", just the kind that everyone likes to keep quiet about.