If you movies and shows that are about weird cults (e.g. Midsommar) and mysteries of that type you will likely very much enjoy it. That doesn't change the fact that there is a lot wrong with this show and the end is rather infurating and very bad compared to the rest of the show. People seem to complain how slow the show is, but it is actually packed full of small details and I thought the pasing was pretty good. The mystery slowly unfolds and they do a pretty good job with both giving you hints and keeping you guessing at the same time.
The show's main protagonist is Astrid. She is a child when her 18 year old sister Ida disappears right after graduation. Ida is the second protagonist together with her friend / boyfriend, Jakob. Jakob's friend Falke, who has a crush on Ida. And Amelia, who is Ida's best friend and loves her (it's sorta implied she might even have romantic feelings) but is also jealous of Ida and envies her a lot.
Now I won't recount the entire story, but there were some parts that really annoyed me and made no sense, so I will mainly focus on those.
1. Ida seems very shy at first. She seems to be attracted to Jacob, but also sorta flirts with Falke. They sorta sublty show she isn't very experienced with boys etc. She is depressed and sick and tired of her very controlling and over protective mother. When she and Jakob are sitting at the docks, Jakob kisses her. Then the scene cuts and suddenly we are in her room and they are undressing. After 5 seconds of sex, which seems to be incredibly unsatisfying for Ida, she drops the fact that this was her first time. So .. this shy virgin girl, with a ultra strict, control freak mother, takes a boy home to have sex after he gives her one kiss one the lips. Before that she also says she isn't into Jakob that way, and she doesn't seem to enjoy the sex (can't blame her since it was liteally 5 seconds). After they have sex Jokob even asks her what's up with her and Falke, and she says "I don't know". Like something might be up None of this really makes sense. After that they sort a start dating because "why the hell not"
2. Jakob convinces them to go to some Island because some grimoire he found says there is some ritual there etc. So they go and find this weird cult and decide to join in their weird parade. Before this they threw dice and the grimoire told them their fate. All the outcomes sucked, and for Ida the outcome was being sacrificed. And older cult member picks out a bunch of young girls (if I remember corrrectly Amelia isn't among them) gives them all eggs to hold. When the egg that Ida is holding turns upward they decide she is the Goddess "Ostera".. Now at this point her friends, especially her boyfriend should be trying to stop her or do something, Falke and Amelia try to say something but Ida willingly participates. Despite the whole sacrifice stuff. Jakob does nothing. The old lady breaks the egg, in a bowl. There is some blood in the egg showing that there was a chicken embryo in it's early stages and the egg was fertilized. For some reason Ida drinks the egg as the old lady tells her too.
Then it goes bonkers. They undress Ida and paint her face white, put her in a robe. She tells Falke of all people to disrobe her. Telling him, don't be afraid. Like she knows what she has to do. Which makes no sense. So there she stands, completely naked infront of the entire dancing and chanting cult. They put her on a wooden altar. And this guy with a hare's mask, painted in black comes over. And Ida without anyone saying a word, spread her legs. Meanwhile Jakob is just watching. Now at this point I undestand Jakobs hesistation to say anything. It probably really hurts to see your girlfriend suddenly decide to have sex with some randon cult member infront of countless strangers. But why didn't he do something before? Why didn't he try to stop it? Later we find out that he might have know what was going to happen, which means he used Ida. But that also doesn't make sense, but I'll come back to that later.
So ida spreads her legs, this guy penetrates her. And moments later, she hallucinates seeing him as this hare demon/god. Instead of freaking out, she pulls him towards herself, turns around and lays the guy down on the altar and sits on him. She then screams while having sex. It think it's supposed to show how much she enjoys it, but the scream sounds like she is in pain. Eventhough she is the one riding him and a willing participant
3. Back at school, none of her friends will talk to her. Amelia treats her like dirt. Falke doesn't talk with her. And Jakob is furious and won't talk to her. So this is the part that doesn't make sense. If Jakob knew what was going to happen, why is he angry? He literally brought her there for that, he caused what happened, his book supposedly described it all. So I guess he didn't know the full extend of what was going to happen and is hurt his girlfriend had exibitionist sex wiith a cult member (and seemed to enjoy it a thousand times more than when they had sex as an insult to injury). I get that Ida is confused about how Amelia is treating her. But she seems super surprised that Jakob is mad at her for cheating on him, infront of him. And in like the most messed up way.
4. The moment Astrid went to the teacher, it became clear he was the creature / one that has sex with Ida and that he had something to do with it all. I do think this was cleverly done. Astrid goes there accusing him of doing something to the students and her sister, he gets angry and denies it. Then she suddenly calms down and believes him. They have something to drink and he and his wife (not sure what the deal is with her) ask her to stay the night. She weirdly accepts. That night she has a weird erotic dream about this teacher guy with the weird orange fog etc. Up until this point in the show she only had these dreams when she was a little girl and they were never erotic. The fact that the dreams are suddenly back and about this guy, made it clear something was going on.
5. We find out that her mother was desperate to have children. That she asked the demon for a baby and promised to give her child to him when she turned 18. That is an absolutely horrible deal. I mean if she believed he could make her pregnant, why would she believe he wouldn't come back for her? This guy seems to not take no for an answer. So how come she was able to change the terms of the deal to allow her to keep Ida but in turn give the demon Ida's child, a child that the demon would impregnate her with?
Also, I don't think they ever make clear where Astrid comes from. And since Ida is from the deamon, and astrid was a "gift" that they got when she was 2 weeks old, how come the father is oblivious to this all. He also tells Astrid the story of Ostara while she is at the psychatric hospital, but later the show acts like he doesn't know any of that stuff.
5. At the end, Astrid find out that the demon took her sister and all her class mates as revenge for Ida aborting her child. It's made clear to Astrid that he will also try to take her. And what does she do? She goes to the Island on the same day that she is to be sacrificed. We don't see her having intercourse etc. She just immediately starts halucinating and sees her sister who happily leads her to the deamon. "and they live happily ever after"... WHAT??
We then see the demon has let all the other students go ... ?? None of this nonsense makes sense. She willingly sacrifices her self to be with her sister. She doesn't even know if he will let the others go. But she has a child and a seemingly loving and patient ex husband that she is leaving behind. It's an extremely selfish "selfless" act.
The demon is obviously a bad guy. He manipulates his students, curses them, impregnantes them so he can steal their kids and puts them in a psychopathic fog prison. He took the life's of 20 students and Ida because she aborted his child. But the ending sort pretends like this is a good ending. Both Ida and Astrid are "sister wife's" of a weird ancient demon/creature. Astrid's kid is without a mother. The student's that have returned have lost 21 years of their life! (they have also come back as older versions of themselves it seems, even then, they lost 21 years. Life has moved on without them and they were in a super scary place. As Torben the driver explains it, you're in a sort od solitary confinement. Those students must have all gotten mad!). Also why would he let them go since now there are 21 people who will tell this story. No one will believe them probably, but some people will. They have suddenly returned with their graduationg clothes and hats. Also, Torben or whaever the driver's name is explains a lot of what happened. Instead of asking about Ida etc and the millions of other questions she can ask she just leaves??
Anyway, it's hard to believe that Astrid would do this to her child, Especially with how her "mother" treated her and abandoned her. She also is furious with her father instead of asking him more questions she just accuses him of being just as bad as her mother. She is angry with her husband who seems to want what's best for her and has waited for her no matter what. Giving her another chance, something she asked for after she found out he was seeing a new woman. Astrid is a terrible person. Ida makes no sense. And the end is creepy, horrible and nonsensical .
If the writers wanted to make a FU, take it or leave it type bad ending. Fine. Sometimes a bad ending is the good one. But why the hell is it framed as if this is a good ending. How do we even know that the Ida Astrid sees is real and not some phantom that the creature is showing her to convince her to walk into the water?
Anyway.. the show was pretty good, there was a lot of frustrating parts where characters did nonsensical stuff and the end is not only bad. It just doens't make sense. They should have just made it a bad ending instead
The show's main protagonist is Astrid. She is a child when her 18 year old sister Ida disappears right after graduation. Ida is the second protagonist together with her friend / boyfriend, Jakob. Jakob's friend Falke, who has a crush on Ida. And Amelia, who is Ida's best friend and loves her (it's sorta implied she might even have romantic feelings) but is also jealous of Ida and envies her a lot.
Now I won't recount the entire story, but there were some parts that really annoyed me and made no sense, so I will mainly focus on those.
1. Ida seems very shy at first. She seems to be attracted to Jacob, but also sorta flirts with Falke. They sorta sublty show she isn't very experienced with boys etc. She is depressed and sick and tired of her very controlling and over protective mother. When she and Jakob are sitting at the docks, Jakob kisses her. Then the scene cuts and suddenly we are in her room and they are undressing. After 5 seconds of sex, which seems to be incredibly unsatisfying for Ida, she drops the fact that this was her first time. So .. this shy virgin girl, with a ultra strict, control freak mother, takes a boy home to have sex after he gives her one kiss one the lips. Before that she also says she isn't into Jakob that way, and she doesn't seem to enjoy the sex (can't blame her since it was liteally 5 seconds). After they have sex Jokob even asks her what's up with her and Falke, and she says "I don't know". Like something might be up None of this really makes sense. After that they sort a start dating because "why the hell not"
2. Jakob convinces them to go to some Island because some grimoire he found says there is some ritual there etc. So they go and find this weird cult and decide to join in their weird parade. Before this they threw dice and the grimoire told them their fate. All the outcomes sucked, and for Ida the outcome was being sacrificed. And older cult member picks out a bunch of young girls (if I remember corrrectly Amelia isn't among them) gives them all eggs to hold. When the egg that Ida is holding turns upward they decide she is the Goddess "Ostera".. Now at this point her friends, especially her boyfriend should be trying to stop her or do something, Falke and Amelia try to say something but Ida willingly participates. Despite the whole sacrifice stuff. Jakob does nothing. The old lady breaks the egg, in a bowl. There is some blood in the egg showing that there was a chicken embryo in it's early stages and the egg was fertilized. For some reason Ida drinks the egg as the old lady tells her too.
Then it goes bonkers. They undress Ida and paint her face white, put her in a robe. She tells Falke of all people to disrobe her. Telling him, don't be afraid. Like she knows what she has to do. Which makes no sense. So there she stands, completely naked infront of the entire dancing and chanting cult. They put her on a wooden altar. And this guy with a hare's mask, painted in black comes over. And Ida without anyone saying a word, spread her legs. Meanwhile Jakob is just watching. Now at this point I undestand Jakobs hesistation to say anything. It probably really hurts to see your girlfriend suddenly decide to have sex with some randon cult member infront of countless strangers. But why didn't he do something before? Why didn't he try to stop it? Later we find out that he might have know what was going to happen, which means he used Ida. But that also doesn't make sense, but I'll come back to that later.
So ida spreads her legs, this guy penetrates her. And moments later, she hallucinates seeing him as this hare demon/god. Instead of freaking out, she pulls him towards herself, turns around and lays the guy down on the altar and sits on him. She then screams while having sex. It think it's supposed to show how much she enjoys it, but the scream sounds like she is in pain. Eventhough she is the one riding him and a willing participant
3. Back at school, none of her friends will talk to her. Amelia treats her like dirt. Falke doesn't talk with her. And Jakob is furious and won't talk to her. So this is the part that doesn't make sense. If Jakob knew what was going to happen, why is he angry? He literally brought her there for that, he caused what happened, his book supposedly described it all. So I guess he didn't know the full extend of what was going to happen and is hurt his girlfriend had exibitionist sex wiith a cult member (and seemed to enjoy it a thousand times more than when they had sex as an insult to injury). I get that Ida is confused about how Amelia is treating her. But she seems super surprised that Jakob is mad at her for cheating on him, infront of him. And in like the most messed up way.
4. The moment Astrid went to the teacher, it became clear he was the creature / one that has sex with Ida and that he had something to do with it all. I do think this was cleverly done. Astrid goes there accusing him of doing something to the students and her sister, he gets angry and denies it. Then she suddenly calms down and believes him. They have something to drink and he and his wife (not sure what the deal is with her) ask her to stay the night. She weirdly accepts. That night she has a weird erotic dream about this teacher guy with the weird orange fog etc. Up until this point in the show she only had these dreams when she was a little girl and they were never erotic. The fact that the dreams are suddenly back and about this guy, made it clear something was going on.
5. We find out that her mother was desperate to have children. That she asked the demon for a baby and promised to give her child to him when she turned 18. That is an absolutely horrible deal. I mean if she believed he could make her pregnant, why would she believe he wouldn't come back for her? This guy seems to not take no for an answer. So how come she was able to change the terms of the deal to allow her to keep Ida but in turn give the demon Ida's child, a child that the demon would impregnate her with?
Also, I don't think they ever make clear where Astrid comes from. And since Ida is from the deamon, and astrid was a "gift" that they got when she was 2 weeks old, how come the father is oblivious to this all. He also tells Astrid the story of Ostara while she is at the psychatric hospital, but later the show acts like he doesn't know any of that stuff.
5. At the end, Astrid find out that the demon took her sister and all her class mates as revenge for Ida aborting her child. It's made clear to Astrid that he will also try to take her. And what does she do? She goes to the Island on the same day that she is to be sacrificed. We don't see her having intercourse etc. She just immediately starts halucinating and sees her sister who happily leads her to the deamon. "and they live happily ever after"... WHAT??
We then see the demon has let all the other students go ... ?? None of this nonsense makes sense. She willingly sacrifices her self to be with her sister. She doesn't even know if he will let the others go. But she has a child and a seemingly loving and patient ex husband that she is leaving behind. It's an extremely selfish "selfless" act.
The demon is obviously a bad guy. He manipulates his students, curses them, impregnantes them so he can steal their kids and puts them in a psychopathic fog prison. He took the life's of 20 students and Ida because she aborted his child. But the ending sort pretends like this is a good ending. Both Ida and Astrid are "sister wife's" of a weird ancient demon/creature. Astrid's kid is without a mother. The student's that have returned have lost 21 years of their life! (they have also come back as older versions of themselves it seems, even then, they lost 21 years. Life has moved on without them and they were in a super scary place. As Torben the driver explains it, you're in a sort od solitary confinement. Those students must have all gotten mad!). Also why would he let them go since now there are 21 people who will tell this story. No one will believe them probably, but some people will. They have suddenly returned with their graduationg clothes and hats. Also, Torben or whaever the driver's name is explains a lot of what happened. Instead of asking about Ida etc and the millions of other questions she can ask she just leaves??
Anyway, it's hard to believe that Astrid would do this to her child, Especially with how her "mother" treated her and abandoned her. She also is furious with her father instead of asking him more questions she just accuses him of being just as bad as her mother. She is angry with her husband who seems to want what's best for her and has waited for her no matter what. Giving her another chance, something she asked for after she found out he was seeing a new woman. Astrid is a terrible person. Ida makes no sense. And the end is creepy, horrible and nonsensical .
If the writers wanted to make a FU, take it or leave it type bad ending. Fine. Sometimes a bad ending is the good one. But why the hell is it framed as if this is a good ending. How do we even know that the Ida Astrid sees is real and not some phantom that the creature is showing her to convince her to walk into the water?
Anyway.. the show was pretty good, there was a lot of frustrating parts where characters did nonsensical stuff and the end is not only bad. It just doens't make sense. They should have just made it a bad ending instead