This tale of a Russian (pop 143 million) occupation of Norway (pop 5 million) on behalf of the EU is fascinating and very well done, but politically bizarre.
The Russians at first seem right to protest the fundamental premise makes no sense and panders to lingering fears and ongoing demonization associated with Russia's status as an ex-enemy and the greatest power outside and at least potentially opposed to NATO, the EU, and the Occident altogether.
Par Buchanan, Donald Trump, the allied American paleocon and anti-NATO Russophiles, and European rightists of similar ilk, all of whom complain that Russia is not today the menacing bear it is painted to be by neocons and others who cannot get used to the idea that the Cold War is over, seem vindicated.
But then come the second thoughts.
The velvet glove is phony from the first episode, and the situation just goes from bad to worse for the whole length of the series, which has no happy ending.
The lies, hard choices, and grim surrenders forced upon free peoples by tyrannical occupiers, as well as the ambiguities of both resistance and resistance to resistance, are brought to the fore.
In the end, by means comparatively subtle and not at all ham-fisted, the show forces viewers to consider as like cases Russia in Norway, Russia in Chechnya, Russia in Ukraine, and to think again about Poland, the very nervous Baltics, and other states that became independent when the Soviet empire collapsed.
It's all set going by the Norwegian PM's vision of himself, his party, and his country acting out a mission to save the world from itself by making Europe "go cold turkey," immediately ending all use of fossil fuels for any purpose - a move that precipitates the crisis.
The series was Jo Nesbø's idea, and you have to wonder about his politics.
Fascinating and well done.
Okkupert on Wikipedia.
Oh, and it is amusing that Free Norway sees the PM's crime as his acceptance of occupation without lifting a finger to oppose it while his own party is angry at him, not for that, but for betraying the eco-cause and allowing the Russians, acting for Europe, to restart oil and gas production.
Decades ago, way before they invented the global warming scare, the eco-left was already demanding we immediately abandon fossil fuels and just "leave it in the ground."
Portraying desperate people who conceive themselves as planet-saviors as willing to adopt the measures of this PM does not seem too much of a stretch.
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