More and more series from Central and Eastern Europe reach our Western shores: most of the time it's either Cold War spy thrillers or gritty crime tales. Not all of it is very good or very original, but on the whole I've had a few good surprises. Kruk sets out to do the grimdark cop thriller à la True Detective but went far beyond my expectations. It is certainly dark: an exceptionally twisted plot, a brutal realism with loads of death and maiming, all against the background of child abuse in the Polish Wild-East. But it also builds its characters masterfully so that grit never feels gratuitous or out of place (special mention for Kaponow and the Babushka). To depict trauma, which is central to its central protagonist, it employs a very worn out trope (Slawek) but manages to walk the (very thin) line between grotesque and tragic, using this character to bring rhythm rather than explanatory dialogues. This remarkable characterization, subdued and original, poignant without being melodramatic, is achieved thanks to sparse and tight dialogues, but mostly thanks to an outstanding casts (all of them unknown to me) who have the perfect look and deliver memorable performances.
Review of Raven
