These days, everyone should have an under-the-radar show in her back pocket. Call it the peak TV party trick: Have you heard of Occupied? That’s the Norwegian drama I’ve been obsessed with for the last year and a half. It’s the most high-budget show Norway has ever produced—a near-future geopolitical thriller dreamed up by best-selling crime writer Jo Nesbø—and the third season just launched on Netflix last week. But here’s my real pitch: Occupied is the most relevant thing on TV right now, a hyper-entertaining drama that treats the climate emergency with the seriousness it deserves.

The first episode of the first season, which slipped onto Netflix with little fanfare in 2016, established the premise with stark title cards: The world is gripped by a fuel crisis; war in the Middle East has halted oil production; the U.S. has become energy independent; and the fossil fuel–rich country of Norway has become the critical supplier of energy to the European continent. And yet, the ruling Green party, led by Norway’s charismatic prime minister, Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad), has decided to halt all oil and gas production. Berg aims to avert a global climate catastrophe. By shutting down its oil pipelines Norway will supply energy to its European neighbors solely through cutting-edge thorium nuclear plants.

As a premise it’s both gonzo and plausible (ahem, war in the Middle East?), and kind of hopeful. Imagine a tiny country like Norway acting as the world’s conscience and forcing us toward a more hopeful future. But Occupied is a thriller and not a tract, and over three breakneck seasons, chaos ensues. Russia, Norway’s behemoth neighbor, immediately stages an intervention, kidnapping Berg and forcing him to accept a “partnership” which will keep the oil and gas flowing. This amounts to a soft occupation of Norway by Russian forces. Prime Minister Berg rails against Russian presence and yet he has little choice but to submit to his powerful neighbors, and to the EU, which supports Russia’s move.

Norway is one of those hyper-progressive, enlightened countries that should be free of the world’s social ills—but what unfolds on Occupied is a cheat sheet of all the disquieting trends of our time. First, the country becomes gripped by nativism, with “Free Norway” activists turning on ordinary Russians living within their borders. Then there are escalating acts of domestic terrorism and violence. And by season three, in which climate warriors turn to guerrilla cyber tactics and Free Norway activists commit grotesque acid attacks on accused Russian collaborators, Berg has been transformed from an idealist into a power-mad operator. The brilliance of the show is you never know whom to root for. The stalwart and handsome head of the security services? The crusading Marxist journalist? The steely Russian diplomat who understands realpolitik better than anyone?

Watch Occupied. The most stirring thing about this show, especially in its third season, which is just six brisk episodes (all of them beautifully shot, with panoramic sequences in the Norwegian wilderness and on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard), is its suggestion of just how fragile all of this natural beauty is. I binged this season while keeping up with the horrifying news about the fires in Australia and was reminded that Occupied may be entertainment, but the extreme measures its young eco-activists are fighting for (an entirely renewables-based energy system) no longer seem extreme. This is a show that understands that we are marching toward a tipping point, and by the climactic end of the season a desperate, riven country is demanding that the world change its path at any cost.