Subtext: Eskild talks from experience here, it’s not just empty words, he’s suffered through heartbreak before, and he’s being the best possible surrogate older brother right now.



Cinematography: Normally the show displays text messages the moment they are received, and we get to read the message along with the character. But here, the show purposefully delays the contents of the text message so that we focus on Isak’s expression instead. We see him reading it, he starts to smile while tearing up, so we know whatever is in that message is good, but we don’t know who it’s from. Is it Even? What did Even say? And then the show displays the text message, and we finally get to see that it is from mom, and that it contains unconditional love.



Blink and you miss it: Jonas and Mahdi are talking about Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, because Dennis Rodman’s visits to North Korea made the headlines around this time in 2016.



Blink and you miss it: It’s almost imperceptible, but Isak dares to smile a little bit after what Magnus told him. He dares to hope that his relationship with Even can be salvaged.

Culture: Isak is wearing a T-shirt with the painting The Scream by famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, which is a well-known symbol of anxiety, something Isak is full of at this moment.



Culture: The neon cross in the church is a direct homage to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, in which Romeo walks towards the altar where Juliet lies paralyzed, and to their deaths. But here, Isak walks away from the altar, walks away from that fate.



Lost in translation: Isak mouths “Det går bra” to his mom - “I’m doing ok”.



Subtext: The first time Isak reads the text from Even, he’s preoccupied with just having met his parents for the first time in a long while, so he just skims it, and focuses on the “Love you” at the end. Only by being moved by the music, and by remembering what he read on Wikipedia about bipolar disorder, does he realize that Even actually wrote a suicide note.



Subtext: Since Even wrote that he is where he first met Isak, we get flashbacks showing their relationship backwards, as Isak is going through his memories, trying to remember where they first met. He first thinks it’s the bench where they talked at the end of episode 1, which is why he’s staring at it, defeated. But then he remembers that that’s not actually the place they first met, and we get a flashback to their actual first scene, a bathroom at school, so he turns to enter the school, just as Even exits.

Lost in translation: Nils Bech is singing O Helga Natt, the Swedish version of the French Christmas song Minuit, Chrétiens. In English, this song is known as Oh Holy Night, but this Swedish version has lyrics that are much closer to the French original than the English version. And these lyrics match what’s happening on screen, because of course they do, because Julie Andem is a freaking genius.



Oh Holy Night, oh holy moment for the world.

When the son of God went down to earth.

In order to reconcile the worlds crimes and sins,

for us he suffered the pain of death.

And the ray of hope passes through the world.

And the light is shimmering over land and sea.



People, fall to your knees, and happily greet your freedom.

Oh holy night, our salvation you gave.

Oh holy night, our salvation you gave.



Because the saviour crushed our heavy burdens,

our earth is free, heaven is open now.

In your slave, you see a beloved brother.

And see, your enemy will become dear to you.

From heaven the saviour brought us peace.

For us he went down in his silent grave



People, fall to your knees, and happily greet your freedom.

Oh holy night, our salvation you gave.

Oh holy night, our salvation you gave.

Cinematography: Wide shots like this can be used to show how small and alone a person is. And they are small, the world is scary, the future is scary. But they’re not alone, they have each other now. ❤️

