Young Wallander Season 1, Episode 2 recap: Clues lead to a smuggler & a night club

Young Wallander Episode 2 recap: Kurt and Reza land in the hospital.

Straight from the bowels of whatever sewer it was where he got stabbed in, Kurt awakens in a hospital at the start of Young Wallander Episode 2. As all these detectives tend to do on television, he waltzes out of his room without his doctor’s approval.

Reza isn’t as lucky. In the middle of contacting Hemberg to tell him that he saw the hooded suspect again, he sees Jasmine desperately trying to find her husband. He’s in the ICU, and Kurt admits they were separated, he leaves out the part where he chased after a suspect and left Reza behind as he pleaded for help.

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Compounded by the guilt of letting the suspect get away and inadvertently landing Reza in intensive care, Kurt tries to recuse himself from the case. Hemberg thinks Kurt is too valuable of an asset to see him go.

Remaining on an investigation after being attacked by a suspect is against the law, but Hemberg encourages Kurt to lie to the internal investigators, so he does, sending them on a hunt for a man who doesn’t exist.

As for the real suspect, Hemberg advises Kurt to return to the spot where the incident happened to see if he can remember from where he appeared.

Young Wallander Episode 2 recap: Kurt returns to the church.

In the church, he encounters Mona (Ellise Chappell), the woman who called him a fascist pig at the protest. It’s a somewhat awkward introduction, as you can imagine. Mona isn’t enthused by the idea of a cop poking around and potentially insinuating the refuges did anything wrong.

His description of the suspect also isn’t incredibly helpful. Before he can leave, his wound opens, and Mona notices the blood. She helps patch him up, it looks like his wound could be infected, but Kurt doesn’t seem phased. Kurt tells her she can contact him anytime, for anything.

Next for Kurt is trying to persuade Ibra to open up. He conveys to him the seriousness of his arrest, and even if he isn’t charged at trial, no soccer team is going to want him. To salvage his future, he needs to give them something real and concrete to explain his connection to Hugo.

At his apartment, Kurt is spat at and receives jeers walking to his apartment. Revealing he was a cop at the Hugo incident hasn’t endeared him to many. And inside, everything is tainted by that night; the haunting endures and keeps him up late into the evening pouring over files and evidence.

Young Wallander Episode 2 recap: Kurt & Hemberg find a new lead.

Tagging along with Hemberg as an official part of the investigation, the older detective reveals his theory that Hugo’s mother, Birgitta (Lucy Akhurst) has been evasive and knows something more than she’s admitting. Rickard Lundgreen (Richard Clothier) is not thrilled to have the detectives snooping around again.

“You seem to forget that we’re the victims.”

The question as yet unanswered is how Hugo wound up tied to the fence when there is no sign of abduction. If he wandered there of his own accord, why? Did someone lure him to the spot? While Rickard claims his son was all but perfect, top grades, always home on time, etc.

His mother finally confesses to Hemberg that Hugo snuck out at nights and points them in the direction of his friend Isak for more info. Isak then directs them to a nightclub called The Cube, where the two spent the night before his death.

“He liked to disappear into that place,” says Isak.

At the hospital, Kurt visits Reza and quietly pleads with him to wake up. Jasmine confronts Kurt over the report, which says Reza is hurt because he left. It’s a painful moment, as Jasmine tells him she can’t even bear to look at him. She does do him one favor, though, translating the  phrase the suspect said to Kurt when he cornered him: “I didn’t have a choice.”

Returning to the precinct later, Kurt has learned Ibra listed his mother as an alibi, that’s why she has to be interviewed again. Rask thinks she’s done Kurt a favor by not telling him, accusing him of having a serious conflict of interest that could lead to him getting fired.

Ibra told investigators that he slept through the night until his mother roused him when the fire alarms went off. Mariam must confirm or deny this statement. Sobbing, she admits that, no, that did not happen, meaning Ibra gave a false alibi. It could be enough for the prosecution to charge him.

Young Wallander Episode 2 recap: The investigation leads to a notable smuggler.

However, all hope for Ibra’s freedom might not be lost. Hemberg and Kurt get a valuable tip from the Commissioner, who reveals the forensics report on the grenade tipped off an investigation into a notorious smuggler. A shipment they thought wasn’t real may very well have been; it seems they got the wrong ship, but the right weapons. Even worse, another load is reportedly due with a metric ton of C-4, all going to a man that likes putting explosives in peoples’ mouths.

Eman ‘Dodo’ Dodovich, a former Bosnian soldier who runs a robust cocaine business in connection with the cartels, is the man running the smuggling route. Hemberg tasks Rask with pulling every C.I. to see if any of them know who picked up the dock shipment.

Meanwhile, Hemberg and Kurt  show up at a seedy bar doused in neon to “ruffle Dodo’s feathers.” At the entrance, Hemberg receives Hugo’s toxicology report. He had a knockout dose of GHB in his system and ketamine. If he bought the ketamine at the club to use recreationally, the dealer would be one of the last to see him alive.

Young Wallander Episode 2 recap: Kurt visits The Cube.

Following his new assignment to visit The Cube and scout for dealers, Kurt seems to be entirely out of his element in the colorful, flashy club filled with scantily-clad gyrating dancers. He finds one potential dealer and awkwardly asks for some K or GHB, but the guy turns him down.

In the trippy, somewhat sinister halls of The Cube, Kurt notices Bash and, after a tense conversation, seems to convince Bash to tell the police where Ibra really was the night before Hugo’s murder. As his best lookout boy, Ibra is maintaining his loyalty to Bash when the truth could set him free.

As Kurt tries to leave, he’s confronted by the guy he thought was a dealer before.

“Excuse me, Kurt is it?” he asks.

Once Kurt confirms his identity, the guy sucker punches him in the stomach. Another episode ends with Kurt worse for the wear.

What did you think of Young Wallander Episode 2? The entire first season is streaming on Netflix.