SERIES REVIEW – Breakthrough, a gripping Netflix crime series based on true events, unravels the mystery of a brutal double murder that remained unsolved for 16 agonizing years. The series meticulously portrays the labyrinthine investigation, the heartbreaking grief of the victims’ families, and the soul-crushing impact of time’s relentless passage. While it may not be as fast-paced as a typical thriller, Breakthrough nevertheless offers a captivating and thought-provoking journey for the viewer.

It wouldn’t be accurate to label Breakthrough a thriller, as it largely avoids the genre’s classic, spine-tingling tropes. But it doesn’t need them. Lisa Siwe’s four-part drama meticulously reconstructs a double homicide that took 16 years to solve. It’s also a story about inertia, about the feeling of banging your head against a wall in frustration.

Is this a bad thing? It depends. Those expecting a twisty, suspenseful crime drama filled with cheap thrills will be disappointed. Breakthrough is not that kind of show, nor does it aspire to be. Oskar Soderlund’s script patiently lays bare the anatomy of two senseless killings, the arduous investigation that followed, the harrowing decade and a half during which the police were stuck in a rut, and then the sudden advancements in DNA research and genealogical modeling that finally led authorities to the killer a decade and a half after the crime, culminating in a rather anticlimactic resolution.

Great character arcs

One could quip, once again employing a well-worn cliché, that here the journey is more important than the destination. And this journey takes on a profoundly human dimension, thanks to the creators’ decision to focus the camera on those key figures who are personally and deeply affected by the murders and the course of the investigation. This is what Breakthrough is really about: not the crime itself, not the investigation or its outcome, but the lives that were forever altered by violence, grief, and all-consuming obsession until justice finally caught up with the perpetrator.

The series draws inspiration from a real-life case, the brutal slaying of Mohammed Ammouri and Anna-Lena Svensson, which to this day remains the second most extensive investigation in the history of Swedish crime, and the first to be solved using ancestral DNA research, also known as genealogical DNA analysis. The case was documented in Anna Bodin and Peter Sjolund’s non-fiction book, Breakthrough, and Siwe’s series builds upon this work, though the creators have changed the names and some details. It’s a fictionalized narrative, draped in a dramatic cloak, telling a harrowing true story.

In the series’ adaptation, the victims are Adnan (Marley Norstad), an eight-year-old boy, and Gunnila (Anna Azcárate), a 56-year-old woman who, demonstrating remarkable presence of mind, tried to intervene when she witnessed the boy being stabbed to death with brutal cruelty on a street in Linköping, Sweden. Both succumbed to their injuries. A witness, Karin (Annika Hallin), stared the killer down from across the street, but the man strangely spared her, while the woman’s memories were blurred by shock and trauma.

Obsession and Hope

John (Peter Eggers – Snabba Cash), the lead investigator, quickly becomes obsessed with the case, which negatively impacts his relationship with his pregnant wife, Anna (Emelie Falk), and later with their young son, Henry (Fabian Penje), as the years pass without a breakthrough. The case only regains momentum when genealogist Per (Mattias Nordkvist) joins the investigation, using his revolutionary method of DNA analysis based on genealogy, or ancestral research, to help unravel promising leads from long-forgotten details.

Due to the specially structured, time-hopping narrative, the structure of Breakthrough is also unconventional. The story begins with the crime and its immediate aftermath, then jumps forward 16 years at the halfway point. In the second act, they try to apprehend the killer using Per’s method, despite numerous obstacles such as data protection laws, constantly shifting departmental priorities, and the increasingly hopeless mirage that the perpetrator will ever be found. All of this is conveyed not only through John’s increasingly distant relationship with his son, or the increasingly frequent, pitying remarks of colleagues – who keep urging him to let go of the case and move on – but also through the portrayal of the fates of Adnan’s parents, Elena (Helen Al-Janabi) and Saad (Bahador Foladi), his sister, Maya (Pevin Hannah Namek Sali), and Gunilla’s widowed husband, Kjell (Per Burell).

Not deep enough

A more thorough exploration of the passage of time and the personal damage it caused would have added greater depth to the story. However, Breakthrough consists of four episodes, each approximately 40 minutes long, leaving the series with limited time to unpack both the complexity of Per’s work and the inner worlds of the characters involved. Still, it is interesting to see how the story subverts genre norms. The new leads that end in dead ends are not sensationalist misdirections but depict the struggles of the investigation. The perpetrator’s identity is not someone we think we’ve known all along, but a lonely, insignificant figure – perfectly fitting the quiet, yet painful conclusion of the story. The connection between the killer and a known character turns out to be merely a random DNA-level kinship, reinforcing Per’s principle: we are all, in some way, connected.

Yet, it was only in the final episode that I realized how deeply Breakthrough had affected me. This episode contains all the dramatic closures, but it is just as restrained as the rest of the series. There are no bombastic, award-baiting performances or emotional breakdowns, only sincere, quiet moments. These scenes, which speak of closure, shared moments of understanding, and the partial lifting of long-carried burdens, are truly moving. Strangely enough, it is the simple, restrained presentation that makes these scenes so effective. Breakthrough is not bombastic, not spectacular, but if we allow it to unfold at its own pace, it deeply touches its viewers.

-Gergely Herpai „BadSector”-