The Chestnut Man · Season 1 · Netflix
The Chestnut Man Season 1
The Chestnut Man Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 8.5/10. 6 episodes on Netflix from 29 September 2021.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Season 1 of The Chestnut Man arrived on Netflix in September 2021 and earned a perfect 100-percent Rotten Tomatoes score from nine reviewers - a small but unanimously enthusiastic critical sample that validated what Nordic noir devotees already knew: Soren Sveistrup, creator of The Killing, writes procedurals with an architectural precision most crime writers cannot match. The six-episode structure suits the material well; there is no fat. Danica Curcic as detective Thulin is a compelling lead - methodical without being cold, human without being sentimental - and the tonal blend of domestic realism and procedural dread lands exactly where Scandinavian crime operates best. The linking device, chestnut dolls with fingerprints tied to a missing child's case, is genuinely unsettling. Critics and the 83-percent audience score on RT both agree: this is premium Nordic noir.
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The Room
“The Chestnut Man is a great reminder that the Scandinavians still do this stuff better than anyone.”
The Post (New Zealand)“An excellent example of Nordic noir that you cannot miss.”
Fotogramas
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Episode 18.2
The premiere delivers the series in miniature - a murder scene, a chestnut figure, a bureaucratic detective paired with a reluctant partner. Sveistrup's script withholds just enough to keep the mystery functional while establishing the domestic stakes that separate this from procedural-by-numbers.
The moment: The forensic detail on the first chestnut doll - and what it implies about the killer's knowledge - makes the threat feel intimate rather than theatrical.
“It might feel like a premise you've encountered before, but in the way Scandi-noir works, it is anchored as much in domesticity as in crime fighting.” - Globe and Mail
- E6Episode 68.8
The finale pulls together threads that seemed structurally decorative in earlier episodes and reveals them as load-bearing. The emotional cost of the resolution is handled with restraint rather than manipulation - a mark of the source material's quality.
The moment: The revelation connecting the chestnut dolls to the 1987 case reframes every preceding scene in a single sequence.