Summary
“The Meelika” deepens the connection between the victims as another is claimed, and Karppi becomes even more personally involved.
This recap of Deadwind season 2, episode 2, “The Meelika”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Check out our spoiler-free season review.
Check out all our recaps in the episode archive.
In the aftermath of the previous episode’s shocking ending, Nurmi is steering investigators around the crime scene looking for evidence of the perpetrator, including the registered owner of an electric bike — guess I was wrong about it being a pushbike, but forgive me, it was only on-screen for a second. I was also wrong about Koskimäki being dead — he’s in critical condition at the hospital, and Karppi is with him, but his daughter has absolutely snuffed it. Deadwind season 2, episode 2 catches us up on all this quickly, and sees a police SWAT team raid the home of the registered electric bike owner, whose bike has — wouldn’t you know it? — been stolen.
Luckily, though, it can be tracked via GPS, and Nurmi follows it to a truck — the driver had no idea it was in there, but he did stop at a gas station for long enough that someone could have loaded it inside. Nurmi looks over the gas station’s CCTV, which shows the act occurring, but the perpetrator is smart enough to avoid the cameras. A police dog picks up a trail that leads Nurmi to a matchbox with a number written on the back.
At the hospital in “The Meelika”, Karppi is gently told something by a doctor — one assumes that Tapio is dead — and we see her briefly drowning her sorrows in a pub before she returns home.
News has broken of Mayor Sara Tulisuo allegedly taking bribes in exchange for granting Kaartamo Nordic exclusive contracting rights on the tunnel project. She tasks Henri with looking into it and Makaela with going through her emails in the hopes of getting to the bottom of what she insists is a set-up.
Karppi and Nurmi discover than the National Bureau of Investigation is investigating Tapio’s death. Their representative, Poteri, takes them around the scene, laying out the chain of events. He explains how Kerttu was upstairs wearing headphones when the killer made entry (after shutting off the power using the main breaker), came downstairs to investigate, and then fled back to her bedroom, where she was shot.
Chief Inspector Jorma Kilju is now in charge of the police department. He shows a photo taken from the CCTV at the gas station — their prime suspect. Nurmi describes the two Estonian victims, the similarities in their deaths, and their connection to Kaartamo Nordic. Both men used a freighter, the Meelika, to travel between Helsinki and Tallinn, owned by NK, and JP explains how both men had a criminal record for drug offenses. The letter combination that Tapio scrawled in his blood has been run through the database but to no success.
Karppi has to break the news to Emil that they’re no longer going skiing, which he doesn’t take well, but the threat of removing his screen time — been there! — brings him out of his room. He also has headlice, so a bad day all round. Nurmi shows Karppi the matchbox and she immediately identifies the number on the back as a burial plot. They go there and find a headstone for 16-year-old Jimi Waldemar, “Jimi” looking a lot like the word that Tapio was writing in his blood.
Henna is staying with Jere, who has the track marks of a drug addict but has apparently been clean for two years. She also later gets pretty uncomfortably close to a drug bust.
Karppi gives Nurmi the skinny on Jimi: his mother passed away when he was two, his father was an alcoholic; as a teenager, Jimi repeatedly ran away and was taken into custody. In recent months he had been an intern on a ship as a deck mechanic — yes, of course, the ship was the Meelika. He went missing from the ship and was later dredged from the water, dead. His death certificate was signed by Tapio, and a Dr. Tiina Selin, who works at the Porvoo Hospital but also runs a private practice out of her Helsinki residence. Perhaps she can explain why an autopsy was never performed on Jimi. Karppi calls her, asking if she’d be willing to meet. She is, in 45 minutes.
Back at Jere’s, Henna explains how she knew Jaan, the Estonian dealer whose camper van Karppi and Nurmi discovered. She stole his stash, and now he’s obviously dead, having been frozen to death in a storage locker. So she has drugs nobody is looking for, worth 30K, but she doesn’t want to sell them on the street. Jere doesn’t want to be involved, for obvious reasons.
Dr. Selin gets a visitor, but it isn’t Karppi — the perpetrator points a gun at her as the scene cuts away. Karppi and Nurmi are en route, discussing Tapio. When they get there, a nearby man is helpfully flying a drone which has recorded the area for the last 30 minutes, Karppi and Nurmi look over it and see the perp bundle Dr. Selin into a van. They’re able to get the license plate and put out an APB. But while Karppi is waiting for Nurmi to fill his car up, she spots the van, commandeers a civilian vehicle, and gives chase. She eventually finds it parked up and enters a nearby building, where she finds another blindfolded victim. The perp is still in the building but is able to escape, which is where Deadwind season 2, episode 2 ends.
