Black Crab tells its dystopian story mainly through the eyes of Caroline Edh (Noomi Rapace, as seen in The Trip; What Happened To Monday; Unlocked). She is now part of a team, a dirty half-dozen, if you will, to save the war. When the film begins, Edh hides in the backseat of a car with her daughter, Vanja. Why? They are trying to avoid an insurgence, picking off civilians like a game of Duck Hunt.
Years pass, and now Edh is part of Black Crab, ready to ice skate top-secret capsules across a frozen archipelago behind enemy lines leading to their government’s central hub. The ice is too thin. It drives over and is too thick to plow a boat through. If they fail to deliver it, they will lose the war. So, either way, it is a suicide mission.
As one of the operation’s best soldiers, they trust her and give her the motivation she needs. If she completes the mission, they will reunite her with her daughter, who is located in a refugee camp. They will take her to the hub, and she will be waiting for Edh.
The only problem is that the capsules carry a biological weapon (there wasn’t an easier way to get this to the right people?). Despite the moral implications of not ending the practice but ending humankind, Edh defies the new team leader, Nyland, as he tries to dump the capsules into the ocean.
Once Edh arrives, the guards ask, “Black?” and she replies, “Crab,” they thank her for her incredible work. The only problem is they did not tell her the truth. Vanja is not there; this is Edh’s motivation to get them their weapon.
That is when Edh and Nyland take matters into their own hands. They break into the facility’s research section and steal both weapon vials. As they try to escape by putting on the white lab protective body suits, Edh collapses on the chopper tarmac. Right before they can board to flee with the vials, she allows Nyland to go, and we think he has them as guards begin to surround her while bleeding from her stomach.
Suddenly, she pulls a grenade out, and we see both vials are taped to the weapon! As she gets to her feet, holding the bomb above her head, the base commander begs her to hand it over so they can win the war.
Edh stumbles towards the edge of the tarmac, looking over a cliff, and the commander says to her, “Think about your daughter!” She replies, “That’s all I ever do.”
Edh then falls over the cliff, and Nyland, from an above chopper, sees a small explosion from a distance. The final shot has Edh embracing and hugging her daughter Vanja from under the ice in dark black water while “Stay Dead” plays.
Why would Edh do this? Did the commander mean Vanj was still alive? Possibly. Or she was told her daughter died at the hands of the enemy, and this was the best way to inflict revenge. Even if she thought she was being told Vanj was alive after what transpired, there was no way for Edh to trust it. She believes her daughter is dead, which is the quickest way to be reunited with her.
