Bäckström is back as the ultimate (delightfully) defiant detective

Detectives who defy their bosses have timeless appeal, and Bäckström is one of the finest shirkers of convention on the small screen.

A grey-breaded man in a blue jacket walks away from an impossing multistory European building.

Evert Bäckström (Kjell Bergqvist) has another mystery to solve. Credit: Niklas Maupoix / Yellow Bird

Evert Bäckström (Kjell Bergqvist) is suave, irrepressible, charming and undeniably popular. The rebellious detective has returned for season 3 of the hit Swedish series to solve a case with high personal stakes. His only unsolved case to date draws him to Mallorca, where he is attempting to unearth the truth of his childhood best friend Sally’s death by strangulation.

Bergqvist is brilliantly cast as the stubborn, clever Bäckström who is determinedly set in his ways. In the first season, he defied suspension to continue investigating a homicide, then in the second season he was a potential suspect in the murder of celebrity lawyer Tomas Eriksson. There’s a world-weariness to the septuagenarian detective, yet despite keeping his superiors (including the indefatigable Xenia Wall, played by Julia Marko-Nord) on tenterhooks with his unconventional methods, he solves cases. He connects the loose threads of seemingly random events – major drug cartel stings and individual murder cases – to expose major corruption, even when it threatens his own life (and it usually does).

Season three starts out with Bäckström on a plane to Majorca with his friend and investigator colleague Peter Niemi (Rolf Lydahl), and Niemi’s two children. The two men are headed to Las Palmas to question Sally’s cousin Iris, but they inevitably end up in a web of dramatic events. Bäckström learns that a major cartel is operating a drug smuggling operation that transports cocaine from South America to Sweden via Mallorca, Soon, Bäckström is also hunting for the truth behind the circumstances of three undercover Swedish police officers carrying out a secret investigation, Operation Palma. One has been murdered (Miguel), one remains in the clutches of the cartel (Eliza) and one is in custody (Clara) - naturally, he refuses to be stymied in his inquiries by anything as trivial as the jurisdiction of the Spanish police.

Niemi, Ankan, Bäckström and Xenia. Credit: David Hellman / Yellow Bird

As Bäckström’s boss, Toivonen, connives to bring his wayward detective back to Gothenburg with the collusion of Xenia Wall, the case continues to throw up clues and curveballs that compete for their attention. Eliza, who has thus far maintained her cover as a party girl who drives an Uber during the day, has won the trust of the drug cartel’s head honcho in Las Palmas, Iris (Gorel Crona). Soon, Eliza is recruited to drive Iris personally, transferring drug money for laundering and attending covert meetings on the island. This is the same Iris who was the cousin of the murdered child, Sally. How does a child’s murder many decades prior have explanation through the operations of a major international cocaine cartel in the present day? That’s the intriguing dilemma Bäckström and his unusual collection of colleagues, children, friends and foes must solve.

Then, of course, there’s the mystery of Miguel’s death. Though the young undercover officer had hidden the fact that his cousin ran a dubious nightclub in Las Palmas, it gradually becomes clear that he was compromised in the operation and knew more about the cartel than he’d revealed to his colleagues. So, whose side was he on, who killed him, and why?

If this is sounding like a police procedural in terms of formula, that’s accurate. It is a juicy, clue-by-clue murder mystery packed with charismatic, feuding and eccentric characters. But it is also a drama of relationships and power dynamics, where old friends and colleagues also clash over personal grievances or pursue doomed romances. The interplay between the younger generation of officers and the greying Bäckström and Niemi is a curious one too. Bäckström can certainly slosh down the sangria, and on more that one occasion he is discovered dishevelled and hungover outside the hotel in the morning. Is he a top-class detective, or are his glory days well behind him?

A well-dressed grey-haired man in a blue jacket looks sideways.

Evert Bäckström is brilliant as the unconventional, well-dressed detective. Credit: Yellow Bird

Beyond a police procedural, and an exploration of relationships, it is also a rollicking good ride. Bäckström is jovial, tongue-in-cheek, and ready to bend the rules at any given moment. He’s exactly the sort of fun uncle you’d want to spend the holidays with, if it weren’t likely to get you entangled in an actual murder case. He’s a snazzy dresser, always wonderfully suited and groomed (when not indulging in sangria) and it would be a very difficult assignment for the director to take a bad visual in Mallorca. It’s impossible to resist the sun-soaked Mediterranean isle, with glittery blue sea for miles and beautiful, tanned, lithe young bodies in barely-there summer outfits day and night, sun-bleached buildings and port-side diners.

Contrastingly, British and Irish TV detectives are often blustering, red-faced, scarf-wearing grumps, so it is refreshing and – dare I say, joyful? – to spend time solving murders with Bäckström. His flaws are many, if you ask Toivinen or Xenia Wall, but he can solve a puzzle under pressure and like any game, the methods and the mystery are much more intriguing than the inevitable result.

The new third season, along with seasons 1 and 2, of Bäckström are streaming now at SBS On Demand.