— This article contains some spoilers for events that take place in seasons 1 and 2 of this island drama. If you haven't watched those already, head over to to start at the beginning, and catch all three seasons before they leave. —
While some might classify Swedish series Thicker Than Water (Tjockare än vatten) as a crime drama owing to the mysterious deaths and dark secrets that open a can of worms in the first season, it is fundamentally a story of what it means to be part of a family – and all the baggage that entails.
And the family tension continues as the popular drama created by Henrik Jansson Schweitzer (Midnight Sun) returns for a third season, this time with director Johan Brisinger (who also directed Cell 8, currently screening ) and director/writer Erik Eger (A Class Apart, 100 Years of Evil) joining the series.
Eger is on the freeway in Los Angeles at near-midnight when he connects with Brisinger and I, and his passion for the characters and their stories is clear. As for my presumption that he’s drawn to darkness, he counters, “My first feature was a comedy so I don’t feel that I’m ‘that’ director. However, as a Scandinavian, you have to have a relationship to the darkness because there’s six months of cold and dark.”
Brisinger adds, “I came on board as Erik’s co-pilot. I was drawn to the darkness behind this seemingly quaint, idyllic façade.”
Thicker Than Water, since its debut in 2014, has depicted the rivalry between two family clans in Åland, a remote, unique island location between Finland and Sweden in the Baltic Sea. No matter how hard they try, members of the younger generations seem to inevitably fail in their attempts to completely escape and establish their lives beyond the close environment of.
Earlier days in the family drama. Source: SBS
“Åland is a really special place,” explains Eger. “There are about 6000 islands, set between Finland and Sweden, that belong to Finland but they have their own government, their own parliament and they speak Swedish on these islands. They speak an older version of Swedish that you don’t speak on the mainland, though. They guard their heritage and their culture very well.”
He adds, “In this environment, where two families are fighting on an island, it’s a very intense, heightened situation. We all want to find our path in life and get out of where we came from.”
But as the title suggests, blood is thicker than water. It has a habit of drawing escapees back to the source of their creation, willingly or otherwise.
Eger says, “The Waldemars have an urge to break free, to learn and change. They never seem to get there though, because the geographical gravitation is too strong. The Rosens are guardians and they are afraid of change. They want to rule in order to keep everything in its place. To them, the Waldemars are decadent, interesting but dangerous.”
In season one, our first introduction to the troubled Waldemar clan comes via siblings Lasse (Björn Bengtsson), Oskar (Joel Spira) and Jonna (Aliette Opheim). The death of their mother Anna-Lisa has reunited them at her guesthouse on the idyllic island of Sunnanö where they must contend with the demands made in her will. If the siblings wish to inherit her stately guesthouse, which each of the financially unstable siblings depends upon, they have to run the business for a season. What ensues is a brilliant, slow-motion crash: affairs, lies, blackmail, lust, addiction and disappearances.
In short, Anna-Lisa's intention to draw her children back together only creates further ruptures, blame and shame. In the second season, Lasse, Oskar and Jonna struggle through the fractious demands of being equal co-owners of the guesthouse, ultimately ending in the grand building burning down. The end? Hardly. This is where the new season takes off. Three years on from the fire, the trio of siblings are reunited once more. Lasse is freshly out of prison, Jonna is pregnant, and Oskar is determined to buy a vineyard in Argentina once each of the siblings receive their due compensation from the Rosén family, who the Waldemars have come to rely upon for financial support.
Björn Bengtsson returns as Lasse. Credit: Viaplay
Eger says, “I think we have sympathy for all of them. During his time in prison, Lasse has come to the conclusion that he has a lot of self-loathing and he realises that he’s toxic. He wants to give his family the best possibilities to thrive and to do that, he decides he must disappear. In that process, he acts in a way that tries to protect others from getting too close because his plan is to leave. That plan derails because there’s too much love and too much emotion, and in that process, he finds himself.”
Others face their own challenges: it is impossible not to be drawn to the vulnerability and resilience of Liv Waldemar (Jessica Grabowsky), torn between her loyalty to her husband Oskar, and desperately trying to facilitate a relationship between her young son and his biological father (and Oskar’s older brother) Lasse.
Liv Waldemar (Jessica Grabowsky). Credit: Viaplay
Brisinger says: “I’m a very emotional person in the sense that I gravitate towards who’s suffering the most. Liv has the guilt, the secrecy, and the struggle in standing between everybody. Jessica Grabowsky as Liv did a fantastic job.”
As distant as life on Åland may be, nearly every viewer can relate to family power dynamics and the struggle to define their identity beyond their birthplace and intergenerational stories. The universal experience of jealousy, lust, fear and love pull us into Thicker Than Water and keep us glued there.
Eger says, “We all struggle to confront questions and issues of breaking out and becoming who you’re supposed to be.”
The mother figure is the heart of the storm in both the Rosen and Waldemar families. Anna-Lisa is the instigator of the chain of events that unravels after her death, while it is the forcibly silenced mother of the Rosen siblings – who died in an asylum for the mentally ill – who has left her sons unmoored and confused by their father’s unwillingness to discuss or acknowledge her existence.
Brisinger says, “Erik went more operatic in season 3. It’s much bigger than the previous two seasons. He dialled the drama up to 11, in a sense, and by doing that it becomes more extreme. Season 3 is a very different season to the past two, I think.”
Eger responds, “The cast and everyone from the previous seasons wanted to step it up and take it up a notch.”
As for whether this is the end?
Eger refutes the notion. “There are absolutely more stories because of the children, of course. The setting is there. It’s a very special culture: these families crammed into an island, still battling it out. A fourth season would involve the next generation.”
Catch all three seasons of Thicker Than Water on now, while you can. Thicker Than Water leaves streaming on .
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