A Good Family is an addictive Finnish series on MHz Choice about a married couple who try to cover their son’s criminal behavior, but neglect to tell each other about it, which causes trouble in their relationship. Anna Valli (Maria Sid) is a detective in Helsinki with a husband, Henrik (Samuli Edelmann), and two sons. Their oldest son, Niko (Elias Salonen), is in his 20’s and has already served 3 years in jail for a narcotics conviction. He has supposedly turned his life around, but in the opening scene, Niko is driving a car whose passenger shoots a man in his driveway. When Anna investigates the crime, she discovers Niko was involved, and she decides to hide that fact from not only her police colleagues, but Henrik, too. Meanwhile, Niko reaches out to Henrik, begging for help, and makes Henrik promise “not to tell mom.” As each parent separately manipulates events to help their child, they get deeper into a mess and further apart as a couple.
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The Mother
The day after the shooting, cops trace the shooter’s phone to an abandoned warehouse. Anna and team rush over there, finding a stash of drugs and startling the criminals, who take off. Anna chases them, turning the corner to see her son Niko running away. She’s shocked. He was supposed to be graduating from school that week. She lies to her partner Raimo (Janne Hyytiäinen) about not seeing them. The shooter, Jape Halme (Johannes Brotherus), is the son of local gangster Lefa Halme (Tommi Korpela), whom Anna arrested several years ago. Lefa is in prison, and he summons Anna in the middle of the night to find out what’s going on. It’s clear that there is more history between them than cop/criminal. Anna tries desperately to find Niko, and to steer the investigation away from him, but Raimo starts to suspect something’s up. At home, Anna keeps all information from Henrik, in hopes of preserving the fragile post-jail relationship between Henrik and Niko.
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The Father
But Henrik has secrets of his own. Niko reaches out to Henrik, not knowing his mother saw him at a crime scene, and begs him to help. “They’re going to kill me,” he tells Henrik. Henrik gives him money and tells him, “Get out of town for now.” Meanwhile, Henrik hides a gun in a paint can in the garage, and then pretends like nothing is going on. Instead of leaving town, Niko shows up at the house, and Mikael, his 6-year-old brother, sees him. Henrik has a heck of a time trying to get Mikael not to talk about Niko in front of Anna. As the series goes on, Henrik takes matters into his own hands, but he is neither cop nor criminal, so his bush-league efforts cause problems that flummox Anna and her team as they investigate.
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Our Take on A Good Family
The title A Good Family refers in part to the loving and happy marriage between Henrik and Anna, at least as outsiders see it. But of course, the marriage starts to show strain because of the huge secret between them. This show personifies the adage, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” As the machinations to protect their son continue, Anna and Henrik cross moral lines that become harder to justify. I found myself saying out loud, “Oh no. No, don’t do that!” more than once. A Good Family is carefully written to give viewers only as much information as they need, which is effective but can feel manipulative at times. The last episode goes off the rails, but I found the series to be very suspenseful, and I binged it.
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