In Blinded (Fartblinda) season 2, a Swedish series on Sundance Now/AMC+, journalist Bea Farkas (Julia Ragnarsson) has written a blockbuster book about the downfall of a venerable bank, and is spending more time partying than writing. When she gets wind, through the story of a suicide, of an illegal relationship between a payday lender and an online casino, her journalistic integrity returns. Meanwhile, her ex-lover Peder Rooth (Matias Varela), the CEO of the abovementioned bank, is trying to get back on his feet after completing his jail sentence. He is looking for investors for his environmental startup, but he is a pariah in the financial community. Meanwhile, he is offered the CEO position of a data mining firm that connects the online casino and the payday lender. This puts Bea and Peder on a collision course-this time, will love overrule Bea’s desire to break a story?
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Bea
***Spoilers for Season 1 below***
In Season 1 of Blinded, Bea was a nascent journalist looking for a career-making story. She got it by uncovering financial malfeasance at one of Sweden’s most venerable banks, but she had to expose her lover and CEO of the bank, Peder Rooth. Peder was a fall guy more than a bad guy, but he still went to jail and his marriage blew apart, which was hard on his children. At the open of Blinded season 2, Bea is just finishing the publicity tour of her blockbuster novel about, yes, the takedown of a venerable Swedish bank. The names have been changed, and she certainly doesn’t mention the heroine’s relationship with the CEO, but the rest hews to the truth. Bea is still a journalist at Dagbladet, the daily Swedish newspaper, but she’s phoning it in. While doing a puff piece in Malta about a financial technology company called Easy winning a prestigious award, she runs into Peder, who is there seeking investors for his startup.
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Peder
Their reunion doesn’t go well. For his part, Peder is furious with Bea, but he also still feels for her. He’s divorced and traveling constantly in search of investors. His brother Carlos (Francisco Sobrada) lives with him, watching over Peder’s son Hampus (Vincent Wettergren), who is in a melancholy teenage phase. Carlos is putting pressure on Peder to get settled so he can be a better father. When the shady president of a data mining company offers Peder the lucrative CEO job, he takes it, despite his misgivings. The problem is, they make their money illegally by selling the personal information of the clients of Together, an online gaming site, to Easy, who uses it to offer immediate online loans to gamblers who run out of credit. When Bea finds out about a young man who jumped in front of a train because of his debts, she investigates and discovers not only the connection between Easy and Together, but a pattern of gambling related suicides. When Peder hears that she’s sniffing around, he takes it upon himself to launch a charm offensive to get her to back off.
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Our Take on Blinded Season 2
In Blinded Season 2, the creators found a reasonable way to tie Peder and Bea back together. Both are far less idealistic than they were in season 1, and at one point, Peder literally says, “I don’t have to be clean,” so he’s now embracing moral compromise versus stumbling into it. I suspect that that is going to blow up in his face, but we will see. The age-old topic of greed is wrapped in the shiny packaging of tech startups, which is timely. There is the possibility that the plot gets a little bonkers, but I haven’t finished the series yet. Most of all, I’m curious to see how Bea and Peder end up-as enemies, frenemies, or maybe even a legitimate couple. If you liked the first season, check out Blinded season 2.
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