Spoilers for Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole ahead.
Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole arrived on Netflix less than a week ago, and it’s already the most-watched show on the streaming service. But if you thought the Harlan Coben collection was violent, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Adapted from Nesbo’s fifth Harry Hole book, The Devil’s Star, Harry (Tobias Santelmann) must track down the person murdering young women across Oslo — who just so happens to be his rival at work, Tom (Joel Kinnaman).
While that’s the bare bones of the story, things are incredibly gory and disturbing in between. There are women tied up in showers, dead bodies floating inside of water beds, and prosthetic genitals that have a bloody difficult time (pun intended).
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However, none of the show’s most gruesome moments are actually what’s most worrying. This comes in the form of Detective Hole‘s love scenes — that frankly, are borderline hate.
Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole is simultaneously sexually charged and borderline offensive
As one fan on X/Twitter deftly puts it, “The thing about Netflix’s Detective Hole is that it’s both DEEPLY homophobic and INCREDIBLY homoerotic—and that’s how most of Jo Nesbo’s work is. This excerpt from one of his novels reads like Heated Rivalry.“
Not only is the violence against women in Detective Hole almost out of control, but episode 6 also introduces a frisson between Tom and a male sex worker, leading to arguably the most mind-boggling scene in the entire series: Tom sawing off the man’s genitals before stabbing him through a wall to his death.
In a nutshell, this isn’t brilliant news for women or anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community, especially when we’re starved of positive press and representation. How are these subconscious narratives going to land with audiences at home while they consume violence as entertainment?
As refreshing as Detective Hole‘s visceral tone is, I can’t help but be concerned by its subtext. We should be able to have exciting crime drama without minorities feeling the consequences in the process.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but if another Harry Hole mystery happens to make its way to Netflix, I hope it has a more grounded moral compass.
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