Follow the Money recap: episodes one and two – Scandi-noirs are all about the slow burn, aren't they?

A walking Cos advert ... Claudia Moreno (Natalie Madueño). Photograph: Christian Geisnæs/BBC/DR

Welcome to the Follow the Money series blog. I will be recapping each Saturday night's double bill and doing my best to keep up with the "front-running", subsidy redistributing and wiretapping of this new Danish drama about economic crime. (Would now be a good time to admit to knowing little more about economics than I did the day I opened my first account, depositing my £3 in exchange for a ceramic pig in a safety-pinned nappy?)

These first two episodes were a slick start to an intriguing story of offshore windfarms, dodgy dealings and slippery fish. But, I have to be honest, I'm yet to be hooked. The series, created by Jeppe Gjervig Gram (co-writer of Borgen), feels a little more well-oiled than it does hearty, but let's give it time – perhaps it's because I'm yet to warm to police detective Mads (played by Thomas Bo Larsen of The Hunt fame), with his penchant for rule-breaking and tighty whities. He, at least so far, is certainly no Saga or Lund or Andri; and his relationship with fraud squad Alf is, as of yet, a bit bland: perhaps it just needs a little longer to pickle.

In any case, I'm more than willing to hold my breath and wait for the magic to happen – Scandi-noirs are, after all, all about the slow burn. And, to be fair to Mads, he is under a lot of pressure – his wife has MS and is just coming out of a much longer-than-usual episode, so he's had to make the kids packed lunches that they think are vile, remember their swimming lessons and take his wife her ample meds. Let's see if having his wife back and fit enough to cook the family curries calms him down. His boss, Preben, clearly hopes so: you used to be the nice guy, he says, but "this is the third or fourth time you've become so obsessed with a case that you're about to drop the ball …" Does anyone else have a feeling we might be about to see a fair bit of ball-dropping?

'You're an idiot, do you know that?' ... Mads Justesen (Thomas Bo Larsen) and wife Kristina Justesen (Line Kruse) have a moment. Photograph: Christian Geisnæs/BBC/DR

We open with an outwardly charming, inwardly rotten, green energy company CEO, Sander (played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Sarah Lund's season three sidekick and long-lost love Mathias Borch), leaving the Intercontinental hotel on Park Lane and riding, by bike – "I'm from Copenhagen", he says by way of explanation – along what looks like Boris's superhighway, to be interviewed on breakfast TV about how his company became a key player on the world energy market.

Cut to a streaky pink Scandi sky, where the sun is rising on another day at his company, Energreen's, offshore windfarm. A body is pulled from the water and Mads is called to take a look. So begins his journey of connecting the body with unpalatable goings-on in the world of green energy. Mads, we learn early on – when he strips down to his briefs and dives in the Baltic water to fish something out, rather than waiting for the boat to arrive – is not one for patience. Used, in Alf's words, to dealing with idiot thugs, he's going to have to learn instead to chase the bottom line and (you guessed it) follow the money. But following the money can take years and Mads is in a hurry. And so he brings his bullish ways to the world of finance and spreadsheets and, it has to be said, gets some results pretty sharpish.

Outwardly charming, inwardly rotten ... Alexander 'Sander' Sødergren (Nikolaj Lie Kaas). Photograph: Christian Geisnæs/BBC/DR

Next up we're introduced to Claudia (played by Natalie Madueño). A young, clever, ambitious walking Cos advert, she is a lawyer at Energreen who is no stranger to the midnight oil. She's told by slimy – "aren't you getting enough attention, Claudia?" – boss Mogens that there's some fraudulent activity in the upper echelons of Energreen. Someone's tipping a company called East Manchester Investments off about business deals with Germany, allowing them to pre-empt trade. But it's not long before she's sussed out who's responsible, dobbed Mogens in for suspecting Sander of involvement, given Mogens a blank USB rather than one filled with incriminating evidence for him to hand to police, been promoted to head lawyer and bought a new power-suit. Quick work all round.

Then there's car mechanic Nicky (played by Esben Smed Jensen) AKA Denmark's answer to Drive, who has a young baby – there's a sweet scene where he dresses up as a clown for his baby's birthday, only to be met with tears – and not enough cash to afford the flat his partner so desperately wants. She doesn't like it where they currently live – "I grew up in Jutland. That's worse," he says. (Jutland looks pleasant from Google, lots of peat bogs, but I'm guessing it's meant to represent the wrong side of the tracks.) Under pressure, he gives in to his buffoonish mate and agrees to start stealing BMWs for "the Serbs" for a bit of extra cash. This is going to get him in a whopper of a pickle, have no doubt.

Denmark's answer to Drive ... car mechanic and car thief Nicky (Esben Smed). Photograph: Christian Geisnæs/BBC/DR What else do we know so far?

The body floating in the water belongs to Mikhayil Husenko, a young Ukrainian who died while working on Energreen turbines in unsafe conditions. He lived with fellow workers in shoddy conditions down by the harbour, but when Mads asks around, everyone pretends not to have heard of him. His father at first gives pat answers about the circumstances of Mikhayil's death, until Mads convinces him that he won't lose his job or be thrown out of the country if he comes forward: "That won't happen. This is Denmark." Sure enough, the workers are fired en masse and Mads finds Mr Husenko hanging in his bathroom. This is not the first time Energreen has skipped on safety in a bid to maintain its position as the biggest giant on the energy scene.

Once rumbled as the ones passing tips to Sebastian Kruger of East Manchester Invest, smarmy Energreen insiders Peter Søndergaard and Mark Nyager are forced out with standard severance packages – to look official – then a cheeky €2m extra each (Sander has known about the dodgy dealings all along, authorised them in fact, but "turned a blind eye"). Their generous packages don't come cheap, though, and they promise to leave the country and not bring to light whatever is on the USB grotbag Peter gives to Claudia. What could it possibly be?! It remains unclear precisely what murky secrets it holds, but it certainly spooks Sander and brings his beardy henchman to question, ominously, whether he should take matters into his own hands.

Having been treated like crap by Søndergaard when he went to fix his Mustang, Nicky vows to steal his BMW for the Serbs. After an aborted earlier effort – you had one job, Bimse – he manages it. But without realising it, he has the big bucks in the boot – bound to be a poison chalice, no? Still, Bimse and Nicky are ecstatic when they find the stash, but still pretend to the Serbs to be fuming when they try and pay them less than agreed. "We're car thieves so we behave like fucking car thieves …" Nicky's not just a hat rack.

Sander is already up to some pretty dirty tricks – while the rest of the industry, led by Hans AKA "Denmark's brand is wind … we're the wind country", is petrified of the government's threats to redistribute subsidies into solar energy, he sneakily buys up a load of stock in solar, tricking others to follow suit, then selling it all in the half-hour before the government announce that the subsidies bill was not backed. As I say, I'm no Keynes, but this sounds like a pretty … bad/good/illegal idea (delete as appropriate).

The episode finishes with Alf and Mads hearing via the wiretap a supremely ruffled Peter calling Mark and telling him about the stolen money, car and iPad. He's after a lift over the border, stat.

Thoughts and observations

I quite liked Mads' wife Kristina's reaction to being told he wasn't in fact going to take any time off: "You're an idiot, do you know that?" So far I'd tend to agree.

For all of her increasingly dodgy ethics, did anyone else quite relish Claudia being able to say she was, in fact, head lawyer having been told by Peter and Mark to fetch "him" and bring some coffee (even if the exchange didn't end wholly rosily for her).

I'm suspicious that the father of Claudia's Fifa-loving son has been fired, with a generous severance packet but outlawed from working in the country for a few years. Seems too coincidental, what with all this other kerfuffle going on.

Hands up who misses Andri.

Source: Follow the Money recap: episodes one and two – Scandi-noirs are all about the slow burn, aren't they?