The final season of this British-French crime drama, adapted from the 2011 Swedish-Danish series Bron/Broen, ends on a very dark, but satisfying note. The convoluted plot—involving such hot-button contemporary issues as the immigration crisis, human trafficking, and British withdrawal from the European Union—begins with a fishing boat arriving in flames on the coast of Kent, carrying three Syrian children and a smuggler with his tongue savagely cut out. The situation grows even more grave when the refugees are later found in the beds of three English children, who have mysteriously disappeared. Simultaneously, a horde of rats is unleashed in the Channel Tunnel, severely injuring a French maintenance worker, an incident that is eventually tied to an Internet upload that implies a modern Pied Piper is at work. The trans-Channel nature of the puzzle throws gruff British detective Karl Roebuck (Stephen Dillane) and his French counterpart Elise Wasserman (Clémence Poésy) together again, but their relationship is clearly strained: Karl has left his wife, and Elise has not only been demoted but is still obsessing over an old case involving a boy’s disappearance that she believes she bungled—resulting in the imprisonment of an innocent man. All of these plot threads are eventually tied up, but not before the introduction of further unsettling elements, including police corruption, the fate of children lost in the Bosnian war of the ‘90s, and an actual danse macabre—leading to a literally explosive conclusion. Vengeance is a thoroughly engrossing final chapter in a series that began well and has only improved. Compiling all six episodes from the 2017-18 third and final season, extras include a "making-of" featurette. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)
The Tunnel—Vengeance: The Complete Third Season
PBS, 2 discs, 300 min., TV-MA, DVD: $49.99 Volume 33, Issue 5
The Tunnel—Vengeance: The Complete Third Season
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