# Penultimate Instance (2022)

> Two civil servants who decide whether the newly dead go to heaven or hell start scheming for money and for a loved one's soul.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/117141

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 30
- Episode runtime: 28 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy, fantasy
- Network: Okko
- Cast: Pavel Priluchny, Irina Rozanova, Fyodor Dobronravov, Darya Melnikova, Nikolay Fomenko, Irina Cherichenko, Denis Sinyavskiy, Vasily Kortukov
- TMDB rating: 7.3/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16765650/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: sardonic, satirical, warm, absurd, wry

## Synopsis

Penultimate Instance (2022-2024) is a Russian fantasy comedy series created for Okko, filmed in contemporary Russia and running three seasons of ten episodes each. Set in an office where staff decide, twenty-four hours before a death, whether each person's soul heads to hell or heaven, it follows Maksim Mavrin (Pavel Priluchny) and his colleague Valentina Petrovna Ivanova (Irina Rozanova). Both are guaranteed paradise under their employment contracts, which frees Maksim to hustle for extra money by selling places in paradise to oligarchs, while Valentina is driven by a private wish to bring her husband back from hell. Each episode is built from concrete bargains, office routines and the schemes of clients and co-workers, and the seasons push the characters' deals into larger trouble. The tone blends sardonic satire of bureaucracy and wealth with warmth toward ordinary people trying to bend the rules. Viewers who enjoy the afterlife bureaucracy of Good Omens and the wry mortality comedy of Dead Like Me will find resonance here.

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