# Death of a Pilgrim (2013)

> A newly formed Swedish police unit tries to crack the decades-old murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/46709

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 58 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, crime
- Network: SVT1
- Cast: Rolf Lassgård, Helena af Sandeberg, Kjell Bergqvist, Jonas Karlsson, Claes Malmberg, Ellen Jelinek, Johannes Brost, Henrik Norlén
- TMDB rating: 7.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2602070/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: sober, tense, melancholic, austere

## Synopsis

Death of a Pilgrim (2013) is a Swedish national-television crime drama miniseries broadcast on SVT1. Across four hour-long episodes, a newly assembled police force takes on the still unsolved 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, a case that has haunted the country ever since. Lars Martin Johansson (Rolf Lassgård) leads the team, and Jeanette Eriksson (Helena af Sandeberg) and Erik Berg (Kjell Bergqvist) work alongside him, while Claes Waltin (Jonas Karlsson) and Evert Bäckström (Claes Malmberg) represent the tangled political and institutional forces around them. The engine of the story is the slow grind of an investigation: old files, stalled leads, and officials who would rather the past stay buried. Each episode moves through interviews, archive pages and dead ends rather than action set pieces. The atmosphere is sober, cool and quietly tense, the tone of a grounded docudrama about a real national trauma. Set in Sweden in the decades after the Cold War, it has the restrained, character-driven texture of Nordic noir and will appeal to fans of The Killing and The Bridge, as well as viewers drawn to Chernobyl's dramatization of real events. Its unresolved, bittersweet pull makes it a rewarding watch for anyone interested in political history.

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