"Katla": Everyone in Iceland is Depressed, Dying, or Full of Secrets

The Icelandic drama Katla got good reviews, and has an interesting premise.  Plus Haraldur Stefansson, who plays Einar, is gay.  Maybe there are some gay characters as well.

Episode 1, Scene 1:  A closeup of a naked women covered in vocanic ash walking down a mountain. The camera lovingly lingers on her body parts.  Disgusting!  I'll just fast forward past the heterosexist objectification of the female body.

Scene 2: A middle-aged woman in bed with a man with bad hair and a lot of tattoos (Balthasar Breki Samper, only with hair).  She gets up and grabs a pill from a well-stocked medicine chest: she must be either a drug addict or dying.  

Switch to an elderly man, Gisli, who has just shot some kind of animal -- it looks like a mutated monster sheep.  He sighs and drags it away.

Middle-aged woman gets into her car and drives through the village, while listening to a plot dump on the radio, as Gisli is being interviewed: the volcano Katla started erupting a year ago.  Almost everyone who lived nearby has moved away.  The remaining residents are doing damage control, keeping trespassers out and monitoring the animals.

She drives to the volcano and takes some measurements.  Whoops, a close-up of the butt of the Naked Ash Lady. Then her front.   I'm starting to get the impression that this is pornography, 90% Girls! Girls! Girls!, 10% plot.

Scene 3: Young Guy is sweeping up volcanic ash when Second Elderly Guy arrives.  Is she here?" he asks. Nice to avoid using names. 

Second Elderly Guy goes into the house, where Middle-Aged Woman is talking on the radio.  He helpfully informs her that she is is daughter, Grima.

Dad: "It's fixed.  How is your slow, lingering terminal illness coming?  Do you have enough pills?  I can steal you some more."  

Grima: "No, thanks.  I have enough to last until I die.  Want coffee?"

Dad: "Why don't you go to Reykjavik to die?  You shouldn't stick around here just because you miss Asa, your sister, who disappeared last year. She's obviously dead. Let me just look at some photos of the three of us together, to emphasize how we were deliriously happy then, and are miserable and dying now."

Scene 4: Angry-looking scientist (Bjorn Thors, only with a beard) rushes through a lab to be told that something weird is going on at the volcano -- I can't tell from the computer screen what it is, but it's shocking.  He decides to go take a look for himself, even though his assistant advises: "We're too important.  Have an insignificant, expendable villager do it."  

He calls Grima: "I'm coming down to check on a shocking thing at the volcano.  Is the hotel still open, or can I stay with you at the cabin?"  Grima "Oh, stay with me, please!  I may be dying, but you're hot!"

Grima tells Dad that he's coming, so we can get another plot dump: "You mean Darri Hanson, your old professor, whom you dated and then broke up with for no apparent reason, and still holds a torch for  you?"  

Suddenly they rush out side, pick up a pair of binoculars, and see the Naked Ash Lady stumbling toward their cabin.  They grab her, wrap her in blankets (thank God!  but we still see her disgusting ash-covered face).

Scene 5: I guess that was another elderly father-middle aged daughter team.  Grima the Dying is still oblivious, delivering milk to the hotel.  Suddenly Gisli, the elderly  guy who shot the weird sheep monster,  calls: "There's been an emergency.  We have to pick up a woman at the camp. Probably a volcano tourist who got lost."  

Grisley tells another dying woman that he's going out on an emergency run, but her nurse stops him: "She can't stay here much longer.  She has to be moved to Reykjavik!"   Some emergency!  Grumpy has time for another plot dump: "You must be referring to my wife, who is dying, but refuses to go to Reykavik."  Is everyone in this village dying?

Scene 6:  The second elderly father-middle aged daughter team is trying to interrogate Nake Ash Lady, but she's not articulate.  Maybe a hot shower?  Clean the ash off?  Give her some clothes?  Or would that defeat the purpose of the show, to display lady parts?

Scene 7:  Gumball and Grima drive to the so-called emergency.  He asks "Are you ok with going on an emergency run while dying?"  "Sure, I'm fine. I'll ignore the debilitating pain. Let's talk about your dying wife."

Switch to Grima's Dad working on a car, while  Young Guy -- Grima's husband Kjartan -- complains about the ravens.  "They've become such a nuisance since we all started dying! Want coffee?  How long has it been since you had a woman?" Why do you ask, Kjartan?  What do you have in mind?  

They go up to Grima's Dad's room, pet his cats, take their dying-medication, and...discuss running away together.  "Of course, Grima would never consent to go with us."  "Screw her!  She'll be dead by Thursday anyway!" 

Scene 8: Gisli and Grima finally arrive at the cabin, and interrogate Naked Ash Lady (still covered in ash.  That must be the director's fetish.)  Her name is Gunhild, she's from Sweden, and she was traveling with Thor Jonsson.  Grima's Dad!  She doesn't remember what happened.    

They finally decide to take her to the hospital, where the nurse wipes the ash off Naked Ash Lady's body in loving detail.  She mentions that she works at the hotel in the village!

Scene 9:  Grima's Dad arrives at the hospital.  They yell at him for bringing unauthorized tourists to the volcano.  He denies it.  They take him to Naked Ash Lady: she calls out lovingly "Thor!  Thor!", and he gasps in shock and runs away.

Meanwhile Gisli goes to the hotel to yell at the manager for hiring unauthorized Swedes. "I have no idea what you're talking about.  Wait -- did you say she was completely naked?  Tell me more!  Did the ash cling to her supple young body..."  Finally she remembers a Swedish girl named Gunhild who worked there 20 years ago.

Scene 10:  Grima's Dad burying a raven.  Grima arrives and asks what's going on. He won't speak.  Got to draw out the suspense?

Meanwhile, Gisli brings the hotel manager to the hospital.  Naked Ash Lady recognizes her, and apologizes for missing work!   The manager rushes back to the hotel and checks the records -- someone named Gunhild worked there in 2001, who looked exactly like Naked Ash Lady!

They somehow manage to find ex-employee Gunhild's telephone number in Sweden, and call.    A young man with autism answers -- her son, Bjorn. "Mom is out walking the dog.  Why do you ask?"   

Scene 11: Grima's Dad, being depressed and cooking.  He hears a noise and goes outside to check -- the raven he buried earlier has come back to life -- no, wait, it's an exact duplicate of the one he buried earlier.  

Scene 12: Darri the Hot Scientist packing to go to the volcano, Hotel Manager looking all nervous and guilty, and Bjorn the young man with autism getting another call: "We have a woman here in Iceland who says she's Gunhild from Uppsala.  Would you mind talking to her?"

They put Naked Ash Lady -- finally cleaned up -- on the phone.  Bjorn recognizes her voice and asks "Where are you, Mama?"  Just as his mother Gunhild walks in!   He puts her on the phone.  

Mom Gunhild:  "Why are you in Iceland?  Who is with you?"  "The only person I know here is Thor."   Mom Gunhild, shocked, slams the phone down and rushes out onto the patio to look sad.  

Scene 13: In the barn, Grima and Kjartan discuss how the cows aren't giving enough milk.  Their dairy farm is dying, like everybody and everything in the village.  Kjartan wants to leave -- at least in Rejkavik, there is a color besides gray.   "No, absolutely not.  We're staying here until I finish dying!"  

Scene 14: Old Gunhild making plans for the care of Bjorn and the dog while she's in Iceland.  "Why go all the way to Iceland to talk to a woman who happens to have the same name as you?"  

Scene 15: Grima investigates an old building and finds -- her long disappeared sister Asa, covered with volcanic ash. The end. OMG, not another one!  At least she's wearing a sweater.

Beefcake:  No.  An occasional bulge, if you look carefully.  The only guys who are reasonably attractive are Darri the Scientist and Gisli's assistant Einar (Haraldur Stefansson).

Other Sights:  Everything is gray all the time. Even clothes and books.  

Depression:  When everybody is dying, nobody is dying.  Instead of piling on the pathos, it becomes ridiculous.

Gay Characters:  I thought Kjartan and Grima's Dad were having a moment, but probably not. The hotel manager seems awfully interested in the naked lady.

Ash Porn:  How many Naked Ash Ladies are going to come stumbling out of the volcano?

The Mystery: Given away in the scene with the ravens.

My Grade: D.