The Chestnut Man – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Another victim

Episode 2 of The Chestnut Man begins with Hess diving deep into the Kristine Hartung case. He phones his contact, Genz, and asks for a login for the videos, trying to work out if it’s all connected or not.

Monday 12th October

As night turns to day, Thulin decides to interview Hans Hauge again. Thulin hounds him over the locks and what this little chestnut man means, but gets nowhere. There’s also not much on the car surveillance front either. Back at the station though, Hess takes Thulin aside and brings up the Hartung case again, imploring her to take a look given he thinks they’re connected.

Despite Linus admitting to the crime and an overwhelming amount of evidence, there’s a problem. Hess brings up an identical machete and points out that bone dust is left behind on a weapon like that if it severs a limb. The trouble is, Kristine’s machete – the one Linus allegedly killed her with – doesn’t actually have any on it.

If that wasn’t strange enough, Laura received a voicemail from the day she died, including a choir singing about chestnut men. This audio file is traced back to a man named Eric’s cellphone out in the open. He received a text to pick up a package addressed to Laura… which just so happens to hold her severed hand.

Realizing this is all a ruse to get to Eric’s wife, Anne, Thulin and the police scramble over. Unfortunately, they’re too late. Anne has gone missing and an ominous chestnut man sits on the dresser. There’s also flowers strewn over the bed too. Bringing in a canine unit, the police start combing the woods but they’re too late. Thulin finds Anne hung upside down with her hands severed.

Meanwhile, Steen approaches Kristine’s friend, Mathilde, at school and asks her about the chestnut men. She can’t remember the details, and certainly looks spooked by the forthright questions. However, she dodoes confirm that they sold the figurines onto someone. Yet, it wasn’t actually last year they did this as – according to Matilde anyway – the girls thought it was “childish.”

Rosa continues to be harassed at work, coming out a meeting and finding red paint plastered on her car. The words? “Murderer.” Heading back home that night, Steen feeds back what he’s learned from Mathilde but Rosa is standoffish and not willing to talk about this.

Tuesday 13th October

Thulin leads the police investigation, going over what they’ve found out so far. There’s really not a lot beyond the chestnut men and the identical fingerprints of Kristine Hartung. The chestnuts themselves are anywhere from a few weeks to a few years old; it’s really hard to say.

When Thulin questions Eric, she learns that his eldest daughter, Sofia, was admitted to hospital. The same hospital in fact, that Magnus was in. Could it be someone working at the hospital is responsible? That’s exactly what Thulin and Hess are thinking, as they head to the National Hospital to try and learn more.

The doctor who treated Magnus knew Laura well, but when an anonymous tip came in to social services regarding Magnus being abused, she stopped coming. The doctor is convinced it’s fabricated though, and the report these two officers uncover seems to confirm as much too. They find absolutely no evidence of abuse, at least according to these reports anyway. So who called in this tip?

After searching Magnus’ room and discovering some paintings, Hess heads over to Laura’s place and checks the garage. He finds a hidden compartment with a bed and a camera set up. Yeah, this doesn’t look good. In fact, Hess turns and is knocked out by a man who locks him in. As he shuts the grate, Thulin shows up and holds a gun at this hooded figure. As he turns around, it’s revealed to be Hans Hauge!

Hans knocks down a shelf, drops thee door to the basement and hurries away. In doing so though, he leaves behind crucial evidence.

The Episode Review

The second episode of The Chestnut Man deepens the ties between our two cases, although how Rosa is connected to all of this remains to be seen.

It would appear that Hans has a lot of secrets, and his shifty attitude while being questioned at home is now explained by what he’s hiding in the basement. Whether he’s just an abuser or actually the killer as well is still to be determined but it certainly doesn’t look good.

The show does include light bites of character development between Thulin and Hess this time around, with the former sticking up for her partner and clearly seeing him in a favourable light.

This case is just starting to get interesting now though, and the ending hints that we’re about to dive a lot deeper down the rabbit hole.