The Woman In The Water opens with immediate danger as the season is speeding towards it conclusion Picking up from the end of the previous episode, hunted by his own department after his growing suspicions about internal corruption put him at risk, Harry finds himself targeted directly. Tom Waaler has sent a hitman to visit Harry’s apartment. The assassin enters expecting little resistance, only to discover that Harry has already slipped away, acting on his instincts and deep distrust of his colleagues. This failed attempt confirms how far the threats against him have spread.
Harry, now fully of the grid, has taken the suspected killer back to the student halls location of the first victim. The man, Martin Aminov, needs Harry to find the real killer as it is the only way both of them are making it out alive. He shares fragments of his past during the tense exchanges. Years earlier, Aminov had left his Norwegian hometown and moved to Prague in 1999, seeking better opportunities after the fall of communism. There he survived by any means necessary, including selling his body to tourists. This path eventually connected him to a smuggling network dealing in rare star-shaped blood diamonds from Sierra Leone. Those same diamonds have appeared at the crime scenes, making Aminov seem like the obvious link. Harry listens closely, weighing how much of the story fits the evidence and how much might be a convenient cover.
Aminov has photographic evidence that that Waaler is the arms dealer that Harry suspects him to be but for everything to come together Harry needs definitive proof of Aminov’s innocence. This give’s Kari-Ann Möller’s Beate, Harry’s partner and super identifier, the most she has to do in the season. Harry tasks her with looking at all the pictures of the park where the dead drop of diamonds and weapons are being made to find proof that Aminov was there.
Beate also provides Harry with the forensic clue that solves the case. A single fennel seed found lodged under the fingernail of a victim. Harry connects it to a specific type of Scandinavian rye bread sold at the restaurant he met Willy Barli at. This small, seemingly insignificant piece of evidence suggests the victim had recent close contact with someone consumed that bread. Full credit to Nesbø, as this is his adaptation of his own work, he is keeping the plot points that may have been considered too extreme in someone else’s hands.
The one of the most chilling parts of the episode is Waaler’s pursuit of Hole’s phone. His team inform him about a mysterious phone number that keeps appearing in police department records under the name Øystein Eikeland. He realises that Eikeland, Harry’s best friend and a taxi driver, has the phone and must know Hole’s location. Waaler gets into Eikeland’s car and gets him to drive into the middle of nowhere. In a cold, menacing exchange, Waaler demands to know Harry’s current location, making it clear that any loyalty to Harry will have serious consequences. Øystein, visibly shaken, denies helping Harry but the encounter reveals how deeply Waaler’s paranoia has spread and how far he is willing to go to protect his secrets.
By the end of The Woman In The Water, all the pieces have shifted into place for the season finale. Harry relentless search for answers has made the danger from within the police feels more immediate, and the personal risks surrounding him have grown clearer. The episode ends on two cliffhangers, one a shocking image that gives the episode it’s title, the other a quiet but uneasy note that suggests the hardest parts are still ahead. If the final episode can provide the answers, the season will end on a very satisfying note.
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