Spoiler alert: This article contains major spoilers for all 9 episodes of “Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole,” currently streaming on Netflix.
“Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole” may not have many sex scenes, but it does have a lot of bodies. From fire irons to swords, guns, and clothes dryers, Nesborg, who wrote the script himself, finds countless ways to dispatch his hapless victims, many of whom lose limbs before they bleed out.
Based on the best-selling author’s Norwegian novel series about an obsessive but flawed detective, the drama follows Harry Hole (pronounced “hooley”, played by Tobias Santelmann) as he chases a serial killer across Oslo while avoiding his corrupt and dangerous colleague Tom Wahler (Joel Kinnaman). And from the first episode, Nesborg shows that he’s not afraid to kill off major characters in the most gruesome of ways.
Read below to learn more about nine of the most shocking deaths that occurred in “Jo Nesbaugh’s Detective Hole.”
Sidekick (Episode 1)
Episode 1 sets up the show as a classic two-person story, with police partners Hall and Ellen (Ingrid Bolso-Berdal) enjoying what is clearly a long and tender professional relationship. So when Ellen chases suspect Sverre Olsen (Arthur Hakalaty) into the woods alone, there’s good reason to think she’ll make it out alive. But that was before she encountered Waller, who was after Olsen for an entirely different reason. After shooting Olsen in the abdomen, he quickly hits her in the head with a fire iron multiple times before dragging Ellen into a cabin and forcing the dying Olsen to shoot her. Waller then delivers the final blow to Olsen, claiming that he shot Olsen in self-defense after finding Ellen dead, and that he committed the murder in cold blood.
Producer Eric Fellner told Variety: “Ingrid is a big Norwegian actress. She’s going to blow people’s minds, because people are settling in for her being the lead for the third time.”
“Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hall” Tobias Santelmann as Harry Hall and Ellen Hellinder as Beate Ronn
Provided by Netflix
Yoga Poses (Episode 4)
The first-person camerawork warns the audience that unsuspecting receptionist Barbara Svensson (Rebecca Stasnes) is about to become the motorcycle delivery killer’s latest victim, but her death (shot in the head while pouring water into a glass in the women’s bathroom) is no less shocking. Even more so later in the episode when we see how her body is positioned in a creepy yoga-style position known as “child’s pose.”
To make matters worse, Waller insists on creepily stroking her chilled corpse, and has Hall do the same.
Hospital Assassination (Episode 5)
Gangbangers Odin (Peter Stormare) and Roark (Sondre Larsen) are relaxing and playing a game of chess in a hospital, where the latter is recovering after being shot by a rival Legion gang. Suddenly, Odin receives a phone call telling him that the legion leader Attila (Eili Harbaugh) and his thugs are on their way to finish their mission. After calling Hall for help, Odin immediately begins carrying Roark’s stretcher from the room to the elevator, where the two run straight into a swarm of Legionaries carrying guns and bouquets of flowers. They shoot Odin in the chest at close range and Roke in the head, then place flowers on his lifeless body. Then they walked straight out the front door of the hospital, past the lonely and unguarded halls, and drove away with gangster blood still dripping from Attila’s face.
Members who fell apart (Episode 6)
Waller’s trysts with Attila become increasingly regular in a run-down, disused building, and he repeatedly exchanges flirtatious glances with sex worker George (Alexander Varadyan). In episode 6, George finally tempts Waller to “come out of the darkness and into the light here with me,” an appeal he would soon regret. As the two first share a cigarette and then a kiss, George foolishly reveals that he recognizes Detective Waller from the news, who has been publicly leading the investigation into the serial killer, sealing his fate. Waller lures George into a nearby bathroom stall (equipped with a glory hole in the wall for sex workers to service customers), where the corrupt detective hints that he is going to perform oral sex on George. Instead, he used his sword to cut off the sex worker’s penis, and as it sank to the floor bleeding, he thrust the weapon through the hole into George’s neck.
Before the show ended, Fellner warned Variety that “There are scenes in episode 6 that will shock you.” He’s not wrong.
Joel Kinnaman as Tom Waller in “Jo Nesbaugh’s Detective Hall”
Provided by Netflix
Vacuum-sealed corpse (episode 7)
Marius’ corpse is shown in flashes throughout the series, but we don’t realize it’s the unlucky student (played by Shah Vatneh Briand) until episode 7. When police arrived at a particular dormitory in Oslo, they began to wait for the biker killer to appear, believing that he or she would strike for the fourth time. It is only when Hall finds a pentagram carved above the door frame of one of the rooms that he realizes that he is at the scene of the first murder, and not the fourth. What we now know is in a flashback that Marius was murdered at the beginning of the summer after being forced to write a letter to his family about an unexpected trip to a remote area with no phone reception. Searching the room for clues, Hall finds a rotting hand with the thumb cut off and the index finger facing up, lined up on a shelf on the fifth floor. There, he found Marius’ corpse vacuum-sealed in plastic with a CD shoved into his mouth.
Waterbed (Episode 8) and Shower (Episode 9)
Actress Lisbeth Bari (Dagny Norvor Sandvik) is believed by police to be the second victim and the only one whose body has not yet been found, but detectives believe she is dead after a severed finger arrives in the mail. Forensics found fecal matter under her fingernails, suggesting she had been used for anal play before being mailed. Similar to Marius, Lisbeth’s body is glimpsed floating in water throughout the series, suggesting that she may have been abandoned in a lake, river, or even a pool. In the penultimate episode, Lisbeth’s equally unlucky sister Toya (also played by Norvor Sandvik) peeks under the sheets of a waterbed having sex and spots her brother. Her horrifying discovery ensures that Toya will suffer the same fate, and in the final episode, Hall discovers the killer’s final victim in the bathroom, tied by the neck to the shower as the killer escapes through a window.
Elevator (Episode 9)
Of all the tragic deaths in the series, Waller’s is the most prolonged, and perhaps the most deserved. The corrupt detective is on the verge of being exposed by Hall and is ready to kill not only his colleagues, but everyone who stands in his way, including the young Oleg (Maxime Beaune-Bouchude), whom he has taken hostage. Hall, Oleg, and Martin Aminov (Simon J. Berger), a rifle smuggler falsely accused of being a serial killer, become trapped in an elevator between two floors when an armed Waller reaches out to grab Oleg by the hair. Hall has a fear of elevators ever since she saw her sister get her hair caught in an elevator when she was little, but she freezes before she knows what to do. If you press the “up” button while holding Mr. Waller’s arm, it will slowly be severed as the elevator starts operating again. Mr. Waller stumbled into the hallway, bleeding profusely, and died slowly as Mr. Hall, who had jumped from the upper floor and ran back downstairs, watched with a gun in his hand. Eren is finally avenged.
Clothes Dryer (Episode 9)
But Tom Waller’s shocking death isn’t the only shocking death in Episode 9, as we also see Willi Bari (Frank Schauss) die by suicide (last spoiler alert!) after Hall realizes he’s the biker killer. After first threatening to kill Hall, Bari jumped from a fifth-floor balcony window and was impaled in an outdoor tumble dryer installed in the garden below. In a shot perfectly captured by cinematographer Ronald Plante, it appears like a pentagram, collapsing under the weight of Bari’s body, blood splattering from above.
