“Hijack” and “Lupin” creator George Kay is no stranger to engrossing dramas, and in his newest Netflix series, “Blood Sacrifice,” a grisly Swedish crime thriller, Kay unpacks the unending mental toll of police work. It’s a psychological load that extends beyond law enforcers and spills onto their closest friends and family members. Intense, bloody and thought-provoking, the show is much more than a standard murder mystery. Beyond a single horrifying case the show follows, “Blood Sacrifice” examines the cracks and fissures that have plagued police bureaucracies for decades.
“Blood Sacrifice” opens on a Friday night at an emergency contact center in Stockholm, Sweden. An operator answers a call from a hysterical woman begging for help. Through sobs, she frantically explains that a man is attacking her with a knife. The call ends abruptly, but the responder sends police officers to the woman’s location. The next morning, the officers’ bodies are found, beheaded, lying in pools of their own blood.
Horrified by the gruesome scene, Police Chief Lucas Lind (Anders Mossling) places homicide detective Thomas Berg (Jakob Oftebro) in charge of the investigation. Yet due to the horrific nature of the crime and the victims’ professions as police officers, Thomas is ordered to keep his findings close to his chest. Though he brings in newly minted detective Natalie Eklund (Electra Hallman) to his inquest, he finds himself turning to the one other person who may help him crack the case: his father, Alfred (Peter Andersson). A once-beloved homicide detective, Alfred was forced to resign due to his alcoholism and because he was found tampering with evidence.
