There is no Scandinavian “efficiency” in this Finnish welfare office. However,
there is toxic mold and possibly even a ghost. It would be a grim place to
spend eternity, but perhaps a fitting one, considering benefits-seekers feel
like it takes forever to talk to a live person. Yet, when their numbers are
finally called, the case-workers must spend no more than seven-minutes on their
consultation, according to government mandate. Eelis Jarvinen tried to explain
his frustration to the office manager, Anneli Tiainen, but when she didn’t
listen, he took a header off the building. Until things get better, Jarvinen
will keep haunting Tiainen and the rest of his former colleagues, thereby making
the current situation even worse in director-co-writer Tiina Lymi’s three-episode
Welfare Warriors, which premieres Thursday on Viaplay.
Tiainen
feels somewhat guilty for blowing off Jarvinen in his darkest hour, but everyone
else in the office has more pressing concerns, like “maintaining the dignity of
the civil service” and “preserving the welfare state.” The former certainly won’t
be happening in Welfare Warriors.
Soon,
Tiainen notices weird and inexplicable phenomenon around the office, but she is
too tired to even respond. Out of desperation, she creates six fake dummy
corporations to sponsor fake worker training for 2,000 of their toughest
fake-job-searching cases. Of course, such massive success gets noticed by the
bureaucracy, who devise a more ambitious “hyper-enabling” pilot program, for
which Tiainen’s office will be the guinea pigs.
Panicked
to cover her tracks, Tiainen enlists the help of Seppo Isomaki, who is keenly
aware of each and every one of his entitlements as a unionized civil service
employee. Jarvinen also does his Grudge-like business, but Lymi and
co-writer Juha Lehtola are almost too preoccupied with bureaucratic politics to
notice, at least during the first episode.
Admittedly,
the supernatural activity picks up somewhat in the next two installments, but
it always takes a backseat to social commentary. While there is an oft-repeated
plea to protect the welfare state largesse, some of the acerbic dialogue cuts
both ways. Indeed, not one single second of Welfare Warriors inspires confidence
in the ultra-privileged Finnish civil service.
Finland has the dubious legacy of the term “Finlandization,” describing their
formal neutrality, while falling ambiguously within the Soviet Union’s sphere
of influence. This cloak-and-dagger miniseries depicts the secret (partially
fictional) history of how it happened. The strategic decisions made by the
Finish Security Intelligence Service are questionable, but least they try to
avert a Cuban Missile Crisis-style threat to global stability in Kirsti &
Katri Manninen’s ten-part Shadow Lines, which premieres tomorrow on
Sundance Now.
Helena
Korhonen pursues her studies in America as best she can, despite still suffering
post-traumatic stress from WWII, until she is targeted by an act of not so
random street crime. Calling the panic number her godfather, FIST-division
spymaster Yrjo Ylitalo gave her, Korhonen is whisked backed to Finland by
real-life socialite Tabe Slioor. Cleaning up the incident, Slioor discovers the
attacker wore Soviet-manufactured shoes (a plot thread that is left hanging in
season one.)
Maybe
not so coincidentally, the women share a flight to Helsinki with Donald Walker,
the replacement CIA agent for the one killed during FIST’s bungled U.S. Embassy
break-in. It was an operation Julius Boije conducted with his partner and fiancée,
but regrettably, he was forced to kill her shortly thereafter, when Ylitalo’s
agency busybody Aune Lyytinen discovered she had been turned by the KGB. Soon,
Ylitalo manipulates Korhonen into taking her place, to exploit Walker’s obvious
interest.
They
are concerned about CIA attempts to bolster the presidential campaign of the
pro-Western candidate, whereas Ylitalo favors the candidacy of Urho Kekkonen,
believing the Soviets will return their Naval base “leased” on Porkkala to
reward his overtures to the USSR. However, a cabal of KGB and Red Army officers
hoping to depose Khrushchev, in favor of Molotov, have developed a potential ICBM
that could reach DC, if launched from Porkkala, so they are determined to keep
it. Meanwhile. the deeper Ylitalo draws Korhonen into his web, the more she suspects
he has lied to her about her own origins.
It
is a shame John le Carré just passed, because he would have appreciated the
complexity and moral ambiguity of the Manninen mother-daughter tandem’s tale of
historical espionage. Ylitalo and FIST engage in all sorts of dirty deals and double-crosses,
but in their case, they do it all in the name of neutrality. If anything, they
cost their nation a degree of autonomy, given the censorship exercised on the USSR’s
behalf during the Finlandization era (for instance, Billy Wilder’s One, Two,
Three was banned for twenty-five years). It is also worth noting all the
American characters who die in Shadow Lines are killed by Finns (albeit
in one case, by a KGB turncoat).
Frankly,
things get exponentially more complicated than a brief thumbnail can convey,
especially when Lisa Salmen (codename: Lynx) shows up. The Finnish-émigré-turned
CIA agent is supposed to be one of the show’s villains, but she is too much fun
to root against when she rolls her eyes at traditional rustic Finnish
delicacies.
