Main cast: Ellen Bendu (Sanna), Ingunn Øien (Agda), Torfinn Nag (Jäger), Frode Winther (Principal Ogland), Ingrid Anne Yttri (Trine), Jasmine Haugen (Unni), Ella Indregard Yttri (Mari), Molly Gavin (Sissel), and Elias Er-Rachidi Freuchen (Odd)
Director: Atle Knudsen
Founded in 1927, Asak School was closed down after the unfortunate disappearance of four kids over 40 years ago. Still, that’s in the past. Now that the school has reopened, our schoolteacher protagonist Sanna, fresh off the train from Oslo, is eager to nurture a generation of inquisitive kids hungry for knowledge and eager to learn all that she has to impart to them. Yes, she’s new to her job—how can you tell?
Sanna loves her first day in this school. The kids in this more rural part of the town are far more adorable than her students in Oslo. Well, poor Sanna will realize just how off her new work place is when she soon starts hearing the sobs of children coming from the scary basement every old building is required to have. Are the dead kids trying to reach out to her, and for what purpose?
The Old School attempts to mislead the audience in a certain direction only to spring a twist on them, and of course, there is nothing wrong at all in that. Indeed, this whole thing works for me. Ellen Bendu makes Sanna to be this endearing, even adorable nice lady that just wants to see the best in everyone, and while she is not gullible, she just wants to help, even if in this instance she would be helping what seems to be the ghosts of four dead kids.
My issue here is that this is one of very few episodes of this show that suffers from pacing issues. Some details about the twist appear only right before the twist drops, making the whole thing feel like an ass-pull delivered for the sake of having a gotcha moment. Well, that and the whole thing ends up being a case of poor communication of dire proportions.
As it is, this episode is pretty solid up to that denouement, when it then pretty much ruins whatever good it has achieved up to that point. In many ways, this is still a watchable episode, thanks to Ms Bendu carrying the whole show on the weight of her shoulders, but it is also easily the weakest episode to date.
Shame, really. I like Sanna; the poor dear deserves to be the protagonist of a better ghost story.
