The moment one thinks of HBO, the first thing that comes to mind post-2018 is the trainwreck that was the eighth and final series of ‘Game of Thrones’. Signified by the single most ludicrously massive pop-culture sensation of our times, HBO boomed to immense success the way it had during its ‘Sex and the City’ years.
And now, as it’s moving on to more European content and not just in the English language, the latest addition to their already expanding slate is the Danish crime thriller ‘The Investigation’ starring none other than Pilou Asbæk. The name sounds familiar, right? No wonder, he played the infamous Euron Greyjoy on ‘Game of Thrones’ after all.
The biggest twist of the later years of ‘Game of Thrones’ was the absolute horror the show could unleash through some of its antagonists, and just when one thought Jeoffrey Baratheon would be the end of it, out came Ramsey Bolton. Joining the ranks of infamous, savage male characters of the show was the Greyjoy cousin Euron, whom Asbaek played to perfection as the sniveling, treacherous lover of Cersei Lannister, who practically forced her to marry him out of political pursuits. Vicious as she was, Cersei sure had her own basket case of horrors, but Euron will always go down in history as the man who ruined everything for Theon Greyjoy and his sister Yara.
People weren’t exactly fond of Theopn after the way he sold out the Starks to the Boltons and led to Sansa, whom he had grown up with like siblings, get repeatedly raped by the monstrous Ramsey. Sort of as his own retribution, Theon, who was castrated by Ramsay and given the moniker Reek, helped Sansa escape the Boltons and make her way back home finally. Yara, too, wasn’t exactly the cleanest of sheets, but it was something else to witness just a domineering woman, almost like our Lady Brienne of Tarth, riding her horse into the battle, going out with nothing but a sinister plan from her uncle Euron.
Euron became loathed for staging the coups against his own family after they joined hands with the good guys on the show, and instead, after squandering everything, he made way to Cersei to become the king. Called ‘Crow’s Eye’ (his nickname for the patch he wore on his eye), Euron not just stumped the Greyjoys, but also managed to kill one of Daenerys’s dragons, and helped deliver Ellaria Sand to Cersei, thus winning the chance to bed her.
His biggest rival was Cersei’s twin Jaime Lannister, whom he engaged within a duel in the final moments of the show. The incestuous relationship between the twins was no secret, so Euron made it a point to offer a final blow to Jaime in the duel; as he announced “I’m the man who killed Jaime Lannister.”
His final words were however not true as viewers know Jaime made way back to Cersei in the capitol and together they died in each other’s arms, as a pile of rubble crushed them from the dragons setting everything on fire.
To sum it up, Euron Greyjoy was probably one of the biggest d***s in Westeros, making rank among the likes of Jeoffrey and Ramsay, although not quite as violent. Maybe we didn’t get to see him in his full flair and vicious capacity on the one season he was onboard. Sadly for those looking for more insidious auras of Asbaek, ‘The Investigation’ has only good guy moments in store. Asbaek plays the role of Jakob Buch-Jepsen, who shares most of his screentime collaborating with Soren Malling’s leading role of real-life Jens Møller, the Head of Homicide for the Copenhagen Police.
Asbæk has also starred with Malling before on films like ‘A Hijacking’ and ‘A War’. Their upcoming project sees them brave the waters of the murky, violent, and brutal murder of journalist Kim Wall who went missing after joining a German entrepreneur on his boat. Wall had boarded the midget submarine UC3 Nautilus in Køge Bugt, Denmark, to interview the owner Danish entrepreneur Peter Madsen. Soon after the Nautilus failed to return to Refshaleøen, Copenhagen, she was reported missing. Later, the submarine was found sunken on August 11, 2017, and Madsen was rescued and immediately arrested.
Through August and November 2017, Wall’s dismembered body parts were found scattered around the area with several knife wounds, mostly in the groin area. Madsen was convicted for her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment on April 25 by Copenhagen City Court after a widely publicized trial.
In 2020, he attempted was an alleged prison break that went unsuccessful. The Danish reenactment of the incident had originally released in September 2020, on the Danish network TV 2 | Danmark A/S.
The six-part miniseries will premiere for the US audience on Monday, February 1, at 10 pm ET/PT only on HBO.
