Povel is a boss.

“You don’t look, do you? You don’t look at the world, you just drive straight through it. Stop, and look. …Find someone to sit with you. You’re not strong enough to do it on your own, nobody is. Find someone to sit with you.”--Povel Wallander

This is the most moving quote from the BBC show "Wallander" I have heard so far. It's hard to describe to viewers who have not watched the series but I will do my best: Kurt Wallander is a detective inspector in Sweden who investigates a variety of crimes that illustrate the darker side of human nature. Much like "Luther", "Wallander" is gritty; it's despondent; and it relies as much upon the actual characters and the actors that play them as it does on the plot and storytelling. There are a number of differences between John Luther and Kurt Wallander, but the main difference is this: John Luther is an investigator because his mind is fascinated with understanding the psychology and motivations behind the horrid crimes he gazes upon; he obsesses over it; he's drawn in because he has to know why someone did what they did. Kurt Wallander wants justice; he wants vengeance. And he could give a shit about the psychological aspect of the murder.

Luther's mind is as mercurial and chaotic as the killers he hunts. But more importantly, Luther walks the tight rope between good and evil, between legal and illegal, between righteousness and abomination--and that's why we love to watch Luther. My favorite scenes are with his best friend--a narcissistic/psychopathic killer named Alice, who murdered her parents in cold blood--and the intimacy between them. It's not sexual intimacy per se, but it's the mind. They understand one another. Luther has insight into a killer's mind because he himself thinks that way at times.

Kurt Wallander draws you in because you want him to win. You desperately want something to go right for him--and nothing ever does. He puts himself to the brink of not exhaustion, but destruction, for the victim and their families. His relationship with his daughter is strained; his relationship with his father is strained; his wife and he are separated; people around him die that he cares about; and no matter how hard he tries to escape the things that haunt him, he can't. He makes mistakes. He's human. VERY human. With Luther, you lose that because he is so far gone in his neurotic/borderline psychotic nature (the man poured gasoline on himself for christsakes).

Anyways, to provide some context to this quote: Kurt Wallander spends most of his life neglecting those he loves because of his job--he forgets birthdays, forgets meetings, and misses those opportunities to spend time with family. He neglects visiting his father and mother for two reasons, both of which stem from his father: 1) His father, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, becomes a painful sight for Kurt. He can't bear to see the one he loves deteriorate. And 2) His father and he never see eye to eye on anything. His father can never understand why Kurt chose to be a detective. Here is an amazing scene between Kurt and his father (it isnt the one above, but it's a good one). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXRjmsMpaA8 --Kenneth Branagh is a boss.

In regards to the quote above, Kurt's dad is near death--his mind is deteriorating, his health is fading, and he knows it. And every day he sits outside with his wife on this bench, watching the landscape, watching the birds, taking it all in. In the episode where his father dies, Kurt and he get into a fight and this is what Povel Wallander says to his son. And I found that so moving. "Find someone to sit with you."--freaking awesome.

Now, of course, being the psychologist, I ask why did I find it to be such a good quote? I don't know, maybe because it was so simplistic in the literal interpretation of it, but when looking at it symbolically it means something totally different. Povel Wallander is telling his son to find someone to sit with him through it all--through life itself--using the small bench his wife and he sit in every day as a metaphor. It's the essence of what we all want: to not be alone, to find that someone to go through life with, not because we want it, but because we need it. If you're human, you don't want to go through life alone, nobody does. In fact, we rebel against that very idea.

We all want someone to sit with us, because, in the end, it isn't really about sex, but about friendship, about finding someone who you can open yourself up to wholly and not feel a shroud of worry that they will judge you or tarnish the love and trust you have built with that person. It's about handling the challenges of life together and being there for one another that makes it truly special (not to say that sex isn't...). I read an article, a psych article, that pointed out the obvious: marriages don't fail because of lack of sexual intimacy, but because there isn't the friendship behind it to hold it up. They finished with saying, "marry your best friend." Good advice, I'd say.

But he says something else in that quote doesn't he? Stop and look. Stop and appreciate what is around you. And for Kurt, it means stop and appreciate those closest to you--his father and daughter in particular. His father knows he doesn't have much time left and this was his way of letting Kurt know to not go through life on overdrive--slow down, see what it has to offer, and find someone to do it with you.

Alright, I'm tired. See ya.

--Matt