Lilyhammer is a Norwegian-American co-production that describes exactly what happens
when The Mafia meets
Norse By Norsewest. After the death of
his boss,
New York mobster
Frank Tagliano is betrayed by his new Capo and nearly killed (unfortunately,
his dog is not so lucky).
Tired of the Mafia lifestyle, Frank turns state's evidence and enters
Witness Protection. Deeming New York to be unsafe, Frank demands that the FBI send him to Lillehammer, whose beautiful surroundings he remembers from watching the
1994 Winter Olympics on TV.
Hilarity Ensues as Frank takes the identity of "Giovanni Henriksen" and travels to
Norway. Things quickly turn out differently than poor Frank intended: the system treats him as an immigrant on par with any Middle Easterner or African refugee, he has weeks of courses to pass before he can gain citizenship, and
the Feds "forgot" to set him up with a valid driver's license. And on top on that, he ends up
living next door to the local chief of police. Faced with all this, Frank quickly gets up to his
old tricks to bend the sleepy, freezing town to his will...
Broadcast by NRK (the Norwegian equivalent of
The BBC) in Norway and available on
Netflix in the United States,
Lilyhammer is unabashedly and unashamedly
The Sopranos in NORWAY!.
Sopranos alum
Steven Van Zandt more or less plays an expy of Silvio Dante, and much of the comedy comes from watching him tackle the totally unfamiliar landscape of rural Norway. The series has turned out to be a huge success in Norway, while garnering...
slightly less attention in the US. A second season is being planned, with even more
Sopranos stars reportedly interesting in joining the cast.
This series provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: The obvious one: Steven van Zandt is a gangster who opens a nightclub.
- Anti-Hero: Frank, full stop. He's a career criminal who's using his talents to up-end a peaceful rural community, and we're cheering him on. Granted, he does toe the line of falling into full-time Villain Protagonist, but he's certainly Lighter and Softer than Tony Soprano.
- Armored Closet Gay: Jerry Delucci is implied to be one.
- Artistic License - GunSafety/Artistic License - Law: In real life, toy guns are required by law in most countries to have some obvious way to show that they're a toy, and under Norwegian law
, it's illegal to carry a realistic looking one. That makes the police commissioner's reactions to Geir stopping the marathon due to seeing Frank with a realistic-looking toy gun a rather large example of this trope, particularly considering the then-recent shooting and bombing. - Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: Frank shoulders his way through the initial government immigration process by discovering, and using, incriminating photos of his Jerk Ass case worker in an orgy with young girls
- Norwegian Brevity: The first season is only eight episodes long.
- Butt Monkey: Geir, Jan.
- Buy Them Off: Frank's modus operandi for dealing with anything.
- Cowboy Cop: Geir. Bonus points for being an Elvis Impersonator who spatters his speech with American cop lingo. Also, The Mafia kills him in Episode 5.
- Da Chief: This isn't exactly the way to describe Laila, the chief of police. Commissioner Østli, on the other hand...
- When he first meets Laila, Frank thinks she's working for the Postal Service.
- Deconstructor Fleet: To the entirety of Norwegian political correctness. Frank cheerfully punches his way through all manner government bureaucracy and social norms.
- Epic Fail: Anything Geir sets out to do. Including trying to find the New York mob—it ends badly.
- Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have: Torgeir's reaction to Arne's mother.
- Heroic BSOD: Geir, after getting suspended.
- Hot Mom: Sigrid. Frank certainly thinks so too.
- Important Haircut: Played for Drama/Tragedy. Julius shaves off most of his newly converted Muslim son Olav's beard while he's asleep. When Olav wakes up, he runs away from home.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: "How did you know he was interested in Elvis?"
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Frank is this or just a Jerk Ass.
- Meaningful Name: In-universe, Julius's son Olav takes the name Olav Abdulkarim to signify his conversion to Islam.
- The Nicknamer: Frank. Julius becomes Julie. Utsi [a Sami name] becomes Tootsie.
- Norse By Norsewest: Norway's politics and society are explored in all their baffling detail - to be tackled head-on by Frank.
- Police Are Useless: Everyone except for Laila and her team, and even they're stretching it. So you've got a guy with possible terrorist connections at a marathon where the police commissioner and justice minister are competing, and he's holding a realistic looking toy gun in a country where that would both be illegal and where there had recently been a mass shooting. So what do you do to the officer that tackles him and delays the race? Suspend him, of course! So you've got two Americans in custody wanted for a variety of assaults, not to mention theft of petrol from a gas station where they'd surely have video surveillance footage of both them and the car they drive, so what do you do? Release them!
- Precision F-Strike: Frank does this all the time, but most impressively when it's revealed that Sigrid is pregnant with twins.
Frank: Oh, fuck me.
- Reality Hits: most memorably when Frank tries to bribe his case worker to let him open a bar.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Frank in a nutshell.
- Turn In Your Badge: After inadvertently stopping the Minister of Justice from completing the Birkebeinerrittet ski race, Geir is put on a six month probation.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Frank, in the "criminal" sense.
- The War on Terror: Geir is wholly convinced that Frank is a wanted al-Qaeda terrorist.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Geir. If he were in a serious cop drama about terrorism, some of his earlier actions would be in the right, such as taking security at the race seriously and calling a code red when he saw Frank with the (toy) gun to keep the Minister of Justice away from the finish line.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Julius gets cancer. Then it turns out he jumped to conclusions based on some worrying signs - in fact, he's perfectly healthy.
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