Greyzone (Swedish: Gråzon) is a drama-thriller series that centers around the Swedish security police - SÄPO - and their collaboration with the Danish equivalent, PET. Eva Forsberg is the SÄPO agent and Jasper Lassen is the PET agent, and one day Eva finds a bomb capable of eradicating a bunch of people, which spreads fear. At the same time, the young but successful drone inventor Victoria Rahbeck (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) is having a presentation about her latest invention, and when it's done an old friend comes, Iyad Adi Kassar. Turns out, they both studied technology, and know each other from there, but has since become a journalist, and wants to do an interview with her. She happily agrees to it, but that he will have to wait, she's rather busy. However, after the interview, Iyad shows his true colors when he injects her with a syringe, causing her to faint.
Iyad forces Victoria to help him and the terrorist cell he is working for by creating a drone capable of killing people so that they can use it to commit a ruthless terrorist attack, with the terrifying threat of killing her son Oskar. However, despite being a terrorist, Iyad shows more and more signs of being well-intentioned and having a good goal, adding up to the show's name and eventually developing a better relationship with Victoria - who seems to agree with his motive once he reveals it.
The series was available for streaming in February 2018 and aired on TV networks in October-November the same year.
This series includes examples of:
- Action Girl: Eva Forsberg is a very talented agent and a good marksman.
- A Father to His Men: Henrik Dalum, the PET chief is very caring with his workers.
- Affably Evil: Iyad is very casual despite being a terrorist and is always genuine with Victoria.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Iyad's Death Equals Redemption is portrayed very sympathetically and him saving Victoria and Oskar from the other terrorists shows that he truly does care for them.
- Big Bad:
- Iyad Adi Kassar is the terrorist who starts the operation by holding Victoria Rahbeck hostage, and appears in nearly every scene in the series.
- Lars Björklund indirectly created Iyad's revenge plan as he orchestrated the drone attack on the bus Iyad was on and another terrorist just so happened to be on, killing Iyad's family and falsely putting him in a black site prison just for surviving and witnessing the attack.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: What little we see of Eva's teenage daughter, it seems like she has this attitude against Eva. Largely understandable though, as she was absent for a big part of her childhood.
- Children Are Innocent:
- Oskar Rahbeck, Victoria's son who grows a bond with Iyad later in the series.
- Also, Iyad's dead son Alexander, which explains why Iyad likes Oskar so much.
- Despair Event Horizon: Victoria goes through this when her friend and colleague Linda is executed by an operative for Iyad's terrorist group even when Iyad promised her Linda would be fine. She undergoes a pretty big mental breakdown and instantly assaults Iyad, before he is able to calm her down.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Iyad's wife and son, who were killed in Jordan when the American government blew up a bus using a drone to execute one terrorist, killing everyone else who happened to be there except Iyad. He also grows a bond with Victoria and Oskar later in the series, and even saves them when the other terrorists prepare to execute them.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: Iyad's final victims are assholes who don't care about people's lives and will do anything just to execute terrorists, remorselessly killing innocents, and Lars Björklund, the chief of the Swedish military knew about this and even had a part in making this decision. But even Lars has a well-intentioned side despite those heinous acts and seems genuinely concerned with killing terrorists who are definitely capable of killing more people than him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: While Iyad is the one holding Victoria hostage and ultimately came up with the terrorist operation, his leader is Al-Shishani, who is far eviler than him.
- Karma Houdini:
- Lars Björklund, who participated in the drone attack on the bus Iyad was on and is indirectly responsible for the events of the series, gets away completely scot-free.
- The terrorist attack cannot be done on the conference it was originally planned on, and therefore the others who were responsible for the above spoilered-out event will not be punished.
- Large and in Charge: Al-Shishani.
- Motive Rant:
- Whenever Victoria states that she's worried about helping him because she doesn't want to kill innocents, Iyad is pissed and starts ranting about how none of his planned victims are remotely innocent.
- Interestingly, Victoria herself gives a very similar one at the end of the series during interrogation, albeit a very subdued one.
- Never Hurt an Innocent: Iyad refuses to kill anyone who isn't related to their operation and strictly chooses who the terrorists killed. For instance, no matter how much he tortures Victoria, he doesn't want to kill her.
- Nice Guy: Jesper Lassen is constantly respectful with his colleagues even when going against their orders and apologizes to Victoria at the end of the show when she complains about how the security police handled everything so terribly.
- Not So Stoic: Victoria Rahbeck is usually very calm, surprisingly so when you consider her situation, but she becomes utterly batshit when a terrorist kills her colleague Linda despite the terrorists promising that she'll be fine.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Henrik Dalum.
- Taking You with Me: Iyad pulls this off in the final episode when he makes it so that the terrorist's rocket attacks their hideout after Al-Shishani kills him for betraying them, which kills every terrorist nearby
- The Reveal: Iyad technically does not exist anymore, he is officially regarded as dead after being victim of an American drone attack by their government done to attack and kill one terrorist.
- Tragic Villain: Iyad. It should be obvious when looking at other tropes on this page.
- You Killed My Father: Iyad's son Alexander and wife Molly were killed when they were in Jordan simply because they happened to be on the same bus as a terrorist, and Iyad now seeks to avenge them by doing a terrorist attack during a conference where the people responsible for their deaths are at.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Iyad's goal is to stop the government from repeating what he was put through with other people, see You Killed My Father above for details.
