Lilyhammer

Synopsis

Season 1

Frank Tagliano (Steven Van Zandt), a former underboss from New York City in an American Mafia crime family, is placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program after testifying in a trial against Aldo Delucci (Thomas Grube), the new Mafia head who had ordered a hit on him after succeeding his recently deceased brother, Sally Boy Delucci. Frank requests that he be relocated to Lillehammer, where he believes no one will look for him. His new identity is Norwegian-American immigrant Giovanni "Johnny" Henriksen. On a train journey from Oslo to Lillehammer, Johnny impresses teacher Sigrid Haugli (Marian Saastad Ottesen), her son Jonas (Mikael Aksnes-Pehrson), and a man who later turns out to be a civil supervisor. Johnny befriends the Hauglis after doing them a favor, and sometime later, after he and Sigrid spend the night together, Sigrid learns she is pregnant with his twins.

After a wolf kills Jonas's lamb, and the locals complain that authorities are doing nothing about it, and citizens are prohibited from killing wildlife, Johnny enlists his new friends, brothers Torgeir (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) and Roar Lien (Steinar Sagen), to help him hunt the predator. After killing the wolf and hiding its carcass "mob-style" (by wrapping it in a tarp, weighting down the body, and dropping it into an open fishing hole in an ice lake) the hunters hide in a cabin owned by Jan Johansen (Fridtjov Såheim), a local NAV worker with whom Johnny has developed a frictional relationship, and Johnny blackmails him with naked photos of underage girls Johnny took from the cabin.

The supervisor, who heard shots and saw the Lien brothers in the woods the night Johnny killed the wolf, reported them to the police. However, when Johnny's neighbour, police chief Laila Hovland (Anne Krigsvoll), and police officer Geir Tvedt (Kyrre Hellum) question the trio, the supervisor— remembering Johnny's favor on the train—says he misidentified the Lien brothers and the hunters he saw must have been youth from Oslo.

Hovland and Tvedt become suspicious of Johnny when Johnny opens the Flamingo nightclub. When the local biker gang attempts to start a war with Johnny, Johnny hires the gang to deliver the club's alcohol supply. Johnny invests in an apartment complex and is promised his own penthouse. Johnny is told the apartments are meant for families, and he schemes his way out of the deal, making a profit. Meanwhile, Geir edits a photo of Johnny to make Johnny appear to be a terrorist and presents the photo to Laila, who dismisses it. Geir is later suspended after he mistakes a toy gun Johnny is holding for a real gun during a local ski race and interrupts the race to tackle Johnny. Laila gives Geir the gift of a trip to Graceland in Memphis to visit the home of Geir's idol, Elvis. While stopped in New York, Geir learns that Johnny bears a similarity to vanished criminal Frank Tagliano and attempts to investigate.

Season 2

Eight months later, British thief Duncan Hammer (Paul Kaye) arrives in Lillehammer, looking to sell a Ferrari through car salesman Dag. However, Dag owes money to Johnny and his crew, which now includes the bikers and Jan. When Johnny and Torgeir capture Dag, Torgeir, Roar, Arne (Tommy Karlsen Sandum), and Roy, the leader of the biker gang, "borrow" the Ferrari and film themselves speeding across Lillehammer's longest bridge. On the way, they hit a moose and destroy the car. Jan learns that his old fling Randi (Henriette Steenstrup) is in charge of the refugee centre and blackmails her into selling Johnny a partnership in the centre, at one-tenth its market value. Johnny and Sigrid's twins are christened. When Duncan interrogates Dag about the gang's location, he corners Torgeir in the Flamingo. Before Duncan can kill them, Torgeir stabs him through the throat with a knitting needle, and the Flamingo gang hires Arne to dispose of the body.

Johnny relocates Indian IT employee Gareth to Lillehammer, to become his crew's hacker. African refugee Balotelli (Momodou Lamin Touray) is about to be deported back to Africa, but Jan and Johnny intervene and employ Balotelli as the Flamingo's head chef. Duncan's brother Tony (Tony Pitts) and uncle Terry (Alan Ford) arrive in Lillehammer to find Duncan. Tony and Terry kidnap Roar and hold him for ransom. Johnny and Torgeir lure the gangsters to an ice lake, where they rescue Roar and leave Tony and Terry to freeze to death.

Johnny wins Citizen of the Year, and Torgeir befriends local millionaire Lars Olafsen (Henrik Mestad). Lars becomes an investor in the Flamingo and convinces Johnny to fire Torgeir. Reluctantly, Johnny agrees and fires him. However, he later re-hires Torgeir and cuts Lars out of the club's future investments. Meanwhile, a bank robbery in Oslo results in the thieves' stealing files on Johnny's relocation. Laila moves to Oslo and becomes a successful writer. She is replaced by Mette Hansen (Silje Torp Færavaag), who sleeps with Torgeir and leads a raid on the Flamingo. Johnny hires his old friend, criminal Thomas Aune (Kyrre Haugen Sydness), to help him track down the thieves.

Torgeir and Roar's mother, Belinda (Maylen Feragen), leaves a religious cult and returns home. Belinda's boyfriend from the cult, Swedish gangster Stanley Olsson (Johannes Brost), proposes to her and makes Johnny his best man and Roar his toastmaster. Torgeir and Roar hold a bachelor party for Stanley at the club, but Stanley begins to mistreat the dancers. The brothers kick him out of the club and leave him to wander home by himself. The next morning, Torgeir and Roar learn Stanley had raped their neighbor's sheep. They tell Johnny, who has Stanley abducted and sent back to Sweden. During Jan's birthday party, Randi walks in and finds him flirting with the dancers. She leaves and files a report on the refugee centre and herself, causing it to close down.

Season 3

The third season begins with Torgeir and Roar visiting Rio de Janeiro so that Roar can meet Alex, a woman he met online. Roar falls head over heels for her and the two plan to be married. Back in Lillehammer, Johnny gazes out of his window at a Norwegian holiday festival with costumed participants, including a boy in a tiger costume, in the street below. Johnny looks towards a window across the way and spies a beautiful blonde girl dressed in a cheerleader costume. A man approaches her from behind in what appears to be the beginnings of a lovemaking session but suddenly the man strikes the woman.

Johnny runs downstairs, sprints across the street, and attempts to enter the building where the violence is taking place. The glass front doors are locked, and a dismissive clerk inside mouths, "We're closed", through the glass. Johnny breaks through the glass, grabs keys, and rushes up to where the woman is being beaten. He bursts into the room and drags the man off the woman. A one-armed woman enters behind Johnny and promptly shoots him.

Shot and bleeding, Johnny staggers back down to the snow-covered street where he collapses and hallucinates that a tiger is approaching him. When he regains consciousness he is in a hospital bed. In Rio, Torgeir learns of this and returns to Norway, unable to be Roar's Best Man. The bride's brother, Oscarito, takes his place. On the day of the wedding Oscarito asks Roar to "perform a small favor" for him – transporting two gym bags to the yacht where the wedding is to take place. Overcoming his reluctance, Roar agrees in order to win favor with his bride's brother. Unbeknownst to Roar, the bags contain cocaine, and Roar and Oscarito are arrested and thrown into jail.

As Johnny recovers from his gunshot wounds, he befriends a young autistic boy. The boy, now recognized as the tiger boy from earlier, is quiet and reclusive, but Johnny is able to communicate with him through their shared love for old-school gangster movies such as Angels with Dirty Faces. The boy possesses an encyclopedic memory and builds a gingerbread display with the getaway car of the woman that shot him, displaying the exact license plate number of the car. Johnny then hires former Police Chief Laila Hovland as a Personal Investigator to find the people that shot him.

Johnny's associate Dag has a Christmas tree delivery business that doesn't pan out. Wearing a diving suit, he intentionally drives the truck carrying the trees into a lake to collect the insurance. Also in the truck is the plastic wrap used to dispose of Randi's body. Laila is an investigator for the insurance company and the police get surveillance video of Dag in a dry suit in his truck. Dag realizes his predicament and goes back to the truck wreckage to recover the plastic wrap (which would implicate Johnny and his crew). While diving to get the wrap, Dag accidentally cuts his oxygen line and ends up in a coma. Jan Johansen returns from Iraq and confesses to the murder of his former lover Randi. Having converted to Islam and having taken a new Islamic name, Jan goes to prison and suffers the ire of former Lillehammer citizens he tormented while a government bureaucrat. In prison, Jan undergoes hypnosis therapy and contrives a story in which Dag murdered Randi, framing Dag for the murder while Dag is in a coma.

Cast and characters

Steven Van Zandt as Frank Tagliano / Giovanni "Johnny" Henriksen. Johnny is a former underboss in a New York organized crime family who enters the FBI's witness protection program and moves to Norway with a new identity.

Trond Fausa Aurvåg as Torgeir Lien, Giovanni's friend and business partner. Torgeir was once a competitive ski-jumper and had aspirations during the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer. Johnny meets the now-unemployed Torgeir in a training program for job-seekers offered by the state welfare agency.

Steinar Sagen as Roar Lien, a local taxi driver and Torgeir's brother.

Marian Saastad Ottesen as Sigrid Haugli, a Norwegian language teacher who has recently moved back from Oslo with her young son to live with her father Sylfest Haugli (Viggo Sandvik) on the family farm.

Mikael Aksnes-Pehrson as Sigrid's son Jonas Haugli.

Fridtjov Såheim as the NAV worker Jan Johansen, a social worker at the state welfare agency who is assigned to assist Johnny with adjusting to life as an immigrant in Norway. Jan appears to be a by-the-book bureaucratic stickler who particularly enjoys coming up with cultural activities to help acclimatize new immigrants to living in Norway.

Anne Krigsvoll as lensmann (chief of police) Laila Hovland and Johnny's next-door neighbor.

Robert Skjærstad as Roy "Fingern" Aass, the owner of a tattoo parlor and leader of a local outlaw biker gang involved in trafficking contraband as well as other illegal activities.

Tommy Karlsen Sandum as Arne, a large and imposing member of Roy's biker gang

Nils Jørgen Kaalstad as Dag Solstad, an employee of the local office of the automobile authority who is assigned to be Johnny's driving instructor. It is of surprise to most of the locals that short and round Dag has a tall, beautiful wife, Yvonne Solstad (Tina Hovi).

Production

The first series was shot on location during 2011, with post-production finishing in November. Originally intended to air on NRK1 beginning on 1 January 2012, the Norwegian debut was put on hold because of a conflict between NRK1 and the producers about product placements, which were illegal at the time under Norwegian law. The series premiered in Norway on 25 January 2012. It was commissioned by NRK1 from Norwegian Rubicon TV AS, in association with Netflix and German-owned distributor Red Arrow International.

The second season was filmed on location both in Norway and New York City during the first four months of 2013. Production was delayed due to Van Zandt's schedule with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Wrecking Ball World Tour. Van Zandt was replaced on the Australian leg of the tour by guitarist Tom Morello so that filming could proceed.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Van Zandt announced he had signed on for a third season of the show. Filming began 3 January 2014, with Netflix remaining the exclusive American broadcaster. The season was shot on location in Lillehammer, Lofoten, and Oslo in Norway, New York City, and Rio de Janeiro. It premiered 21 November 2014, on both NRK1 and Netflix.

According to Rolling Stone, Van Zandt was responsible for most of the show's musical soundtrack: "I did the whole score myself for free. I did it from my own studio." In addition to being executive producer, writer, actor, and composer on the series, Van Zandt made his directorial debut with the season three finale.

Episodes

Broadcast

Lilyhammer premiered in Norway on 25 January 2012. On 6 February 2012, the show began streaming on Netflix in Canada and the United States. From 11 September 2012, it was transmitted on BBC Four in the United Kingdom. The series was bought by SBS in Australia. The series has been sold to over 130 countries worldwide. On 22 July 2015, Steven Van Zandt posted on Twitter that the series had been cancelled, and the following day Netflix confirmed that they were pulling out. NRK, who owns the rights to the series, remained optimistic that a deal could be made with another company for a fourth season.

Netflix was slated to lose the series in full in November 2022, but an agreement was reached to extend the streaming arrangement for an additional seven years, through November 2029.

Awards

Gullruten 2014 for Best TV Drama