The Millennium Trial
Gritty, well-paced and with just the right amount of mystery throughout, The Twelve starts things off with a decent episode of crime drama. There’s a consistent effort to give all the characters we follow a back-story and I’d imagine we’ll see more of that transpire across the episodes to come. For now though, The Twelve sets the stage for what should be an exciting and interesting series. Episode 1 of The Twelve begins with former head-mistress Fri interviewed about her husband Stefan by a cigarette smoking man called Ari, bemoaning her luck and how she never should have left Rosa with him. He reminds her they have court in 3 days and this sets the stage for the drama to follow. Delphine Spikers, one of the future jury members, arrives late to court after driving up on 9th November 2018. When her name is called out to act as an alternate juror, she refuses initially but soon realizes you can’t just say no to jury service. Inside, the various different jury members exchange pleasantries and it’s here we meet Yuri, Holly, Noël, Carl and Arnold. For now though, they’re all given a folder containing information and told to return on Monday for the start of the Millennium Trial. Fri Palmers has been accused of 2 murders – both 20 years apart – one of which being her own young daughter Rose and the other her best friend Britt Back home, Delphine lies to her husband and tells him she’s not on the jury panel. By contrast to Delphine’s icy greeting to her husband, Holly heads home and makes love to her partner but bemoans her current living situation. Yuri meanwhile returns to working as the CEO of a construction company. After some contemplation, he leaves his ring in the car while heading up to meet his brother Bjorn. While this is going on, Marc heads home and watches a video of Britt Vogel that seems to show her in trouble. In the wake of news leaking out about the trial, Marc speaks to the defence lawyer about their strategy moving forward.
The Courtroom – Day 1
After these brief introductions, we cut forward to the court trial where Fri speaks about what happened that day. She was upset about Britt’s death and helped with the search but Stefan didn’t join them outside. As she continues on, Fri mentions how Stefan had an affair and gave her an STD, which is why she took so long to have a child in the first place. The attention then turns to what happened the night Rose was murdered. She lived alone given Stefan was living with the “two-faced” Margot and clearly there’s no love lost between these two as she tells the court-room she has a figure “like an ironing board.” Unfortunately being a single mother took its toll on her and caused her to take drugs to manage her anxiety. This prompted her to become more than hyper and Stefan won sole custody of their child, forcing her to small visits. Around midnight she received a call informing her that Rose had been taken away in an ambulance. Keeping it together for now, as the jury watch on Fri is taken back to prison.
After Court – Day 1
In the wake of the bombshell reveals, Margot is clearly not happy with Stefan given the reveal about the STDs. Carl berates Holly for getting emotional in court and reminds her as the foreman that she needs to be impartial to the case. On the way out the building Holly and Yuri flirt a little but she continues to get the tram home and politely declines a lift from him. Marc prepares himself for the possibility of the jury finding Fri guilty while Delphine greets her kids; she pays off the babysitter and keeps her husband Mike out the loop that she’s doing jury duty. In the wake of this, the news reports start coming in regarding the court case and unfortunately the cameras quite clearly show Delphine as part of the jury process. Mike is less than pleased though and demands she change her tone, proceeding to lock her in the bathroom. As we cut back in time, Fri is approached by a police officer who coerces her to sign an agreement for a DNA swab to “exclude everyone they can”. However, after a mouth swab is conducted she soon changes her tone and admits she knows Fri tried to kill her daughter and will do everything she can to prove that.
The Review Write-Up
The first episode wastes little time getting right to the heart of the drama and the different jury members are interesting and have a good amount of depth. Their personal lives seem to be juxtaposing or hold relevance to the case at hand and it’ll be interesting to see how that develops over time. Seeing Delphine stuck in an abusive relationship explains why she’s so frazzled and hid the details about jury service but it could also work to give her a sympathetic ear to what she’s hearing in court. For now though, the series gets off to a compelling start.
