Adapted from Remigiusz Mróz’s novel series of the same name, Netflix has brought a six-part Polish mystery thriller, Detective Forst. The series revolves around the titular character, Wiktor Forst, investigating some of the brutal murder cases taking place in Giewont in Tatra mountains, Poland. Soon, the investigation leads to a major discovery regarding Forst’s tormented past, which has a crucial connection with the murderer. But would Forst be able to get a hold of the killer by the end of Detective Forst season 1? Let’s find out.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happened In The Show?
Detective Forst opened with a grisly scene in the icy mountains of Poland, where inside a tent, a man was seen tied up, with several wounds on his body. Soon, the kidnapper arrived at the scene and resumed torturing the captive by cutting off one of his fingers with a ring on it. The scene shifted back to Chief Edmund Osica’s house, where Osica’s daughter Agata was being intimate with our protagonist, Wiktor Forst. In the meantime, Edmund Osica walked in and delivered the news of a dead body being found at the mountain massif of Giewont. Forst, who was working for the police of Zakopane accompanied Osica to the scene and found a murder victim tied up and hanging from a huge tower that resembled a cross. As Forst took the matter into his hands and climbed up the tower, he found a coin inside the mouth of the dead body. Soon, Forst’s attention shifted to a female reporter named Olga Szrebska, who arrived at the scene and took pictures of the body. To mislead the media, Forst announced the death to be a suicide.
Forst’s hasty announcement caused a stir in the precinct and became a reason for worry for the chief. However, soon two other dead bodies surfaced: one of a young woman, Maya Kotko, and the other of the minister’s son, Maks Rozwadowski. While Maya’s dead body was found intact, it was initially difficult to recognize Maks’ headless body. However, later, the tattoos on Maks’ body helped the police recognize that he was the son of the minister. Forst concluded that these three murders were interconnected by the presence of the coin near each scene. This coin reminded Forst of something from his past, but he initially ignored it. We saw that Forst had a pretty troubling childhood and a dark past, which kept haunting him even in adulthood.
What Was In The Old Photograph?
Forst and Olga became close friends, working on the murder investigation together. As Forst investigated the coins, they were found to be aureus, which were ancient Roman gold coins. The victim’s call records and their last locations were also checked, which led Forst and Olga to a secret location near a mountain. It was a secret historical foundation that kept all the historical records surrounding an ethnic minority named the Gorals. Among those records, Olga got her hands on an old photograph, portraying a murderous scene. This photo shows some of the Nazi collaborators lynching a couple by hanging them from a tree. It was later revealed that the collaborators in the photo were the main target of this killer, nicknamed the Beast of Giewont. As these Nazi collaborators had already perished, the killer was targeting their descendants and killing them mercilessly. There was still one remaining: the leader of this group, a businessman named Leon Lowatarski, who also ran a sleazy bar on a mountain. This man has been waiting for his death since the murders started taking place in Giewont. However, the killer didn’t spare Leon’s life either, and he similarly killed him by hanging his body on a tower.
How Did Forst’s Past Connect With The Murders?
From the get-go, it didn’t make any sense why the killer chose to murder the descendants of the Nazi collaborators. Moreover, there was no particular explanation behind these coins’ presence near each of the murder scenes, so Forst had to look into this matter and contacted a museum owner to discuss the relevance of the coin and the photograph. He found out that these evil Nazi collaborators, led by Leon Lowotarski, had inflicted torture upon a great many innocent Goral people, especially women and children. One of the women, whose life had been destroyed by Leon himself, gave birth to a daughter named Halina, who later became the director of an orphanage. This piece of information startled Forst, as he knew Halina very well. Halina was the director of the orphanage where Forst had grown up.
Without wasting time, taking Olga along with him, Forst hurried to the orphanage and confronted Halina, who turned out to be the mastermind behind these killings. Halina was the one who had made her son, Iwo Elijah, commit these atrocities against these Nazi collaborators to take her revenge, but she had no way of knowing what Iwo’s real game plan was. Iwo had murdered those evil Nazi collaborators as instructed by his mother, but he had a different objective. While Halina only wanted those evil people dead, Iwo’s target was his childhood friend, Forst. When Halina was confronted by Forst, she reminded him of a childhood memory that had tormented Forst all along. When Forst was a little kid, he was a close friend to Iwo, and the two of them vowed to be brothers forever. But one day, out of childish curiosity, they sneaked into Halina’s house and pulled out some of those coins from her drawer. Halina caught them red-handed. It was Iwo who took the entire blame upon himself to protect Forst and took the punishment. However, later, Iwo regretted his decision when he saw that Forst was adopted by a family, leaving him all alone in the orphanage. This estrangement had left a scar on Iwo’s psyche, making him gravely envious of Forst. Therefore, following Halina’s commands, he killed those Nazi collaborators only to draw the attention of Forst so that one day he could take his revenge on his old friend.
After everything was clear as water, Iwo stepped into the room. Halina thought she had full control over her son, but Iwo proved her wrong by putting a bullet in her head, as she was also the daughter of one of those Nazi collaborators. Iwo not only killed her, but he beat Forst unconscious and drugged him. To frame Forst, he also used his gun to make it look like the bullet that killed Halina was fired from Forst’s gun. As Wiktor regained consciousness and managed to rescue Olga, he found the entire orphanage had caught fire. Forst managed to get out of the place, but the police captured him, considering him to be the prime suspect in these murders.
Who Was Iwo?
The police didn’t yet arrest Forst, but as the ballistic report matched, proving that it was Forst’s gun that fired the bullet that killed Halina, the police, along with Chief Osica, chased Forst to get a hold of him. Meanwhile, Forst made a sketch of Iwo and sent it to the precinct for the prosecutor, Dominika. However, Forst had no idea that Iwo was living a double life—one as the Beast of Giewont, and the other as Dominika’s devoted husband, Gjord. Seeing the sketch of the killer, Dominika broke into tears, but she quickly realized that if she tried to arrest Gjord, he might harm her children, which was something she was gravely afraid of. Therefore, to protect her family, she announced Forst to be the Beast of Giewont in a press conference. It changed the whole course of the investigation as well as baffled Chief Osica, who could sense that Forst had nothing to do with the murders.
What Happened To Agata?
Meanwhile, we saw Gjord reaching a mountaintop restaurant to meet Agata, the next victim of his murderous spree, and bait for Forst. He lured Agata to become intimate with him and finally held her captive. He also sent a video of him making several cuts on Agata’s body to Chief Osica’s computer. Osica realized in an instant that it was not Forst but a completely different person. Forst arrived at Agata’s house and found the video, which made him realize that Iwo was merely using Agata as bait to lure him into his trap. Forst minutely checked the cuts on her body and decoded the secret sign Iwo was leaving for him. Following the signs, he ended up on the orphanage building’s top floor, where, unfortunately, he found Agata’s dead body drenched in blood. Forst was immensely heartbroken as he couldn’t save Agata’s life. However, as he was infuriated to kill Iwo, he got stabbed by Iwo from behind, which led to a more intense fight between the two of them. Finally, the severe altercation led the two of them to break the window and fall on the roof. But both of them survived the fall.
As Forst woke up, he found Chief Osica bawling over his daughter’s death, while Iwo, who had also survived the fall, managed to make his escape. Wasting no time, Forst rushed to Nina’s house, where he and Olga had been temporarily hiding from the police. He was worried that Iwo had done something to Olga or Nina, so he rushed in, but unfortunately, Nina had been killed viciously while Olga was gone. Forst imagined in his worst nightmare that Olga might have been killed by Iwo. Meanwhile, the police jeeps approached Nina’s house, to arrest Forst for his crimes. Dominika, who was terrified of Gjord and his threats, did all she could to frame Forst for these murders. She even contacted Halina’s other son to make him give a false statement about Forst’s erratic behavior towards Halina. His statement became a crucial piece of evidence to frame Forst for all the crimes he had supposedly committed in Giewont.
What Happened To Gjord?
At the end of Detective Forst season 1, a puzzling scene turned out to be a major plot twist in the story. When Forst was stressing over Olga’s safety, we saw Olga driving a car carrying Iwo’s fatally injured body in the backseat. This scene might suggest that Olga had been attacked by Iwo, but she’d managed to knock him down and intended to take him to the police, or it could reveal something very sinister about Olga, who was probably an accomplice to Iwo. Given Nina’s death in her house, it seemed like the latter might be the case; if Olga could protect herself, she could have protected Nina as well. Let’s see which theory turns out to be correct in the upcoming season of Detective Forst.
