User Reviews

Okay so I throughly enjoyed this show! Super eerie slow burn and amazing acting from all characters especially the main girl (both adult and child actors) however some things in the end proved to be pointless, like Jacob's tattoo?

It seemed he was the one trying to get his friends and girlfriend involved with this cult, constantly reading from the book and then brings them to the island.

But then when he spoke to Ida in her house on the day of graduation he said "what happened out there?" And had been mad at her ever since the island. When it seemed he had initiated the whole thing... or maybe he just didn't expect it to go so far. Not sure. But where did he get the book from and what was the story with the tattoo?

In the end Astrid had to sacrifice herself and reunite with her sister to "free the others" and it was an unexpected and strange ending to say the least. (After so much build up to a grand finale)

We never got to know the mother's involvement with the cult or how the deal came about.

Anyway, very good up until the very last episode. Would have preferred a different ending. Bit disappointing.

Started off great but the last two episodes were disappointing and rushed. Could have cut out some irrelevant scenes throughout all episodes and instead spend more time concluding the series (eg more background on the mum, what's the deal with Jakobs tattoo etc)

This six part Danish series opens in 1999; a group of school children are setting off on a post-graduation trip. Nine year old Astrid is there to see off her sister Ida. The group never reach their destination; following an unexplained incident twenty one members of the class, including Ida, vanish. Only the driver and three members of the class remain. Astrid is then haunted by nightmares. Twenty one years later she seems to overcome the trauma of losing her sister when she receives a phone call from one of the survivors... she determines to investigate what happened. Intertwined with scenes of her investigation we see flashbacks to events in 1999, including a trip taken by Ida and three friends, the three survivors, to an island where they join in a pagan ceremony to the goddess Ostara on the Spring Equinox and young Astrid's experiences after the disappearance.

I found this series to be delightfully strange. The setup is interesting and Astrid's investigation and the flashback scenes gradually reveal what happened and the more we learn the more mysterious it becomes. Whether the disappearance will have a natural or supernatural explanation isn't too obvious; in fact I wasn't one hundred percent which way it would go until the final scenes. The cast is solid, notably Danica Curcic and Viola Martinsen, as adult and young Astrid respectively and Karoline Hamm as Ida. The series looks great; the nightmarish dream sequences and the pagan ceremony were particularly impressive. Overall a solid mystery with possible supernatural elements that I'd certainly recommend.

These comments are based on watching the series in Danish with English subtitles.

If you movies and shows that are about weird cults (e.g. Midsommar) and mysteries of that type you will likely very much enjoy it. That doesn't change the fact that there is a lot wrong with this show and the end is rather infurating and very bad compared to the rest of the show. People seem to complain how slow the show is, but it is actually packed full of small details and I thought the pasing was pretty good. The mystery slowly unfolds and they do a pretty good job with both giving you hints and keeping you guessing at the same time.

The show's main protagonist is Astrid. She is a child when her 18 year old sister Ida disappears right after graduation. Ida is the second protagonist together with her friend / boyfriend, Jakob. Jakob's friend Falke, who has a crush on Ida. And Amelia, who is Ida's best friend and loves her (it's sorta implied she might even have romantic feelings) but is also jealous of Ida and envies her a lot.

Now I won't recount the entire story, but there were some parts that really annoyed me and made no sense, so I will mainly focus on those.

1. Ida seems very shy at first. She seems to be attracted to Jacob, but also sorta flirts with Falke. They sorta sublty show she isn't very experienced with boys etc. She is depressed and sick and tired of her very controlling and over protective mother. When she and Jakob are sitting at the docks, Jakob kisses her. Then the scene cuts and suddenly we are in her room and they are undressing. After 5 seconds of sex, which seems to be incredibly unsatisfying for Ida, she drops the fact that this was her first time. So .. this shy virgin girl, with a ultra strict, control freak mother, takes a boy home to have sex after he gives her one kiss one the lips. Before that she also says she isn't into Jakob that way, and she doesn't seem to enjoy the sex (can't blame her since it was liteally 5 seconds). After they have sex Jokob even asks her what's up with her and Falke, and she says "I don't know". Like something might be up None of this really makes sense. After that they sort a start dating because "why the hell not"

2. Jakob convinces them to go to some Island because some grimoire he found says there is some ritual there etc. So they go and find this weird cult and decide to join in their weird parade. Before this they threw dice and the grimoire told them their fate. All the outcomes sucked, and for Ida the outcome was being sacrificed. And older cult member picks out a bunch of young girls (if I remember corrrectly Amelia isn't among them) gives them all eggs to hold. When the egg that Ida is holding turns upward they decide she is the Goddess "Ostera".. Now at this point her friends, especially her boyfriend should be trying to stop her or do something, Falke and Amelia try to say something but Ida willingly participates. Despite the whole sacrifice stuff. Jakob does nothing. The old lady breaks the egg, in a bowl. There is some blood in the egg showing that there was a chicken embryo in it's early stages and the egg was fertilized. For some reason Ida drinks the egg as the old lady tells her too.

Then it goes bonkers. They undress Ida and paint her face white, put her in a robe. She tells Falke of all people to disrobe her. Telling him, don't be afraid. Like she knows what she has to do. Which makes no sense. So there she stands, completely naked infront of the entire dancing and chanting cult. They put her on a wooden altar. And this guy with a hare's mask, painted in black comes over. And Ida without anyone saying a word, spread her legs. Meanwhile Jakob is just watching. Now at this point I undestand Jakobs hesistation to say anything. It probably really hurts to see your girlfriend suddenly decide to have sex with some randon cult member infront of countless strangers. But why didn't he do something before? Why didn't he try to stop it? Later we find out that he might have know what was going to happen, which means he used Ida. But that also doesn't make sense, but I'll come back to that later.

So ida spreads her legs, this guy penetrates her. And moments later, she hallucinates seeing him as this hare demon/god. Instead of freaking out, she pulls him towards herself, turns around and lays the guy down on the altar and sits on him. She then screams while having sex. It think it's supposed to show how much she enjoys it, but the scream sounds like she is in pain. Eventhough she is the one riding him and a willing participant

3. Back at school, none of her friends will talk to her. Amelia treats her like dirt. Falke doesn't talk with her. And Jakob is furious and won't talk to her. So this is the part that doesn't make sense. If Jakob knew what was going to happen, why is he angry? He literally brought her there for that, he caused what happened, his book supposedly described it all. So I guess he didn't know the full extend of what was going to happen and is hurt his girlfriend had exibitionist sex wiith a cult member (and seemed to enjoy it a thousand times more than when they had sex as an insult to injury). I get that Ida is confused about how Amelia is treating her. But she seems super surprised that Jakob is mad at her for cheating on him, infront of him. And in like the most messed up way.

4. The moment Astrid went to the teacher, it became clear he was the creature / one that has sex with Ida and that he had something to do with it all. I do think this was cleverly done. Astrid goes there accusing him of doing something to the students and her sister, he gets angry and denies it. Then she suddenly calms down and believes him. They have something to drink and he and his wife (not sure what the deal is with her) ask her to stay the night. She weirdly accepts. That night she has a weird erotic dream about this teacher guy with the weird orange fog etc. Up until this point in the show she only had these dreams when she was a little girl and they were never erotic. The fact that the dreams are suddenly back and about this guy, made it clear something was going on.

5. We find out that her mother was desperate to have children. That she asked the demon for a baby and promised to give her child to him when she turned 18. That is an absolutely horrible deal. I mean if she believed he could make her pregnant, why would she believe he wouldn't come back for her? This guy seems to not take no for an answer. So how come she was able to change the terms of the deal to allow her to keep Ida but in turn give the demon Ida's child, a child that the demon would impregnate her with?

Also, I don't think they ever make clear where Astrid comes from. And since Ida is from the deamon, and astrid was a "gift" that they got when she was 2 weeks old, how come the father is oblivious to this all. He also tells Astrid the story of Ostara while she is at the psychatric hospital, but later the show acts like he doesn't know any of that stuff.

5. At the end, Astrid find out that the demon took her sister and all her class mates as revenge for Ida aborting her child. It's made clear to Astrid that he will also try to take her. And what does she do? She goes to the Island on the same day that she is to be sacrificed. We don't see her having intercourse etc. She just immediately starts halucinating and sees her sister who happily leads her to the deamon. "and they live happily ever after"... WHAT??

We then see the demon has let all the other students go ... ?? None of this nonsense makes sense. She willingly sacrifices her self to be with her sister. She doesn't even know if he will let the others go. But she has a child and a seemingly loving and patient ex husband that she is leaving behind. It's an extremely selfish "selfless" act.

The demon is obviously a bad guy. He manipulates his students, curses them, impregnantes them so he can steal their kids and puts them in a psychopathic fog prison. He took the life's of 20 students and Ida because she aborted his child. But the ending sort pretends like this is a good ending. Both Ida and Astrid are "sister wife's" of a weird ancient demon/creature. Astrid's kid is without a mother. The student's that have returned have lost 21 years of their life! (they have also come back as older versions of themselves it seems, even then, they lost 21 years. Life has moved on without them and they were in a super scary place. As Torben the driver explains it, you're in a sort od solitary confinement. Those students must have all gotten mad!). Also why would he let them go since now there are 21 people who will tell this story. No one will believe them probably, but some people will. They have suddenly returned with their graduationg clothes and hats. Also, Torben or whaever the driver's name is explains a lot of what happened. Instead of asking about Ida etc and the millions of other questions she can ask she just leaves??

Anyway, it's hard to believe that Astrid would do this to her child, Especially with how her "mother" treated her and abandoned her. She also is furious with her father instead of asking him more questions she just accuses him of being just as bad as her mother. She is angry with her husband who seems to want what's best for her and has waited for her no matter what. Giving her another chance, something she asked for after she found out he was seeing a new woman. Astrid is a terrible person. Ida makes no sense. And the end is creepy, horrible and nonsensical .

If the writers wanted to make a FU, take it or leave it type bad ending. Fine. Sometimes a bad ending is the good one. But why the hell is it framed as if this is a good ending. How do we even know that the Ida Astrid sees is real and not some phantom that the creature is showing her to convince her to walk into the water?

Anyway.. the show was pretty good, there was a lot of frustrating parts where characters did nonsensical stuff and the end is not only bad. It just doens't make sense. They should have just made it a bad ending instead

Starts good but episode 5-6 does not fit the rest . Watch it if you have nothing to do

It's was a good start to a good story the acting was good however there was missing dialogue she never questioned her so called mother about the part she played in the cult and about her missing so called sister not once and she visited her mother a few times after she found out she was apart of it. Episodes 5/6 didnt fit the rest of the story it's as if the ending was changed at the last minute to make it an happy ending which probably wasn't the directors choice of ending it never is anyway watch it if you have free time and nothing else to watch or do if you have do the things you need to do or watch first as your not gonna miss this tv series it's ashame really because it's starts off well with a good story then it gets spoiled boo boo

I think a lot of the people who gave it a negative review really missed the point of the story.

A lot of people are comparing it to the German serie Dark. But Dark is not even close to what this story is.

The tale use a lot of subjects like the spring and fall equinox. Within that story they've put the story of how the spring mythologically starts (they refer to the goddess Ostara). Within thát story they also put the story of the origin of Easter. More specifically the love story of a hare and a bird. This whole get celebrated by a cult to which Ida and her friends gets involved with. But long story short: they've put a lot of folklore and astronomical theories in a pot and stirred that together to become a whole Netflix series.

Astrid and Ida are sisters, but not in the human way. Their mother couldn't get children. So by making a pact with the Hare twice she got two daughters. But they were not just daughters they were the daughters of something supernatural (in here they're called daughters of equinox). It's not very clear where they biological from. But looking at the series I get the feeling they have to represent the bird. Another character represents the hare.

Another thing in the serie: when paying close attention you would see resemblances between the Hare and the devil. Like the devil, making a pact with the Hare, you cannot undo the pact. When not fulfilling the pact, you'll get punished. And also: the class was trapped. This is actually the rabbit hole of the Hare. But the way those kids were trapped, you can compare the rabbit hole as the hell.

To not make it this review any longer: the mythical story has to do with some characters. How that became this kind of story has to do with some choices made in the past.

That doesn't take away that some subjects were completely irrelevant for the plot. Like the tattoo of Jakob... I personally think that having Falke and the busdriver as the sole survivors would be enough to tell the story. They should have put Jakob and Amelia also on the list of kids that disappeared, because in the present they don't really add much to the story. The busdriver and Falke already told Astrid enough to have this whole investigation happening.

Danish mini-series "Equinox" runs in two timelines - the first takes place in 1999 when ten year old Astrid (played by Viola Martinsen in a standout performance) waves goodbye to her older sister Ida (Karoline Hamm) - who goes on a trip with her classmates to celebrate her graduation - and never sees her again. The whole class (or almost the whole class, as we subsequently find out - there are a few survivors) mysteriously disappears. In the second timeline -twenty years later - Astrid (now played by Danica Curcic) has a kid, an estranged husband and a job at a radio station as a host of some kind of a midnight mystery show. During one of her radio shows, Astrid answers a phone call live on the air from someone claiming to be Jakob Skipper - Ida's former classmate and ex-boyfriend - who gives a cryptic message about the disappearances from 1999, which triggers a flux of suppressed painful memories and sends her on a quest to find out what happened to her sister all those years ago. As Astrid starts investigating and uncovering more details, the narrative often switches back and forth between the two timelines.

There are some definite strong points to "Equinox" which make it an engaging watch. First of all, the short format of only 6 episodes works entirely in the show's favor, as the story doesn't get unnecessarily stretched in pointless subplots or muddled with excessive secondary character drama, which plague so many other series out there. Things are kept relatively simple (although there are possibly some questions left unanswered in the series conclusion) and for the most part dynamic. In short, "Equinox" doesn't continue longer than it needs to.

The story itself, while quite straightforward on the surface, juggles many elements - it has some Lovecraftian themes (a mysterious book/grimoire, which contains possibly deadly secrets and incantations), it has elements of pagan mythology (with a cult of a menacing godlike creature and rituals connected to the vernal and autumnal equinox and to the summer and winter solstice), it touches on psychic connection between siblings, dreams and hypnotism and at times one could even notice some fairytale references. It mixes them to a satisfying result and even though at times it may feel as though the series tend to go off the rails a bit, the way in which they are finally concluded actually makes sense, when you look back at the prior events - another thing which is sadly missing from many other mystery shows.

Character development is on point as well, but as already mentioned, not so expansive as to sacrifice the whole story in favor of it. We spend almost equal amount of time with Astrid as a kid and as a grown up: we see her as an innocent child, traumatized by her sister's disappearance, her horrific visions and dreams, seemingly unlocked by that emotional turmoil and the awfully misguided and potentially damaging attempts of her parents to deal with the tragedy, to the point where Astrid herself becomes a victim; we see her as an emotionally frail adult, who barely manages to function in her daily life and grows increasingly disconnected with reality and alienated from the people around her, as she struggles to find answers to a 20 year old mystery and at the same time prove that the visions, which have plagued her childhood may not have been a symptom of a mental sickness as others have let her believe. At the same time one could argue that Astrid's sister Ida is the second main character, as there are many lengthy scenes of flashbacks into her final days before the disappearance and I found her character and story equally, if not even more compelling. Her character ties in to one of the main themes of the series - the loss of innocence and the conflict of idealistic expectations and dreams of one's future versus the state of reality (many characters often muse on this theme, sometimes quite blatant (not 2 minutes into the first episode, Ida's best friend whispers in Astrid's ear: "Do you want to know a secret? Life is a big disappointment"). At the beginning Ida seems to have it all - the perfect home, parents and friends and endless options for a hopeful future ("You've got the world at your feet" - her father proclaims), but she soon finds out not everything is what it seems to be. I liked how the narrative of Ida being slowly transformed from the popular girl in school to a social outcast, rejected by her friends and misunderstood by her parents, parallels the way Astrid as an adult is slowly alienated from the people around her, because it seems to establish the bond between the two of them even more and makes us care about both of them.

There are however some problems with the story and mainly with Astrid's character. The script asks us to accept, that Astrid is so swept up in the pursuit of the truth, that she at one point seems to forget she has a kid. She apparently has missed her sister so much, that as the series progress, her being a mother ceases to matter to her, and the end of "Equinox" emphasizes it all that much more, because it fails to even address what happens to her child. It is as if it didn't exist at all.

Another possible shortcoming is the constant back and forth of past events versus present events. The choice of including numerous flashbacks and flashforwards in a film or series has proven to be notoriously difficult to handle in a way that doesn't harm the overall fluidness of the storytelling. So many films have failed at this, a recent example being 2019's adaptation of "Little Women" by Greta Gerwig. "Equinox" handles the time jumps in a mostly acceptable way - on the negative side there are times when the frequent shifts tend to get quite annoying, but on the plus side they never get confusing. In terms of flashbacks "less is more" though. They definitely could have reduced and removed some of them, or just stuck longer with one timeline before they switch to the other one.

One last thing that stops "Equinox" from being a truly outstanding show, is the fact that it gives some of its' secrets too soon - mid-episodes 3 and 4 really feel like the climax of the story (and a really good example of visual storytelling) and the remaining two episodes, while still holding a few surprises, don't quite reach that level of dynamics and suspense.

Overall, despite these shortcomings, I would definitely recommend "Equinox" for lovers of small-scale mystery shows with a supernatural twist. It's tight, relatively easy to follow and has an investing story and fairly well drawn characters that we care about. And the conclusion while not perfect is very competent and effective. Kudos to Denmark!

I was following right up to where Ida was part of the ceremony and everything just fell apart like many films or series of this genre do.

I've seen it too many times. A good - if not great - story keeps your interest, then drops the whole climax/explanation as if the remainder of the script was handed off to eighth graders to be written.

By the third episode, I was already thinking of a six or possibly a seven rating. By the end, I had to force myself to give it a four.