The newest addition to the Walter Presents programme – which showcases the best foreign language drama series from around the world – debuts with this gritty, dark and visceral crime thriller from Brazil in which a brutal but charismatic serial killer living the life of a handsome, successful political adviser infiltrates the police to play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the forensic psychologist in charge of tracking down the murderer.
In its pilot episode this week, the show follows FBI detective Vera Muller who arrives in Brazil from the USA to help Chief of Police Alexandre Dias with a case involving a string of sadistic murders. Across town, charming young lawyer Eduardo ‘Edu’ Borges joins the campaign team of Conservative Senator Otto Veiga. Later that same night, the killer claims his next victim: a young woman named Angela. But when Vera calls a mobile phone belonging to Mariana, a previous victim, it’s Otto’s son Junior who answers. Starring Bruno Gagliasso, Luana Piovani, Debora Falabella, Marcello Novaes, Marisa Orth and Aderbal Freire Filho. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Merciless, Sunday, 10.15 pm – Channel 4
Image: Channel 4
