It’s been five years since The Chestnut Man’s Season 1 finale. Now the Danish series is back with a new mystery in Season 2: finding a killer who’s been forcing his victims to play sinister versions of schoolyard games. Despite their complicated relationship, detectives Thulin and Hess join forces again after a single mom in Copenhagen is reported missing. But she leaves behind a phone, which contains a series of disturbing texts from a person mimicking a Nordic children’s rhyme about the game of hide and seek. Suddenly, the detectives realize her disappearance could be tied to a cold case of a missing teen whose family is still awaiting justice.

Returning with the sophomore season of the acclaimed series, The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek stars Danica Curcic, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Sofie Gråbøl, and Katinka Lærke Petersen. Season 2 of the Nordic crime thriller is based on the second of Søren Sveistrup’s novels in The Chestnut Man series, and written by Season 1 showrunners Dorte W. Høgh (Dicte: Crime Reporter) and Emilie Lebech Kaae (Borgen). The six-episode series is directed by Roni Ezra (Elves) and Milad Alami (Bullshit).

When will The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek be released?

Stream it now.

Where can I find the trailer for The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek?

Check it out at the top of this page. 

Who’s in the cast of The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek?

• Danica Curcic (Secrets We Keep) as Naia Thulin
• Mikkel Boe Følsgaard (Ehrengaard: The Art of Seduction) as Mark Hess
• Sofie Gråbøl (The Killing) as Marie Holst
• Katinka Lærke Petersen (Maybe Baby 2) as Sandra Lindstrøm
• Özlem Saglanmak (Second Victims) as Esra Foldager
• Ester Birch Beck (The Shadow in My Eye) as Le Thulin

How did The Chestnut Man Season 1 end?

The finale of The Chestnut Man Season 1 reveals the killer to be someone who detective Naia Thulin (Curcic) and Europol agent Mark Hess (Følsgaard) both know personally: Genz (David Dencik), the forensic specialist who’s been working the Chestnut Man case alongside them. They also discover that one of Genz’s first alleged victims, Kristine Hartung (Celine Mortensen), daughter of politician Rosa Hartung (Iben Dorner), is still alive, and Genz has a personal connection to the Hartung family. It turns out Genz’s real name is Toke Bering, and that he — along with his twin sister, Astrid (Signe Egholm Olsen) — was fostered by Rosa’s family decades ago. The Bering twins were about to be adopted by Rosa’s family, until a jealous Rosa told a lie about Toke mistreating her. The twins were then placed with another family in a remote farmhouse where they were subject to abuse, until Toke snapped and killed their foster parents. The twins disappeared into the night, and were never found by police.  

Now an adult hellbent on revenge, Genz lures Thulin, Hess, and Rosa to the farmhouse and subdues them, after which he reveals that he took Kristine as payback for what Rosa did to him when he was a child. Genz then sets the farmhouse on fire, but all three manage to escape alive, while Genz dies in a car crash attempting to flee the scene. The detectives ultimately find Kristine alive and well in Germany with Astrid, and she returns home to Rosa and the rest of her family. After the case is closed, Thulin and Hess finally acknowledge the simmering romantic tension between them.

What happens in The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek?

Two years after catching the Chestnut Man and reuniting the Hartungs, Thulin and Hess are reluctantly working together again. The two haven’t spoken since Hess broke up with Thulin and left Denmark six months after the Hartung case. Their new investigation? A single mother and divorcee, Zara Solak (Ellaha Lack), has gone missing after riding the bus home one night. The detectives discover threatening texts comprised of sinister nursery rhymes from an unknown sender on Zara’s phone. She can try and hide, say the messages’ anonymous writer, but she’ll be found no matter what. When investigators trace the origin of the texts, they realize that whoever’s responsible for Zara’s disappearance may be the same person involved in the cold case of Marie Holst’s (Gråbøl) daughter, a teen who went missing several years ago. As Thulin and Hess continue to investigate, they discover multiple people in Copenhagen are being drawn into this lethal game of hide and seek. Can the ex-lovers set aside their rocky history to catch this new killer before they strike again?

Is The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek based on a book?

Yes, The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek is adapted from a Søren Sveistrup novel of the same name. Hide and Seek, the second novel in the series, was published in Denmark in 2024, with an English translation to be released later this year. 

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