Blue Eyes, Episode 5, More4

Diversity has replaced perversity as a staple of modern drama. Whereas once upon a time an unenlightened viewer might cry – on seeing two men kiss – that they were going to leave the country before homosexuality became compulsory, a scene of mixed-race rutting can still ruffle a dodo’s feathers today. Monday’s episode of Marcella, for example, with Nicholas Pinnock’s bare buttocks pumping away on top of Anna Friel, ploughed a new furrow on peak-time ITV.

The fifth episode of Blue Eyes opens with an idyllic scene in which a white mother, Asian father and two cute kids enjoy a sunlit breakfast. Seconds later this nuclear family is blown apart when men in balaclavas abduct the blonde, blue-eyed woman.

Gustav (Erik Johansson), the blue-eyed bonkers leader of the neo-Nazi kidnappers, doesn’t believe in the united colours of Benetton. Mixed-race children, he says, have no roots, no country to fight for, thus making it easy for them to be controlled by – wait for it! – an international Jewish conspiracy. However, the captive Swede is guilty of something else besides marrying “a negro”: the “capitalist pig” runs 20 care homes in which the elderly are callously mistreated for the sake of tax-free profits. The episode ends with her brains being blown out live on the net. A heart-stopping midway point.

And the person who pulls the trigger? None other than Sofia (Karin Franz Körlof, pictured above with Johansson), the brown-eyed, brown-haired single mum still grieving for her own mother, a proto-fascist mysteriously run over in the first episode. She tells Gustav: “How can you live in this world and not be angry, sad and confused?” She has been groomed for such a role for weeks. Mattias, the creepy thug with come-to-bed (blue) eyes, is advised to seduce her by Gustav: “Trust is good. Control is better.”

Sofia, desperately trying to keep what’s left of her family together, is forced to protect Simon (David Lindström), her younger brother, when he is caught spying on the terrorists: “You have to trust me.” The curly-haired teenager promises to do so but also promises to be less of a pushover.

Meanwhile, Elin (Louise Peterhoff), aide to the Minister of Justice, is still trying to identify those responsible for the death of Sarah, her predecessor. She has her own trust issues, suspecting an old flame, the studly, blue-eyed Max, of being behind a troublesome leak. “You must trust me,” he warns her. She's not so sure – then discovers that another colleague is the culprit. “Politics is a zero-sum game,” he tells her. “If someone is on the way up, someone is on the way down.”

The politicos, unlike those in Borgen, are the least interesting characters. Similarly, Bimse and Nicky, the rude mechanics in Follow the Money, totally eclipsed the scheming employees of Energreen. Here, the blue eyes have it: every scene featuring a terrorist takes the atmosphere of mutual mistrust and menace to a higher level. As Mattias, Adam Lundgren – Benjamin in the Aids drama Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves – brings a dangerous sexuality to his interrogations (Lundgren pictured above). The idea of being trussed up and at his mercy is actually rather appealing. Now that is perverse.