The ending of season 1 leaves so much room for the narrative to continue with Tore season 2. We need to know what happens if and when MJ’s new owners decide to file a case for getting the dog back, if there is any romantic development with Tore and Erik, and how he continues dealing with his grief. But on the other end, we feel like if there isn’t a season 2, it would still make sense in a poetic way. A lot of things were left incomplete and unanswered, but perhaps that is the way life is.
Spoiler Alert
Tore will never really get over the death of his father, but he will learn to be open to the other good things life has to offer. He may not be able to help the old woman he did drugs with, but maybe he never had any power over the situation in the first place, and he just met her for the brief lesson he needed. Then there is the matter of MJ and Linn, two very important things in his life, and Tore is learning not to push them away. Finally, perhaps losing his job is a good thing because he will finally step out of his comfort zone. Not getting clear answers to these questions leaves a lot of room for speculation, and we are constantly wondering whether Tore found his happy ending or not. But maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending and just a process of finding happiness at every stage of life while succeeding and failing at it, and Tore has started that journey of his, which is enough of an answer for us. Since we, as the audience, tend to compare our own journeys to the characters we see on screen, seeing the incompleteness of Tore’s journey helps us feel good about not having the answers all the time and, even when we do, about not being able to stop the doubts regarding them. That is why Tore’s imperfect journey hit home a lot better than a clean resolution would have.
Regardless, while there is no news of a Tore season 2, if season 1 gains the hype it should, it might become a serious possibility, and there are so many things we would like to know more about. Firstly, let us address MJ. The dog has obviously forgiven Tore for neglecting him, but perhaps his new family will want him back. They have had him for a short while only, but the love one has for pets is never about how long they have spent with each other. If Tore had made a desperate plea to the people, they may have still considered it, but he broke into their home and stole the dog. Also, the couple’s daughter was technically in a dangerous situation. Tore meant no harm, but only we, as the audience, know that. If a police case is filed against Tore, it would be rather disastrous for him, especially since his record is already looking bad with his ‘involvement’ with drugs. That brings us to the second question: whether the old woman, Heidi, is sent off to a care home or not. She clearly did not want to go but seemed helpless because of her family, who also refused to understand that despite her age, the woman had a lot of life left in her and was still capable of making her choices.
Heidi’s family is appalled at Tore for having given her drugs, and that has already cost him his job. What if they take it further by reporting the matter to the police, and that gets clubbed with the dog theft case? After living a protected life with his father, Tore would be thrown into a whirlwind of trouble all of a sudden. But that might prove to be transformative in yet another way. So far, Tore has been acting self-destructive because he wants to escape the sadness of his father’s passing. But that is no way to live life. He will eventually have to start acting like a grownup, and there is no better way to do that than to face the consequences of your own actions. That could be the second and more necessary part of his journey towards becoming a full-grown adult who could take care of himself in a mature way.
Other than these two things, Tore would have to go job hunting. We could sense that he was acutely sensitive to rejection of any kind, and it was evident in the way he would profusely apologize for the most mundane things whenever he made himself vulnerable. We suspect that something in Tore’s past made him that way and forced him to close himself off from the rest of the world. Perhaps we will come to know in Tore season 2 what that was. While job hunting, “no” is often said a lot more times than “yes,” and Tore would have to sharpen his presentation skills to survive in the real world. That may eventually push him to get the therapy that his father wanted him to.
One of the reasons Tore shut himself off so much was because he did not like people to see his ‘weak’ side. That is why he refused to confide in Linn, because he felt she considered him weak and helpless. It could also be why he did not seek therapy, despite the openness of the ideas around him. But with him learning to open up to people, perhaps therapy might start looking like a good idea to him. Maybe we will see him realize what his father meant when he said that he wanted Tore to live a life of his own and what he had been missing out on this whole time. Independence comes with a fair share of heartbreak, but it also brings a huge sense of peace and euphoria. It is just time for Tore to experience all that. There is no full stop or main goal of his journey. It is just about learning to keep moving ahead in life with courage and friends.
