YMMV / Riget

• Alternative Character Interpretation: At least half of the cast qualifies, but there are some notable examples.
  • Helmer. Is he simply a major case of Dr. Jerk with no redeemable traits? Is he simply resentful of everything Danish as he's basically in forced exile from Sweden? A man broken by weird customs and traditions he's forced to endure? It's certain he's a jerkass, but precisely how much of it he is varies depending on the viewer.
  • Krogshøj. Is he well-intentioned Big Good who's willing to break the rules to get the necessary results and permits for the hospital to run? Or a simple thief who deals hospital equipment and other stuff for the sake of a power trip? He's never shown benefiting financially from his dealings, but he's shown certain willingness to blackmail even before his unwilling Face–Heel Turn.
  • Director Bob. It's generally agreed he's unqualified in medicine and overall incompetent, but his primary enemy is The Lodge, which is extremely nepotistic and cult-like organisation. With the show having a recurring theme of good doctors being bad managers, does it really benefit the hospital to have Bob sidelined in favour of an organisation that, above all, aims to protect its own?
    • Exodus shows Riget run seemingly just by Bob himself, as The Lodge is nowhere to be seen, suggesting he won the power struggle. This shows that Bob must have been at least adept at politicking to remove it, but also shows Riget to be virtually the same as under The Lodge. Bob is also shown very apathetic to the job now, so in line with the theme of people competent in one area being incompetent in another, it could suggest that Bob is good at gaining power, but his actual management skills are the same as Lodge's.
• Complete Monster: Exodus: Grand Duc, an avatar of Beelzebub, is an owl demon out to open the gates of Hell. Spreading chaos around the Kingdom along the way, Grand Duc strangles the hospital director to death and reverts the Exodus ritual to orchestrate an invasion of evil spirits upon the world. Grand Duc concludes his task by destroying the foundations of the Kingdom and obliterating the entire hospital, claiming the entire world as a "New Babylon" for Satan to rule over.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite his Dane-detesting attitude, arrogance and villainy, Dr. Helmer became an instant favourite with the viewers.
• Funny Moments:
  • Everything that can possibly go wrong goes wrong when the Minister of Health visits the hospital at the climax of Riget I to see "Operation Morning Air" for himself — walking into the middle of an exorcism carried out mid-corridor with improvised tools, interrupting "Seltzer's" liver transplant surgery (for which Bondo revokes his consent, rattling the surgeons so much that they accidentally use his real name as they wheel him out), walking in on the procedure to kill Judith's rapidly-growing foetus, and entering the sleep lab to find a lingerie-clad Camilla having sex with Mogge.
  • In "Pandaemonium" from Riget II, Drusse tells Bulder that they can root out a Satanist with a word association test; once they get the subject to lower their guard, they trot out the word "Beelzebub", which should prompt the response "Grand Duc". They look for someone to test it on - someone with a modicum of intelligence, Drusse adds as Mogge hops past them while flailing his arms (acting on a suggestion to exercise before his viva voce to get his adrenaline going) - and settle on Helmer, who is in a worse mood than usual:
    Drusse: Pear tree.
    Helmer: Idiot.
    Drusse: Little blue balloons.
    Helmer: Tiedown.
    Drusse: Beelzebub.
    Helmer: Compulsory lobotomy.
  • As Riget II reaches its climax, Bob, the Director General of the hospital, charges into a lodge meeting with a man in the centre of the table with a bucket over his head, surrounded by doctors chanting "Bob, Bob, you've had your day, the lodge will make you go away!" Having reached the end of his rope with the strange goings-on in the hospital, he threatens to report the lodge members to the Minister of Health (whom the hospital staff have gone out of their way to prevent Bob from visiting while he recovers from surgery)... who pipes up from beneath the bucket on his head:
    Minister: Hello, Bob... actually, I only receive people on Thursdays.
  • Rigmor tells Helmer Jr. that she wanted his father to receive a proper Swedish burial. So she buried his ashes in a carton from Tetra Pak.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Drusse and Buller are searching for secret satanists in Riget II, Drusse dismisses the idea that Mogge could be one, saying that even ultimate evil would have some standards in the choice of henchmen. In the last episode of Exodus Mogge is revealed to be an agent of Grand Duc - which Karen discovers too late...
• Jerkass Woobie: Helmer Jr. in Exodus. Like his father, he is arrogant, pompous, and hates the Danish. But while his father usually got into trouble for bad stuff he actually did (or thought he did, as Exodus reveals that Rigmor was actually the one that maimed Mona, Helmer Jr. is treated even more harshly than his Dad while lacking the aggresive sarcasm and antagonism that the older Helmer had.
• Memetic Mutation: "DANSKJÄVLAR!!!" remains a very popular saying in both Sweden and Denmark today.
• Moment of Awesome: Dr. Helmer Hannibal lecturing the Danish nation from the hospital roof while looking at the Swedish nuclear power plant, Barsebäck, through his binoculars.
  Dr. Helmer: Thank you, you Swedish watchtowers. With plutonium we bring the Danes to their knees. Here, Denmark. Excreted from limestone and water. And there, Sweden. Hewn in granite... Danish scum... DANISH SCUM!!!!!
  • The end of Exodus, with Grand Duc welcoming his master, the Devil himself to the chaos: Lars von Trier.
• Moral Event Horizon: Some of the things Helmer does to hide his serious screw-ups might qualify as crossing it.
• Narm: Occasionally the timing and special effects can lend some humor; a good example is the unintentionally campy clip of Bongo in slow motion, with red glowing eyes, at the end of episode 2.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In oodles. Do NOT watch this series if you or someone you know are about to go to a hospital. Or attempt sleep.
  • Properly borders more on regular Nightmare Fuel, but Little Brother is very creepy.
  • Special mention to the demonic clones of Karen and Buller in Exodus. Bodil Jørgensen's and Nicolas Bro's fixed grins and slightly stiff movements make them extremely creepy, even before we find out that they can kill with a touch.
• One-Scene Wonder: Stellan Skarsgård appears briefly as Dr. Helmer's Amoral Attorney, who quickly proves to be just as entertainingly crooked and as much of a Swede-chauvinist as the doctor he represents.
• The Woobie: Mona and Mary. And Little Brother.

---