Halvbroren

- Season 1

(2013)

Liberation day, 1945. The three women residing in Kirkeveien, Vera, Boletta and the Elder, prepare for a celebration of the peace. However, when Vera heads to the attic to fetch dresses suitable for the occasion, she is assaulted and raped. Nine months later Fred is born in a taxi. 43 years have passed when Vera's other son, Barnum and his girlfriend Vivian, are back in the attic in search of furniture for their new apartment. Here, they stumble upon Vera's old camera, still intact. On the film they find a picture of Barnum's half-brother Fred, who disappeared 22 ...

Arnold, peddler and professional clown, moves in with the women. After a few years Arnold and Vera have Barnum, their son. Due to the controversial nature of the boy's name, the priest in Oslo refuses to baptize him. Thus, the newly formed family head back to the more liberal Røst, which Arnold left as a young boy, to get Barnum baptized. Adult Barnum continues the search for his long lost half-brother Fred, and his endeavors propel him to a journalist who wrote about Fred when he was a young, promising boxer many years ago.

Fred is searching for his biological father. A short while after the Elder reveals what she knows, she dies and Fred is struck mute. An old acquaintance of the Elder prompts the family towards a vacation to Denmark, and Fred's voice returns once again. Adult Barnum continues the search for Fred. In order to draw attention to his disappearance, he has a fake article printed in a major newspaper, regarding two murders Fred supposedly is guilty of, to Vivian's great disapproval.

When Vera realizes that young Barnum doesn't have any friends, she sends her son off to dancing school. Barnum, upon following Fred's advice of acting the complete opposite of normal, is consequently kicked out of school. His abnormal behavior is noticed by Peder and Vivian who, like Barnum, are there against their will. Fred continues his search for the man who entered the gates of the apartment complex on liberation day, his father, whilst adult Barnum stumbles upon new clues concerning Fred's last whereabouts before he disappeared.

The friendship between Vivian, Peder and young Barnum is flourishing, and Barnum has never been happier. As it were, Barnum has quite the pitching arm, and when Arnold rents Bislett stadium to teach the lads how to throw the discus, Fred's accuracy is more precise than Arnold ever could have imagined. The discus hits Arnold in the head, killing him instantly. Adult Barnum and Vivian receive a pleasant surprise, but simultaneously their relationship is ridden with dishonesty.

On Arnold's burial, the arrival of the circus director Mundus causes quite a stir amongst the family. He reveals bits of their late father's past, and the bereaved are in for a surprise or two. During the memorial they also learn that the disappearance of a valued family treasure, a letter from the Elder's former boyfriend written in Greenland before he disappeared in the glacier, was Arnold's doing. Fred wants it back. Adult Barnum realizes that if he is to find Fred, he must find the letter.

Young Barnum receives a typewriter from Fred for his birthday, and a writer is born. Barnum's feelings for Vivian grow ever fonder, but when he realizes that Fred likes her as well and confronts him, the half-brother disappears. Several years later they find Fred's jacket in Nyhavn, Copenhagen, and the family arrange a funeral for the missing brother and son.

Barnum decides to leave Vivian, and heads back to Røst to get on the wagon. Incidentally, Røst is precisely where he at last finds the answers to the half-brother riddle. When Peder invites him over to Berlin to sell screenplays, Barnum joins him. However, Boletta quickly sends for his immediate return. Fred's back.