Welcome to the Ending Explained for Copenhagen Cowboy, the newest piece of art from Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn. The series follows the controversial Too Old To Die Young, which was released some years ago on Amazon Prime Video. Now Netflix faces a similar situation with a TV series that is quite unconventional and that will surely only attract the fans of the director. Unless some brave ones dare to go into the unknown and give the series a chance. You never know, you might become the latest Nicolas Winding Refn’s fan in your area.
The series is a showpiece from Refn, where he shows exactly the kind of story he wants to tell. This is a slow, esoteric, and confusing story that doesn’t bother to feel the gaps of knowledge in the audience. Like in Too Old to Die Young, the series is trying to build its own mythology instead of relying on past tales. Something new and fresh is always welcome, but the presentation is so abstract that many people will just end up getting tired of being confused. You really need to become an active audience member while watching the series in order to extract meaning and coherence from it.
The following paragraphs contain spoilers for Copenhagen Cowboy. Read at your own risk.
What Is Miu?
Copenhagen Cowboy is a very strange show. Its story is quite confusing, but looking at it from a more analytical point of view, it is actually quite simple. It is just the level of presentation that makes it look confusing and incoherent at points. Thankfully, the writers haven’t really made a show that has a very intricate plot or confusing concepts. Everything is just very vague, and the audience needs to connect the dots and fill out the blanks in order to make the show make sense.
As the show starts, we are first introduced to our main character, Miu. Miu is a beautiful, short, and slim young woman who is being transported to a remote location near Copenhagen. The place is a brothel, and in there the women are all victims of human trafficking. They were deceived with the promise of work and a new start in life, but when their passports are taken, they are told they are in debt with Andre, the brothel’s owner, and are forced to work as prostitutes. Rosella, Andre’s sister, runs the house where the girls stay, and she is the one who has bought Miu for her own use.
It is here that Miu’s true nature is revealed. She is presented as a “Luck Coin”, a person who brings luck and can make things happen for you. Rosella wants a baby, and she believes that Miu’s presence will make it happen. However, when Rosella drops Miu’s fee from 10,000 to 7,000, Rosella quickly loses the baby. Miu is thrown in with the prostitutes, and she befriends a girl named Cimona. They plan to escape together, but Cimona is taken by a man named Nicklas, who kills her on a pig farm.
Miu suffers Cimona’s death and kills Rosella for it. Before killing her, Miu explains that when she was seven, she was kidnapped by aliens. It seems that when Miu came back to Earth, she did show signs of having changed into something more than human. She is basically what in the past could have been considered a witch. She can manifest things with her will, she can communicate with others telepathically, and she can even take talents from others. Her powers are vast, and not even she knows the extent of her abilities. Soon, we learn she is not the only one.
Does Miu Manage To Rescue Ai From Mr. Chiang?
When Miu escapes from the brothel, she finds refuge in a Chinese restaurant called, The Dragon Palace. There, she meets Mother Hulda, who is the first character in the show to treat Miu with respect. They make a connection. Hulda works for Mr. Chiang, a dangerous gangster. It seems that Hulda is being forced to work for Chiang because Chiang has kidnapped Hulda’s daughter, a girl named, Ai. Miu takes it upon herself to bring the girl back to her mother.
Miu takes a job from some Russian mobsters and starts selling drugs to make enough money to pay Chiang for Ai’s release. She also takes Chiang’s fighting ability, which helps her a lot as she navigates the criminal underground of Copenhagen, which is shown as a very dangerous place. While she does this, she also clashes with Nicklas. Miu reads his mind and realizes he is the one who killed Cimona. She defeats him easily and leaves him on the floor to be eaten by the pigs.
It seems like Nicklas is part of an aristocratic family that shares similar abilities with Miu. This probably means they were also kidnapped by aliens in the past and given these abilities. Nicklas’ penis is eaten by the pigs, and his family is quite concerned because it means he cannot reproduce, which would mean the end of the bloodline. Nicklas, looking for revenge on Miu decides to kill his mother and use the blood to wake up his sister, Rakel. Rakel seems quite powerful in her abilities, and even the dangerous Nicklas seems to be frightened by her presence.
Miu manages to pay Mr. Chiang and bring Ai back to Hulda. However, it is revealed that Mr. Chiang is Ai’s father, so it means Hulda’s just used Miu to get her daughter back. Mr. Chiang declares her love for Miu and declares that if she can’t have her, she will kill Hulda and Ai. They start a fight, and Miu wins in the end. The show ends as we see Rakel suiting up in a red tracksuit, which contrasts with Miu’s blue one. Miu goes to the forest, and she finds many girls dressed like her, one of whom even looks like Cimona.
The stage is then set up for a conflict between Miu and her new friends, against Rakel, who seems to have the same abilities as Miu but on an entirely new level. It is too early to say if Copenhagen Cowboy will have a second season, but the end of this season basically sets up the continuation of the story. The series is very niche, but let’s hope we can get one more season to see where this war between alien witches goes.
