60 minSeason 2 • Episode 13
LatestDetective Kunes has a problem once again: he's lambasted the boyfriend of his ex-wife, and is threatened with dismissal from the police service. His high-ranking (female) boss has a solution for him: "removing" him on an internships in a back-of-beyond borderland region. But there's a fly in the ointment. His real mission is to unravel the two-year old case of the murder of policewoman Wágnerová, the investigation of which has reached an impasse. But the crime rate in the borderlands is one of the highest in the whole country - involving smuggling, drug production, poaching, prostitution and murders. Kunes has to deal with one difficult case after another, and it takes quite some time before he can start doing what he's sent to do, and then he does it in fact by coincidence.
Acting
Hynek Čermák's exhausted, stubborn Kuneš carries every scene.
Writing
Cases pile up absurdly; coincidence becomes narrative engine.
Production
Borderland desolation as character—bleak, beautiful, oppressive.
Creator
Jan Pachl
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rapl captures post-communist Czech ambivalence about authority—cops are simultaneously corrupt, necessary, and darkly funny. The borderland setting reflects real tensions with Germany and Poland.
Creator Jan Pachl originally conceived Kuneš for a feature film; the character's accidental success in the series mirrors Kuneš's own accidental crime-solving.
CZ
