Jens Hansen (2024)

Sebastian Sandstrod, also known by his alias Truth Terrorist, formerly known as Jens Hansen, is the main antagonist of the first season and a supporting antagonist of the second season of the Swedish-Danish thriller TV Show Bron|Broen. He is a serial killer trying to bring attention to social problems such as homelessness and child labor, but is also revealed to have a personal vendetta against Martin Rohde, the deuteragonist of the series.

He was portrayed by Lars Simonsen.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Jens Hansen was supposedly born sometime in the 60's from an unnamed couple which is mentioned by Martin, and sometime in his life he did military service and later got a law education, before becoming an investigator. He and Martin were good friends as well as colleagues, and Jens was the best policeman around, a skilled marksman as well as a mastermind when it came to investigating.

However, things went downhill when one day Hansen learned that his wife was cheating on him for Martin, and he became furious for it, undergoing a smaller mental breakdown. The wife had enough after a while, took their son, and decided to drive to Martin as shelter from Hansen. However, they tragically died in a car crash, making Hansen even more depressed.

Becoming sadder and sadder, Hansen eventually stopped caring about his job and gave up on everything, until becoming homeless and living in poverty for months. Wanting to move on, Hansen did a plastic surgery and changed his name to "Sebastian Sandstrod", before faking his suicide and preparing for a new life, blaming his misery on Martin and preparing for revenge on him.

Season 1[]

Killing Monique Brammer, a prostitute, Sandstrod kills another female and glues their bodies together before dumping the bodies at the middle of the bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Later during the day, Sandstrod hijacks the car of a famous but very self-absorbed journalist named Daniel Ferbé and loads it with explosives, making him panick. Fortunately, the explosives deliberately don't explode and it's just a setup. The day after, Sandstrod calls Daniel on his phone and announces that he'll provide him on information so that he can make exclusive articles about the murders and therefore get a higher salary, and then sends an email to him, signifying that he'll start killing homeless people. Beginning the killings, Sandstrod electrocutes and kidnaps the unpleasant and arrogant homeless former navy captain Bjørn, and creates a website where he records the killings, often giving requests that the public have to do to prevent the victim from being killed. Sandstrod calls Daniel again after he was interviewed on TV and thanks him for giving him the nickname "Truth Terrorist", but he wants 4 wealthy landlords to pay 20 million kronor each to a bank account and he will let Bjørn go, just to test whether or not they are greedy, though it turns out that no one is willing to pay except for one, who is doing it for pragmatic reasons.

When Saga and Martin find the location where Björn is kept hostage, they also find Sandstrod there who quickly defeats both of them, but kicks Martin's penis in the process, which had recently gotten a vasectomy. In the next episode, Sandstrod manipulates the paranoid schizophenic Lasse Jönsson into murdering a psychologist and a mailman, while having him wear similar clothes to himself to frame him. A girl with neglectful parents named Anja runs away from home and moves into Lasse's apartment, but while she is out on a walk she happens to see Sandstrod, meaning that she could be a possible witness, forcing him to kill her. Having a new framing-victim, Hennig, a police officer committing misconduct, Sandstrod kidnaps him while in his sleep and places him in the basem*nt of the brother of the person who died due to his misconduct, Saif, making it seem like a revenge plan on Saif's side, while further implying it by posting a cartoonish video of Hennig being knocked to death on his murder-website. When Saif and his father let Hennig go out of the basem*nt due to feeling that vengeance is unnecessary at that point, Sandstrod disguises as a policeman and calls on Hennig to come closer, seemingly wanting to inform him about something, only to kill him when he does.

Leaving his goal of waking people up to the problem of homelessness, Sandstrod moves on to child labor. He does this by electrocuting a schoolbus driver and kidnapping the children in the bus, recording them playing and having fun with each other around his house, and then telling people to burn down the HQ's of companies using child labor, and for every office, one child is spared. Later in the episode Sandstrod calls Daniel and says to him that he'd like to turn himself in but first get an interview with him, considering Daniel was fired after burning down an office for the children he believes it'd save his career with such an exclusive interview. Unfortunately, as Daniel is about to get into his car, Sandstrod betrays him and isn't happy with how Daniel believes more in profit than the truth, and gasses him to death in his car, just as he was going to do it the first time.

With the Terrorist's true identity revealed to the audience, Sandstrod is now a consultant. He meets Mette, Martin's wife at her job and gives her a software to look at and see if it's worth buying, and while it's never shown, she seems rather impressed by it, often calling it interesting. The next time he visits her, he brings her flowers for disturbing her work and remains a generally charming personality to make her trust him. He later visits her at her home, and she tells him that the kids are going to a zoo and she would like if someone went with them there, so he did it. While there he gives a random man a credit card and tells him that Martin will be there, before telling Mette about the tragedy of his family and how they died.

Sandstrod tells Mette and the kids that he has a "surprise" for them, and drives to a suburban villa where he gives Mette a grenade, and then locks them up, making them unable to escape, revealing his true colors. Sandstrod calls the police and leaves an anonymus tip, telling them that he "recently heard a woman and a kid desperately screaming nearby". In the next episode, he drives to Martin's villa and kidnaps August, Martin's eldest son, and talks with him about how Martin is as a person, before burying him alive. Calling Martin, Sandstrod lies to him that August still has a chance of surviving, and gives him instructions on what to do for August to come out alive. They end up at a train to Sweden, and Sandstrod stops the train after a while and threatens to blow it up if Martin doesn't kill an innocent woman, and if he does he'll also reveal where August is. After Martin accidentally fatally shoots her, Sandstrod reveals that August was never alive to begin with, and it was all a lie. Saga however comes and tries convincing Martin that August is still alive to stop him from shooting Sandstrod out of hatred, but Sandstrod, wanting to complete his master plan, speaks the truth and says that August is in fact dead and there is nothing he can do, before Saga is forced to admit that he is dead. Just as Martin is about to shoot Sandstrod, Saga shoots both him and Sandstrod non-fatally, arresting both of them.

Season 2[]

Sandstrod returns in the second season but has a less villainous role. After Martin quits his psychology lessons, he instead decides to go to Sandstrod's prison cell and confront the monster who killed his son. Martin even lets Sandstrod help in the current investigation, and he genuinely appreciates it. In one of the final episodes, Martin describes how the killing of August was unnecessary and shows pictures of August as a child, which causes Sandstrod to cry and feel remorse for what he did. However, in the final episode, Mette decides to leave Martin, causing him to blame Sandstrod for it and go to his cell, poisoning his coffee and thus killing him, getting him arrested for ten years and completing Sandstrod's master plan.

See Also[]

• Kieran Ashton, the main antagonist of the British-French adaptation series The Tunnel.
• David Tate, the main antagonist of the American-Mexican adaptation series The Bridge.