Oskar Eriksson–Jonny relationship

Oskar Eriksson and Jonny Forsberg are bound by a pattern of bullying that turns from humiliation into attempted lethal violence. Oskar’s retaliation against Jonny’s desk does not break that pattern: when they meet again, Jonny and Tomas Ahlstedt take control of the encounter and force Oskar toward an approaching train. The conflict reaches its final, deadly stage at the school pool, where Jonny joins Jimmy Forsberg in an attack on Oskar and is later reported dead. Oskar disappears, leaving the relationship’s last consequence to be described by witnesses and investigators rather than by the two boys themselves.

Bullying and Retaliation

The scenes establish that Jonny’s power over Oskar is not a single confrontation but a continuing threat. After the train-platform attack, Jonny tells Oskar that the assault is meant to establish how things will be between them. He makes Oskar perform a humiliating imitation of a pig, and Jonny and Tomas laugh at the result. Tomas’s remark that Oskar used to do it better, followed by Jonny’s comment that they will have to train him again, frames the humiliation as a practice they intend to resume. Their language presents the bullying as discipline imposed on Oskar, while its actual purpose is to make him submit and anticipate the next attack.

The encounter also leaves Oskar thinking about what will happen when he returns to school. The prospect of facing Jonny and Tomas again is attached to the memory of Jonny pressing Oskar’s cheeks and forcing his mouth into a smile. Oskar responds not by accepting that future but by preparing to act against the boys’ property. He opens a box containing money, takes out a plastic bottle, and retrieves matches from his apartment. The money and the ordinary household items make the retaliation concrete: rather than confronting Jonny directly, Oskar gathers what he needs for an attack on the school desks.

At night, Oskar enters the school through a side door that has been left unlocked because evening classes are taking place. He moves through the dark corridors to his homeroom, where the classroom seems unfamiliar in the absence of its daytime activity. He pours T-Rod onto Jonny’s desk and then does the same to Tomas’s. He pauses at Micke’s desk but decides not to include it. That distinction matters: the act is directed at particular classmates, not indiscriminately at every desk in the room. Oskar then sits at his own desk and waits while the fuel soaks in, before gathering his copy of Firestarter, a story exercise book, and his favorite pen. The episode places a private, deliberate act of retaliation inside the familiar classroom that has been the setting of his vulnerability.

The Platform Attack

The next direct confrontation shown begins when Oskar arrives at Blackeberg station and sees Jonny and Tomas waiting on the platform. He tries to leave the train quickly, but Tomas trips him as he runs through the open doors, and Jonny holds him down. Their first question is whether Oskar is in a hurry to go somewhere; the taunt turns his attempt to escape into another opportunity to control him. The encounter quickly shifts from mockery to a coordinated threat.

At the station, the clock reads ten past two. Oskar braces himself for blows, tensing his body and hoping the assault will end quickly. Only when he understands what the boys intend does he begin to resist. Jonny and Tomas twist his arms and force him toward the edge of the platform. As a train approaches from the tunnel, its movement and the sound of the tracks mark the immediate danger. Jonny tells Oskar he is going to die, and the boys force his upper body out over the tracks. The episode makes the difference between their earlier humiliations and this attack unmistakable: the threat is no longer simply that Oskar will be made to perform or endure another beating, but that he may be killed.

Afterward, Jonny again presents violence as a lesson Oskar must learn. He asks for confirmation that Oskar understands how things will be, then repeats the demand for a pig-like squeal. Oskar complies, and Jonny and Tomas laugh. Jonny’s promise that they will have to train Oskar again carries the encounter beyond the platform: the immediate danger ends, but Jonny asserts that the bullying will continue. Oskar’s later preparations at school occur under the weight of this explicit expectation of renewed abuse.

Jonny’s Final Attack and the Disappearance

At the school pool, Jonny’s conflict with Oskar is joined to his relationship with his brother. Jimmy orders the other boys out of the water and approaches Oskar with a knife. Oskar is alone in the pool when Jonny takes hold of him and tells him that the attack is on Jimmy’s behalf. Jonny’s involvement is not incidental: he helps isolate Oskar and holds him while Jimmy confronts him. The scene thus makes the family connection part of the violence, with Jonny acting as the person who enables his brother’s assault.

The pool attack is followed by a decisive reversal in what can be known about the boys. Gunnar Holmberg, investigating at the school, learns that two youths were killed there the previous night and that Oskar Eriksson is missing. The students’ accounts largely agree on one striking detail: Oskar was rescued by an angel. They also describe that figure as the one who killed Jonny and Jimmy. The evidence therefore confirms Jonny’s death while leaving Oskar’s fate outside the police account: he is absent from the scene and has not come forward to Holmberg.

Meaning of the Relationship

The relationship’s pattern is shaped by Jonny’s repeated attempt to define Oskar as someone who can be trained through fear. At the station, Jonny makes that intention explicit; at the pool, he again uses physical control to make Oskar vulnerable while his brother attacks. Oskar’s response takes a different form. The fire at the desks is planned in private and directed at the school objects associated with Jonny and Tomas, while the final pool confrontation ends not with Oskar’s submission but with his rescue and disappearance.

The ending does not offer a reconciliation or a last exchange between the boys. Instead, it separates the outcomes: Jonny is among the dead, and Oskar is missing from the school where the conflict has repeatedly taken shape. Holmberg’s investigation preserves the distance between what adults can establish and what the students report. The word angel, repeated in their accounts, marks a rescue that the police can record but cannot explain through the ordinary schoolyard hierarchy. Jonny’s effort to dictate Oskar’s future through renewed bullying is cut short, while Oskar’s disappearance prevents the relationship from closing with a return to the classroom or a conventional resolution.