The Winners

In towns like Beartown and Hed, the narrator says, everything is connected. Kevin Erdahl sexually assaulted Maya Andersson at a party two years prior, starting a series of events that resulted in a young man’s death. Maya and Benji both left Beartown shortly afterward. A future Maya will sing of the small towns and the storms that disrupt them. In the present, an autumn storm builds as a young man tries to drive his pregnant wife, who has gone into labor, to the hospital in Hed. A tree lands on their car as they take a shortcut through the forest.

In Hed, Hannah, Johnny, and their four children help the community prepare for the upcoming storm. Hannah and Johnny argue about his inevitable departure into the storm, as Hannah expresses anger over his tendency toward heroism and rashness as a firefighter. In Beartown, Ana’s instincts warn her of the weather to come, and she prepares. Her father is too drunk to be helpful.

Johnny tries to comfort Hannah, reinforcing that he is needed to clear debris. Hannah gets a phone call from her boss that sends her running.

Benji wakes up hung over in a foreign town. He has spent the last two years traveling, partying, and trying to forget. He gets a call from his eldest sister, Adri, telling him that someone has died. He departs for home.

Hannah prepares a bag as she tells Johnny about the couple trapped in the forest. Because there are no ambulances available, she needs to reach them. Hannah drives to Ana’s house, intending to employ her woodsman father to help her find the lost couple. Ana, a woodswoman in her own right, volunteers to take his place when Hannah spots him in a drunken stupor.

Matteo rides his bike as the storm starts. He watches Tails, local supermarket owner and Beartown hockey sponsor, rush to take down the new flags outside the hockey club. Matteo is almost hit by a car and lands in a ditch.

Ana reflects on a childhood of helping her father track wounded animals as she drives through the storm. Hannah talks nervously, and they tease each other about their differing hockey loyalties. They find the damaged car and expectant parents.

In Hed, Johnny experiences the anxiety that Hannah goes through every time he goes out on a call. He worries about her safety and gains a new level of understanding toward her.

Hannah delivers the baby but realizes something is wrong. Ana backs her father’s truck up to the crushed van, and they transfer mother and baby into the truck before driving through the storm to the hospital.

In the city, Maya Andersson is happily on her way to a party, unaware of the storm currently devastating Beartown. She reflects on the life she has built for herself at a music university and the ways she has healed since being sexually assaulted two years prior. Despite her growth, she struggles to feel a sense of belonging, both at home and when surrounded by her affluent classmates. As she walks through a park, she notices a figure following her and starts to panic.

Kira is the last one in her office in Hed when the storm starts. She sent her coworkers, including her husband, Peter, home; she told Peter he needed to be there for their teenage son, Leo. She grapples with her feelings of inadequacy when it comes to being a mother and a wife. She started seeing a psychologist for panic attacks, a fact she hides from Peter.

Ana successfully delivers her companions to Hed, where mother and baby are stabilized. Hannah compliments her before she leaves. Kira thinks that she should leave her office before the storm worsens but remains.

Maya tries to decide how to escape the figure that is following her. She realizes that she has not changed since being 15 in Beartown. As the figure approaches her, Maya pulls a knife from her purse that was given to her by Ramona, owner of the Bearskin pub. The figure apologizes, revealing that she is a teenage girl who lost her phone while being harassed by her peers. Maya helps the girl locate her parents, then cries when the girl leaves. She wants to call her mom but calls Ana, getting no response.

Matteo climbs out of the ditch and is furious. He tries to drag his bike home but loses his bearings and winds up in the part of town known as the Heights, an affluent neighborhood. He abandons his bike to walk home.

Several years prior, local politicians repaired the Beartown hockey rink before the Hed hockey rink. Because of this, the Hed rink roof collapses in the storm at the exact moment that Tails tries to pull the Beartown flags down. Tails credits himself with having saved the club over the last few years through strategic marketing and investments. Although many call him an opportunist, he has also garnered respect for his dedication. Tails seeks help when he cannot get the flags down.

Matteo cuts through residential areas to get home more quickly. He passes by the Andersson residence, where he sees Peter looking out the window. Matteo is pleased that Peter looks unhappy and disappears into the storm.

Peter listens to the storm and thinks about how out of place he feels in the world now that he is no longer the general manager of Beartown hockey. He feels lonely, abandoned by his loved ones, but has rejected Maya’s suggestion of therapy because he knows why he feels sad: He lost his sense of belonging the day he stepped down as general manager. He also feels guilty for being upset about Beartown’s recent successes. He thinks about calling Kira and Maya but stops himself.

Maya cannot calm herself down enough to attend the party and resents her classmates’ carefree outlooks. She goes to a small pub and drinks wine before she realizes hockey is on all the televisions.

Peter tries to get Leo food, but the teenager is too focused on his video games. He watches hockey while he takes the photographs down from the walls after hearing them rattle from the force of the wind. He fondly remembers memories from when his children were young.

Maya tries to ignore the group of young men who enter the bar, but they are obnoxious and dramatic. The men turn their attention to Maya, trying to buy her alcohol and harassing her when she does not respond. She remembers skating by the lake and talking with her father about her late brother, Isak. At the time, Peter compared Isak to a young boy playing hockey, and it was the first time Maya became aware of Kevin’s existence. The boys at the end of the bar move closer.

Matteo stops by the Bearskin pub, hoping to get shelter, but Ramona does not hear him knocking, and the power goes out. He walks to his neighborhood and breaks into his neighbor’s basement, knowing they are better prepared for the storm. He finds a gun cabinet.

Peter thinks about how much time he spent focusing on himself and his career while his children were young. He gave up hockey to be a better father but now he is lost without an obsession to keep him occupied, having spent too much time focusing on the wrong children. Kevin was one of those children, and Peter carries guilt for what Kevin did to Maya.

Maya, now drunk, is found by some of her classmates at the pub. They try to bring her back to the party, but she sees a news report about inclement weather and realizes Beartown is at the center of the storm. When one of the young men tries to grab her when she stumbles, she shoves him into the bar and leaves the pub in a rage.

Peter waits for the motion sensor light to turn on and notify him that Kira is home. Most nights, she sits in the car long after she arrives, and he pretends to be asleep. The power cuts out, and Leo sits with him on the couch. As his phone is about to die, Kira texts to say she is on her way home. Meanwhile, Maya calls Ana and Leo, but neither answer.

Kira is still in her office when the power cuts out. She lies down on the floor and thinks about the ways that her and Peter’s relationship has changed over the years, leading to their current resentment and confusion. Several weeks prior, Tails and other men from Beartown tried to coerce Kira to move her office from Hed to Beartown, where Tails is trying to build a business park. He suggested that Kira donate to Beartown hockey in exchange for decreased rent, and over the course of the conversation revealed that some council members want to close the Hed hockey rink. The secret has made Kira even more uncomfortable in her marriage because Peter used to hold all the secrets.

She contemplates letting him go back to hockey but resents his obsession with the sport. She falls asleep and dreams that Peter walks through the storm to reach her. She wakes when Peter calls her, telling her that someone has died.

Fatima finishes cleaning the hockey rink as the storm picks up. Her son, Amat, is one of the best players the club has ever seen. However, an unspecified injury and an unspecified negative experience at the NHL draft has led Amat to become distant, spending his days alone in their apartment. She and the rink caretaker banter as he tries to send her home. The caretaker hears banging on the door and finds Tails outside, who implores him to help pull down the flags. The caretaker agrees, and the narrator shares that the flags will fly at half-mast tomorrow.

Ramona’s Bearskin pub has been the site of celebration and mourning. It has also hosted many hockey players and hockey enjoyers, encouraged by Ramona’s own love for the game. The storm is so bad that Ramona closes for the night. She does not hear Matteo outside, knocking on the door as he searches for shelter.

Fatima thinks about Amat as she cleans the offices of the hockey rink. His recent failures have deeply hurt him, leading her to avoid people because she does not know how to answer questions about her son. As she departs, the caretaker offers to get Tails to drive her home, but Fatima is vehemently opposed to the idea. She waits by the bus stop until the cold compels her to start walking home, heightening her chronic back pain. Fatima pauses in the middle of the road to catch her breath as she thinks about how she taught Amat to feel grateful and worries that led him to devote too much of himself to hockey. When she tries to continue walking, she falls into a ditch, and her thoughts drift to all the ways that hockey has manipulated her and Amat. She crawls out of the ditch and hears Amat’s voice in the wind. He has gained weight and smells like alcohol, but he runs to her with all his old speed.

Ramona and her late husband, Holger, used to run the bar together. Although Ramona is not a welcoming person, she takes care of the community and supports people in need. She hosts the Pack at the Bearskin, giving its members a place to decompress. The leader of the Pack is Ramona’s adoptive son, Teemu. His younger brother, Vidar, died in a car accident the year before. In a prophetic moment, Ramona goes to bed during the storm holding Holger’s photograph and wearing her day clothes so that no one will have to see her in her nightgown. She dies that night as, in the forest, a baby is born under Hannah and Ana’s supervision.