The meaningful look

I was watching Wallander last night.  There is a scene at the end, where Wallander comes to tell the husband whose wife was missing that she is dead.  He appears in the doorway.  The husband looks up and moves toward him.  Wallander says nothing.  He just looks at the husband meaningfully.  The husband looks back for half a minute, recognizes the non-verbal message being sent and turns away, slumping, while the others in the room move toward him to comfort him.  Wallander moves back out the door and down the road.  This scene is played out without a word being spoken.  My thought as I watched this, ‘Oh, no, Swedish people in South Africa announce bad news in non-speak, too.  Jeez, is it universal?’  I’ve been musing over the fact for months that this has become the standard way bad news is communicated in almost all TV drama now.   Each musing brings more annoyance.  This probably means that bad news is now being announced the same way in real life.  NTs are completely nuts.  The want us to talk to them non-stop about nothing, but chose not to speak when information really needs to be communicated.  Jeez!