A Day Like Gold
So I've always wanted to put up a recap site. I was a rabid fan of the former "Television Without Pity" recap site that got shut down some years back. The snark, lack of objectivity and exhaustive detail appealed to me.
I'm well aware that most of you reading this don't actually need one anymore, but I'm thinking it might come in handy for the second wave of viewers once Netflix starts showing this in the US. It will become evident that I'm not a German speaker and I'll likely miss some German social nuance. I have no thin skin anywhere so notes, snark, rotten tomatoes and patient admonitions are welcome at the Babylon Berlin reddit subgroup.
PS - Babylon Berlin Season 4 DVD edition is now available in PAL format in the UK! All episodes are on two discs so resolution is about 720. I got mine from eBay in the US. The official production English subtitles are an improvement.
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06 26 24 Update! After Netflix decided to abandon the series the streaming platform MHx now has Season 4 available for US viewers!
And so I'd like to finally welcome all you new US viewers to my recap blog and recommend the Babylon Berlin subreddit to share your thoughts, impressions and questions. There's a wealth of BB fanatics there to welcome you!
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S4 E1 – A Day Like Gold
A day like gold, In veins 100,000 volts.
A night, like velvet and silk!
A day like gold, You've got everything you want.
A night, it couldn't be more beautiful!
Two steps to the left,
Two steps back to the front,
It's now or never.
We were born to dance,
Everything shakes, everything lives.
Hook in! Could it be that we're crazy?
A day like gold, In veins 100,000 volts.
A night, like velvet and silk!
Life, is it just a dream?
One could only hope, but I don't think, that it's true.
Be careful, because it's easy to forgetthings don't stay the way they are.
Greetings to Moscow, Paris, and Vienna.
We wave to you, everyone is coming to Berlin.
Everything is shrill, everyone wants,
Everyone always knew that we are crazy!
A day like gold, what is left is declared.
A shimmer, cause what do I care about balance sheets
Let’s just dance!
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A pre-credit sequence opens the 4th season with the mysterious Doctor Anno Schmidt who I’ve always suspected might be Gereon's actual brother lost in the war and currently (terrible pun) treating Gereon for some psychological ailment. There’s some narration here but the entire sequence is intentionally inscrutable so I won’t even try. From what I can recall, at no time are the Dr Ano scenes ever continuous with any other part of the narratives, so there's no telling when all this occurred if it actually did. (4) Bloody Gereon echoes "Apocalypse Now" being drenched in blood and insanity with anodes stuck to his skin. It’s a pretty scary and dramatic intro. The credit sequence graphics are fabulous as usual.
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Charlotte opens the 1st episode with a perky pop tune she just purchased at a wonderfully designed record shop. Newspaper headlines and newsreel footage of men in breadlines contrast with her gay mood. She's in love! And as she walks into work she runs into Gereon at my favorite paternoster elevator. So quaint back then they actually believed people wouldn’t accidentally cut limbs off riding those.
"Thank God. I was afraid I had missed you" to which Gereon replies "I wasn't counting on seeing you, either" Huh? Is Gereon being coy or did something get lost in translation? Certainly the song did. We find that she bought the record as a errand for Gereon dashing my hope it was Lotte’s idea of a gift. They part referencing a date for later that night. Ah it's New Years Eve, December 31, 1930! "Keep practicing" Lotte taunts while twirling her ankle at Gereon as she rises up into the paternoster void.
Here we take an interesting moment to watch Gereon scan the room with his usual feral intensity. This is the first solo view of Gereon and moments like these are designed with care and intent. Three separate glances reminds us of his cautious nature. He leaves the building thru a dark hallway then checks in with a uniform. "Action starts at 9PM" - I can't wait!
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Meanwhile yours truly breathes a sigh of relief having been angstridden all year over whether or not I could get back in the Babylon Berlin swing of things having been away for so long. No problem, it's even better than I remembered!
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Lotte gets instruction on how to work the flashbulb for her 35mm camera from Graf the office tech who mansplains a bit. Lotte's got this and snaps the last work photo of the year 1930 of the guys down at the office. A fun note is she says “attention” in place of “cheese”. Then in walks the Buddha in all his fearsome glory! "For the Buddha I'll always be ‘Miss Charlotte’” as Lotte reminds us of how Buddha mentored her to her present job as detective.
Now we're back to listening to "A Day Like Gold" and are treated to the spectacle of Gereon working his fandango off in preparation for the upcoming fete. He is fully committed to cutting that glorious Art Deco rug but, but what do we see? OMG he's changing into a Brown Shirt Nazi uniform. Sturmabteilung which I had to look up means “Assault Division” and in German that’s abbreviated to “SA” (Yes, sadly I majored in chemistry and have learned all I know about 1930’s history from this show.) Yikes! Pulling up the evil looking red Nazi armband Gereon takes a beat to gaze into the mirror and we wonder what is going on in his thoughts.
We'll certainly find out as Gereon strolls thru the dark Berlin streets with it's obligatory lamp post leaning prostitute. (Not kidding!) He enters a Biergarten full of raucous Nazi's and I'm struck by how much balls it takes for Gereon to stroll thru there, assuming he's under cover. Walther Stennes is holding court with a party apparatchik I figure out is a fictional Herrmann Blank likely based on Joseph Goebbels, who is editor of the Nazi version of Fox News. They're arguing about laying low in regard to potential street fights. Stennes is having none of that regardless of what Hitler wants. "This conversation is over" as he exits, threatening to "muck out the pigsty." But not before casting shade on the masculinity of Herrmann's mortified aide de camp. I’m unclear on the variety of Nazi factions intersecting here but will trudge onward.(3)
Stennes and Gereon bond over a shot of schnapps and talk shop. A thirty minute window is referenced and Stennes seems pleased. However, we find that this is nervous Gereon's blushing coming out party as a new SA in uniform but Stennes brushes off Gereon’s girlish flutter in favor of a rousing pep talk to his comrades. Well worn cudgels, brickbats, and nightsticks are distributed and so we can assume some serious ass-kicking is eminent.
Cut to an astonishingly expensive looking Rolls Royce Phantom that pulls up to an even more astonishing looking exterior so well lit it almost hurts to look at. I am constantly gob-smacked at the producers for spending lavish amounts of money on shots that only appear for a few seconds yet establish so much. Danke.
Ah, now we see Helga Rath expensively dressed in an art deco apartment where I want to live in my next life. She converses with Alfred Nyssen and I may as well get this over with now to pound the table and insist you watch Lars Eidenger's amazing work in "Irma Vep" where he created a living breathing agent of chaos as an over the top, drug addled method actor. Nuff said. Lars kept his long hair from that role while red-penciling in his port wine birthmark and as they chit-chat he removes a box from a locked bureau safe revealing a necklace he titles "The Blue Rothschild." Helga's eyes literally bulge as she swoons standing up when Alfred sexily drapes the necklace around her neck. It's a seriously hot scene and in my next life also, I wanna be rich enough to pull that off.
Back at Chez Alfred's party gallery, the band was hot so they danced the famous Merengue. But not until we endure some political chit-chat featuring Alfred's mom, AnneMarie Nyssen, and Reich Chancellor Bruning then cut to Alfred greeting AnneMarie’s lawyer Wegener. Soon mean-mom, son and gf gather and pretend not to hate each other intensely as mom snarks on the "stolen sheen" Helga is wearing. "You really are the most vicious bitch Berlin's society has ever seen!” Helga retorts totally out of the blue as I fall off the couch in amazement. Mean-mom riposte her tart rejoinder, but honestly who could top a line like that?
We cut to a bunch of surly brownshirts riding in a military vehicle alongside Gereon and about 100 of them gather on the street to listen to Stennes rabble rouse some more. As this happens shadowy figures climb ladders to a rooftop. Something is up. Figures I don't recognize, who may be young university students, carry a large burlap bag that looks significant. More rabble rousing while I marvel at the loud pipes on that guy Stennes, then cut to the students looking down from the edge of the roof at the SA crowd. If I'm not mistaken one of them is Gereon's step-kid, (5) Moritz. Hmmm.
The burlap bundle is unfolded looking 4 times larger now than the one we saw hauled up, intercut with SA marching and yelling on the street. Now we cut to the inside of a department store to view a 15 foot lunar shopping display prop when surprisingly Lotte's sister Toni pops out of one of the moon craters along with another teen, presumably boyfriend. They are there to maraud and steal while the SA march the streets in front which was a pretty shrewd plan if they knew about it ahead of time.
Hilariously, we see the result of Toni and friend setting off a red light bulb at the nearby police station and so the desk sergeant is roused to send all of three cops after the infamous "Department Store Gang!” (Remember their faces, we're gonna see them quite a bit.) Meanwhile Toni and friend are having a gay old time trying on hats and grabbing all the chocolate confections they can carry.
Back at Alfred's party, Alfred and our old friend Gottfried Wendt are chatting about as Alfred teases a surprise he plans to unveil as soon as he "dispatches with life before we die." Hmmm. But not before mom interrupts to chew on Alfred's ankle once more about Helga flaunting what is apparently stolen jewelry which Alfred clearly doesn't give af about.
Now a woman I recognize but can't place her name yet, presents herself dressed in a dashingly boyish tux to Wendt. "Ah, Miss Seegers" but the penny hasn't dropped yet for me. Anyway she is terribly cute with that boyish blond bob and converses coyly with Gottfried and I recall her now as some Generals’ university-aged daughter from previous seasons. Ah yes, those two are old frenemies! Charming! I always liked the intellectual/sexual tension they had. They dance as Miss MaLu Seegers raises her head high clearly enjoying her youth and beauty.
Back on the streets, Gereon is marking storefront windows with a grease pencil while shop owners lock their doors in haste as the SA mob approach. An owner wearing a yarmulke is definitely getting a "this one!" tag from Gereon who then checks his watch which displays 9:00. Watching Moritz also check his watch we see the bundle unfurled down over the edge of the roof to drape down 7 stories at the front of the Tietz Department Store building. The subtitles betray me so I don't know what the banner has written on it yet. Meanwhile Stennes has struck a mighty SA blow against Jewish small business owners by crashing a waste bin into their "X" marked glass windows and the SA fury is now released. Action scenes now of cruelty, very violent cruelty.
Up on the roof, Moritz is yelling "Seig Heil" along with his colleague who has a oddly erotic attraction to Moritz in his excitement. Moritz is having none of that and I never did find out what the banner said. Belatedly it took a few days to connect that it’s likely that Gereon set up the antisemitic banner having Moritz to execute that part. What a great kid. Gereon knew ahead of time that the cops were going to take a collective 30 minute coffee break and his new bromance with Stennes is likely due to putting all this together for the SA "pigsty mucking".
The marauders still have time to try on some nice coats before they're ready to book it. Then the University Banner-Hangers meet up with the Department Store Gang on the rooftop. Police then swarm up out of stairways and a chase ensues. Whistles and pandemonium. "Go after them, Hagedorn!" Yikes. What follows is an excitingly dangerous action sequence featuring Toni and friend hugging the outside walls of the department store. This show has a really good sense of rhythm and pace - action scenes and slower scenes are expertly mixed. At this moment I’m exercising editorial discretion and I’ll not spoil what happens next, but Toni escapes alone.
Lotte is half way thru her shift when she announces to “Berlin's biggest grouch” a "burglary with lethal consequence” which sounds like an official German law enforcement category a few steps more serious than a “burglary of low wage tenement residents.” I can only imagine the German word for that. They split. Lotte is now at a crime scene where there are serious people being extremely serious. Like a moth to a flame Toni has also arrived. Lotte looks up from her camera and sees her sister only yards away. She calls out, Toni runs, another chase. During this rapid paced action scene we see Lotte running thru streets of shaky-cam SA rioters past burning cars and broken shopfronts only to see her sister disappear into the misty night. Someone calls out that the cops are coming and the SA mob try to disperse as mounted police run them down. It’s quaint that the SA are actually afraid of being arrested cause it'll be on their permanent record and they won’t be able to get into the good schools now. How times have changed!
What a long New Years Eve it has been! We’ve checked in with a majority of the central characters and I’m already exhausted. During this sequence we see Wendt finally chauffeured in to the SA riot scene and he has Stennes summoned from the mob. Wendt notices SA Gereon hauled away and it's impossible not to imagine a cartoon styled question mark over Wendt's head. I'm sadly lacking in subtext details here as I'm unsure how well all three know each other from prior seasons but I'll catch up.
And if seeing Toni wasn't enough who should nearly run over Lotte wearing his new crisp inaugural Brown Shirt with that sharp red Nazi band? Words fail me to describe the shock on Lotte's face, but lets assume a vast contrast between this and her opening scenes.
Back at Al's place, Alfred thanks his guests, then Helen announces their marriage which pleases everyone save for mean-mom who likely mutters to her lawyer to prepare papers to dis-inherit. Alfred is wearing a long tailed gold tux which Elton John would die for. He then proceeds in a somewhat insane corporate/political diatribe ending with a toast to the New Year and “Big Thinking!” (7) He manages to top that with a graphic & painful birthing/social progress analogy (yuck) then announces his plans to be the first man on the moon and I don’t know how the building don’t collapse with all the strenuous eye-rolling.
Finally, with immaculate timing, Alfred begins the midnight countdown from 10 to reveal the surprise he hinted at earlier. His engineers seemed to have made an advancement in rocketry resulting in a 15 foot projectile poised on the adjacent outdoor terrace to shoot thru the Berlin sky. Which as the clock strikes 12, after a nervous beat of delay, it does. Somehow the rocket fails to blast flames and shattered glass killing all the partygoers. I will allow for a lot of creative license here but I can’t help but wonder how many takes it took to get that entire room full of extras to sway back at least 2 feet simultaneously the moment they pretended to witness the rocket explode in the sky moments later.
The show takes a slight break now to offer some unique song and dance entertainment for our viewing pleasure. Again, kudos to the producers for choreographing these spectacular party scenes with dozens of extras all dolled up in formal attire having the time of their life for zero plot reasons. The episode’s theme song “A Day Like Gold” is sung live with the band and frankly it still hasn’t caught on for me, but perhaps in time.
As the crowd dances we see some portly guy apparently from Antwerp requesting a phone and some privacy. As it’s not the year 2022 he has to wait an entire 30 minutes for a cross continental phone call to New York, USA to be negotiated and it’s pretty cheeky of him to put that on Alfred’s tab, but what the hell, Al’s rich.
Now a new setting of a less exclusive club - some tipsy city official is collecting thick marks-stuffed envelopes from quite a Rainbow Coalition of mobsters and just as I type that on cue is my favorite mobster from last season. It’s good to see old Walter Weintribe who since I just finished watching the HBO series, reminds me a lot of Gyp Rossetti from “Boardwalk Empire.” Same cool swagger if you know what I mean. The envelope scene fakes us out twice implying violence that never happens. Walter pulls his envelope out with the exact gesture he’d pull out a handgun, while another mobster-jokester presents his pet rat on his shoulder which causes everyone dismay. Foreshadowing, indeed!
What is lovely in these closing minutes is that scenes are cut in while “A Day Like Gold” continues playing giving those scenes a bit extra emotional pull. We see sad Lotte and her day/night roommate Jacky from prior seasons still tending a modest bar while Lotte sits alone worrying about her sister and wondering what has become of Gereon. Who is currently slamming down shots with his Brown Shirt buddies thinking he is in deep sh*t with his soon to be ex-girlfriend. I'm left wondering how German jails allow their inmates booze in their cells but perhaps they were more progressive than in the States back then. Another short take of forlorn Toni riding alone on a bus with a single tear down a very sad face.
So now we see Miss Seegers addressing some housekeeper at a door and upon entry languidly jettisoning pieces of clothing to find Wendt idling calmly at a fireplace. They banter just the right amount before Miss Seeger gets topless and they do adult stuff on his chair and the penny finally drops that this shouldn’t have been a surprise.
The trans-Atlantic phone call is finally placed and Antwerp is speaking to someone we can’t see who has an excellent view of the Empire State building. Thru his window it's either impossibly dusk or dawn at 5:30 am when Jacob Grun excitedly reveals some important news about a jewel sighting. Sneaky Wegener happens to be listening at the door as we cut to . . . Credits!
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Whew! That was quite a bit of story to hit us all with for an opening episode! I was fabulously entertained and can’t wait to see episode 2 after I proofread this a dozen more times, figure out where to put the apostrophe for possessive nouns and insert pictures of the cast. There are still a small handful of characters to check in with. I’m assuming we haven’t seen the last of Katelbach as well as my favorite German Airbnb host Elisabeth Behnke. Can’t wait!
Now we dolly back, now we fade to black . . . (2)
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Footnotes? Really? These are gonna be out of order as they are added as they occur to me.
1) I actually watched the closing credits and learned that the song "A Day Like Gold" was written specifically for the series. While I appreciate how perfectly it captured the vintage vibe of the era and the tone of the episode, am still sad the producers couldn't find a fitting authentic 1930's era tune. Translation by https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ein-tag-wie-gold-day-gold.html
2) Of course I had to insert the closing bookend from a line stolen from Steely Dan's "Haitian Divorce." The band was hot, so, they danced the famous Merengue. Now we dolly back, now we fade to black.
3) From DW.com - "The Red Front Fighter's League was the paramilitary arm of the Communist Party, and the SA was part of the Nazi Party, or the NSDAP, led by Adolf Hitler. The SA's brown uniforms had earned them the epithet "Brown Shirts" in the 1920s, and in contrast to the communists, they avoided conflict with the state machinery of the Weimar Republic, choosing instead to terrorize Jews, social democrats and communists. They were rarely targeted by the police for their violent acts.
In 1930, the SA attacked "Warenhaus Wertheim," a department store run by Jews and destroyed display windows of other shops that were supposedly run by Jewish owners — a preview of the terror that would end in the Holocaust." https://www.dw.com/en/season-4-of-babylon-berlin-set-in-germanys-dark-1930s/a-63183606
4) I'm going to back off that statement now that I've gone back and checked a few scenes. There was one instance where we see Gereon walk into a kiosk in the middle of a street and descend into an underground tunnel of sorts. Then in S4E3 we watch Gereon drive to Dr Ano's lab. Still he never is with anyone and never references it to anyone.
But mainly here I wanted to offer the closing voiceover from the last 6 minutes of Season 3 where Gereon has just talked Bohm out of suicide due to the market crash and as the show closes out with several curious scenes cut in we hear Dr Anno Schmidt speak:
“Gereon. Ready for the next session?
We will find a path that makes
the wounded soul invulnerable.
You have embarked on a journey.
To the truth. To the light.
You are not afraid. You are free of pain and fear.
Your path inevitably leads us to
the fusion of man, and machine.
We will create the new human.
We will create the human-machine.
An android, free of pain and fear.
A mind damaged by war provides an ideal foundation.
Only such a mind knows the depths of the soul so profoundly that the will to be numb comes naturally.
Our new synthetic substances will remove all feeling
from the destroyed soul
thus freeing it from pain and fear.
“Will you lead us? From darkness to light?
“Bring the truth to light”
What I take from that is Anno has a plan to make a Nazi superwarrior via synthetic chemistry and has decided that war-damaged soldiers like Gereon are perfect candidates. Why Gereon goes along is still something i can't figure out, but I'm guessing Anno is playing a really long game here so that may reveal itself in future seasons.
(5)Kudos to /r/BabylonBerlin reddit poster Baldricks-tecspacles for pointing out my error here! Moritz is the son of Helga and Gereon's brother Anno?
(6) Kudos again to reddit poster Baldricks-tecspacles for Walter Ruttmann's backstory on the lovely authentic credit graphics that closes each episode!
https://www.openculture.com/2017/06/the-first-avant-garde-animation-watch-walter-ruttmanns-lichtspiel-opus-1-1921.html
(7) Kudos to "Al" a Babylon Berlin blogger who offers some great background on Alfred Nyysen's character.
https://babylon-berlin-series.blogspot.com/2022/11/reaching-for-moon.html
(8) In another Bablylon Berlin blog posting "Al" offers this great backgrounder on The Buddha based on the historical figure Ernst Gennat.
https://babylon-berlin-series.blogspot.com/2020/03/chief-inspector-gennat-of-berlin-police.html
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These headshots below are mostly correct save for Americanized spelling.
