NOBODY MOVE!
NOBODY MOVE! S4E9
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Iris opens unexpectedly, but it's fitting cause MaLu is actually using a camera to snap photos of the original WH808 documents from The Behnke Caper. As she snaps, someone knocks, Malu goes to open the door. It’s Oscar who can’t wait to kiss her so he does. That item checked off, he then asks for “the originals” after rudely unspooling the film from her camera. Suddenly the romance is drained from the scene. She won’t give him the originals because of Katelbach’s trial. Surprisingly, violence ensues over the WH808 docs. This is as bad a breakup as I’ve ever seen. Nothing says “Out of my life, forever” like knocking your lover unconscious to the floor. As MaLu lies bleeding, Oscar slithers out with the original WH808’s like the asshole he is. He’s "sorry," my ass. . .
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Iris opens once again on Lotte’s car ride from the previous episode, she’s peering thru windows to see Lanke and Kunschke hauling Dr Schwartz inside the building. Dodging the crowd of drivers hanging out in the parking lot, smoking, she walks to the building like she does that every day then anxiously scurries the last remaining yards inside. She's in a basement lockup and Schwartz is slammed rudely inside one of the cells. A graphic tell us we’re in our favorite House Sonnenborn Block 3 across the courtyard from the Orphan wing. Now we see someone else being hauled out of his cell and I dunno, is that Hermann? No! It’s Arndt or do I need to get my glasses checked. This guy keeps squirming around after they bludgeon him making it hard for me to ID. Now it looks like Litten and I give up. I’ll find out who it is when the damned show is ready to let me know.
Lotte sneaks into the lockup to check up on Dr Schwartz. “You!” what are you doing here is followed by “Open the door!” which Lotte can’t. She demands to know what happened to Rudi and gets a fake faint in reply. Seems the White Hand were turning the screws on Dr Schwartz for a past malpractice so he had no choice but to fake documents for Judge Voss "p.r.n." “I made a mistake and that’s how it started” which seems to be the universal first domino. Lanke and Kunschke return to haul Dr Schwartz to court and his pathetic cries echo in the lockup as Lotte tip-toes behind.
She notices a rack full of coats and hats next to the closed door and prowls around to see where she can peek inside. She has a view now of Voss’s podium – god that guy is scary creepy looking. From the sound of Voss's oratory this night is not looking to end well for Dr Schwartz so it falls into Lotte’s lap if anything is to be done about this. I’m guessing we’re in for a long stretch of caper scenes.
Lotte continues to creep around, ascending a staircase to get a better look at the White Hand guys inside. We cut to more dark empty offices only this time it’s Renate and Toni blending in perfectly with the current “sneaking around” motif. Renate shows us a key and they look out a window to The Yard. The drivers are still hanging out smoking, yet on cue they start walking into the building, leaving the cars unattended. “Now or never” Renate declares as she uses the key to exit. “Tell me if you see a crank” Renate to Toni. Uh, OK.
Renate goes to scan the cars and we cut to Lotte checking out the rope room. There’s a round window with another angle of scary Voss reading out the prosecution’s case against that guy I can’t recognize. That guy is now standing giving account for himself. Lotte scans the room inside to see Dr Schwartz with his bloody face on standby for his final curtain call. We get that guy's name, Heinrich Schuttler (Not Shittler!) so I was right, he’s nobody we’ve seen before. Which makes it no less cruel that Kunschke has that bag over his head already leading him outside to introduce his bullet.
Renate returns to Toni with a crank! Now I get it, back in the day cars didn’t always have electric starters. Toni starts cranking away but someone’s coming, they run off. Meanwhile, Lotte’s still checking out empty rooms near the Court. It’s quiet and creepy inside and Lotte has far more nerve than I do. See sees a phone and it’s been a while since she’s heard Gereon’s voice so she makes an unauthorized phone call. Gereon’s not picking up cause he’s in the shower stockpiling away which frustrates Lotte. She sees someone’s shadow in the hallway and hangs up. Suddenly Mrs Voss enters, her ears fully erect, but she just misses Lotte bolting to the hallway. Yikes a locked door! Dammit, she’s caught! Lotte freezes mere yards from Voss then hauls ass the other direction. Voss is shouting “Stop! Freeze!” a command which only works on small children – sometimes. Lotte’s tossing obstacles in Voss’s way behind her as she’s chased. Lotte passes thru a door then locks it on her side. Stymied, Voss makes a lengthy number of threats to no avail then runs off for help.
And now, amazingly, our two sets of sneaksters unite! It’s been a while since Toni and Lotte have chatted. The last time was in cop HQ with Henning and Czerwinski rescuing Toni from Station 14. Lotte palmed Toni the key to the cell so perhaps Toni would hate her less. Lotte just gave Toni and Renate the bigger picture with the White Hand crew so the plan’s been changed some. Renate is to steal a car and then phone Gereon about Lotte’s situation with a looming execution. Toni decides to stay with big sis so perhaps all is forgiven. Renate cranks the car up which I know from experience looked a lot easier for petite Renate than when I had to crank-start my '59 MGA back in the day.
Lotte unlocks a door just as Voss’s two screaming cops storm in looking for her. Sternly commanding them to “Freeze!” still doesn’t work. Toni shoves a shelving unit on Lanke's head but Kunschke grabs her and promises to kill her. Luckily, Lotte has something sharp at hand and stabs Kunschke in the back. It’s just a flesh wound so he starts attacking Lotte now. Toni finds a handy skillet and bashes Kuhschke’s head slowing him down a bit. A 40 gallon dishwasher is still steaming inside which gives them both the inspiration to mash Kunschke’s head inside it for a good steam clean which works to make him dead while his legs stop twitching, finally. No RIP for you either Kunschke. Lotte yells to gather the two guns and they exit.
It’s night and a car is driving a dark forest road. Renate drives pretty well for a 14 year old and spots a house off the road. We fast-forward about 2 minutes worth of “Hi, I’d like to use your phone for an important emergency.” Renate dials the number. Gereon is finally out of the shower and answers his phone.
Schwartz is on the White Hand hot seat during which Lotte barricades the White Hand members inside the court-room. She leads Toni to a safe place to hide and then we cut to a half dozen cops and detectives scurrying to their cars with Gereon yelling, “Follow me!” Toni gazes thru the window nervously to watch the trial while Lotte runs to the rope room to find a nice size 38 loop that should do nicely, she runs up the stairs to . . .
Cars racing down the streets. Voss drones on and on. Schwartz stands numbly having lost all hope. Then our hero does quite possibly the bravest thing I’ve ever seen the show offer. Lotte sneaks behind Voss and tosses the size 38 loop around his neck, yanks him to the ground then pulls out her pistol and waves it at everyone assembled inside court. That was definitely not on my Bingo card for this episode. “NOBODY MOVE!” then she nods at Schwartz to gtfo. Voss raises up to charge Lotte and gets a bullet to the kneecap in return which is really gonna hurt. Lotte is praying that help arrives soon, she has only 16, strike that, 14 bullets left as the court charges the barricaded door. The White Hand guys are surprisingly docile considering it’s just one young girl with 2 guns she’s about to empty of bullets. A few of them try to test her resolve and are shot. Fewer bullets remain, Lotte’s sweating as we cut to headlights of cars speeding towards us. They screech to a halt in front of the Sonnenborn court building. Lucky for Lotte this is not an elementary school with an active shooter inside so all the cops run into the building instead of loitering outside for an hour to smoke and check their phones.
Schwartz apparently missed his chance to leave since he’s still locked in with the White Hand guys. Mrs Voss finds the window that Lotte and Toni were peeping thru and begins to smash it open to escape. Toni bolts from the room. Lotte is near frantic holding off the courtroom guys and likely out of bullets as we see Gereon and cops position themselves, guns raised, at the barricaded door just as the White Hand guys break it open. “Police! Hands up! Arrest them all!”
5 minutes later, I note with satisfaction Voss is still writhing & whimpering on the floor with that bloody kneecap Lotte put a bullet in. All else is quiet. She’s numb with fatigue and relief gazing at the room full of broken furniture while a few stray White Hander’s are being led off by police. Toni walks slowly into the frame then seconds later Gereon enters. I flip a coin mentally to see which one Lotte is going to hug first. I win and it’s an emotional moment for both Lotte and Toni as they hug and cry in relief, joy and gratitude. I’m thinking these two will be on good terms forever now. Gereon takes coming in 2nd fairly well, considering.
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I have to pause here a bit and chef’s kiss to the writers, editors, directors, production designers and actors for creating this brilliant, exciting and action packed 20 minutes of Sonnenborn scenes. It gets better every time I watch it. Danke!
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Behnke is window shopping and sees a fetching hat she might try on since she’s a hot caper-gal now. (Is there a German word for Caper-gal? Abenteuer-Madchen?) The hat features a chic modern asymmetric design which might highlight her cheekbones more flatteringly.
Litten is cleaning up after the usual nightly burglary from hoodlums trashing his office. He takes this ritual in stride. Behnke enters with her same old hat and asks for “Miss Seegers.” Litten shows the camera and ruined film as the only remaining trace of her, saying no one knows. Difficult to call police as the WH808 docs are kinda compromising for him. Behnke insists on a missing person report but Litten doesn’t rule out perhaps MaLu is hiding out with the documents for reasons of her own which Behnke finds absurd.
We find out where MaLu is soon enough, she’s hanging out with Dr Volcker at the hunting hut. They’re waiting on Oscar but MaLu doesn’t think he’ll show due to their brutal break-up the previous day. That’s ok, there are some hunting rifles in the hut so they don’t need whatever Oscar was going to arm them with. Doc finds one she likes and warns, “there’s no turning back, comrade.”
So let’s check in on our favorite dysfunctional in-laws hanging out at Ye Old Foggy Barge. The two have declared a temporary cease-fire and we now see that AnnMarie has engineered a clever ballast-brick step-ramp of sorts so that Helga can propel herself up to the barge ceiling hatch and escape. AnnMarie metaled at this very Barge Ceiling Vault event in the 1896 Olympics, but due to poor brick stacking design which failed her, she had to settle for Silver. A sad event in her life that has left her bitter ever since. Her chance for redemption finally arrives 35 years later, but she must defer the vault to the younger Helga. “You have one attempt” as the stack will tumble during the leap, AnnMarie coaches. “Be quick as a greyhound” and this is as nice as I’ve seen mean-mom, like, ever.
Helga walks off the correct number of paces for her running start so as to not get disqualified, then runs IN HEELS to the ballast-stack and by god she rises up like a Phoenix to the opened hatch causing the single lattice of bricks to tumble into chaos. I’m so impressed with Helga’s upper body strength as I’m pretty sure I couldn’t chin myself up to get an elbow over the lip of that hatch. Helga does and an interesting moment arrives for her. Free at last, free at last, thank god-almighty. We hear mean-mom’s “Well done, Helga, Well done by both of us. Let the ladder down!” And I’m thinking if only mean-mom hadn’t patted herself on her own back with that “both of us” crack, Helga might have thrown the rope down. But Helga’s thinking, “Wait, I hate that bitch, let her suck lichen and die for all I care . . .” She decides to abandon AnnMarie and simply gtfo. AnnMarie is stunned and outraged and we hear her scream “Open the hatch!” as Helga runs away.
I’ve seen this cool white 2-seated roadster before parked various times on the street but it isn’t until now that I find out it belongs to Esther who’s driving to the Moka Efti. The marquee sign says “Closed.” Esther debarks wearing a sensational leather aviator cap with goggles that I think is due for a fashion comeback. Perhaps Darius from “Atlanta” could snap some Tic-Toc vids wearing one. Fuchs is there to stop her entering the Moka and I’m impressed he’s kept his cover this long. Esther won’t take no for an answer but Walter blocks her, followed by the Moka’s new owners as Walter explains he’s sold the Moka off. I’m bereft I may never see Squid-girl again, but Esther is p*ssed. The two exchange nastiness and Esther drives away.
Headlines! - “Brawl at Moka Efti between SU and SS!” Wendt is chatting up the Police President about how the SA must be disbanded immediately now that Stennes has reclaimed leadership. The PP has his own agenda so he won’t favor Wendt’s grudge and dismisses him by commenting on his hunting boots leading us to . . .
MaLu and the Doc are testing a rifle outside, it works great so “you will bring him here tomorrow” and now I’ll have something to look forward to. MaLu clearly doesn’t.
AnnMarie obviously can’t get enough of that lichen-juice, perhaps she read online of it’s anti-aging properties, but I’m getting nauseous just watching her drizzle it down her throat. She hears a noise and thinks momentarily that Helga has relented but instead the hatch opens so Abe can climb down and see to his satisfaction that the barge is short one dame since only mean-mom is still there. So now as Abe starts to climb back up the ladder, in a last ditch effort to plead for her release, AnnMarie comes clean about the Rothschild Diamond. She says it never reached Berlin – her’s was a copy of the lost original which might even be true. She mentions “Odessa, MS Silesia” forcing me to google that. As a bonus AnnMarie knows what happen to Abe’s dad as well, she being such a fount of knowledge lately. Abe prudently suspects a trap, but mean-mom is on a roll so she continues by mentioning the night of March 18, 1915. She wants out of the barge in return for her story and Abe agrees.
We cut to Helga tramping thru the woods before AnnMarie can begin. She found a road, randomly picks a direction and continues running.
AnnMarie takes her perch on a comfy stack of ballast bricks and begins her story about Abe’s dad. It seems he entrusted AnnMarie’s late husband with the Rothschild Diamond and the plan was to secretly give it to Abe’s “Jewish church” in Berlin via his diplomatic pouch. AnnMarie weeps bitterly that there was a huge explosion, thanks to a British torpedo attack, taking out the MS Silesia they had just dined on. The original gem, plus her husband and Abe’s father settled to the bottom of the ocean on that horrible day. Abe coldly calls BS on her story, having done some Wiki research of his own. “You’re lying” snorts Abe then pulls out his gun ominously which elicits a shocked scream from mean-mom. “This is from my father” Abe declares, pointing the gun first at cringing AnnMarie, then shooting a hole in the barge at the last second instead. It’s not looking too good for mean-mom at the moment, I hope she knows how to swim. As he exits, Abe drops the rope ladder inside the barge and counters mean-moms angry protests with a cheery “I’ll see you in hell!”
It’s spa day at Chez Alfred! We're treated to another fun montage with pump organ riffs and Alfred is going for the full “Master of the Universe” package which includes a full body massage, manny-peddy, and bonus hair coloring. Alfred has decided that if he has only one life to live then he'd rather live it as a blond! Have I already mentioned there’s hallucinogens in the water? That was comped. With a little sequence razzel-dazzel we discover the blond guy playing the pump organ is none other than Alfred and honestly it’s just a tad too white for his skin tone, but what-ev. Cut now to Helga having already entered the manse, bone tired, ankles swollen and staggering from the heels she has walked miles and miles in. She follows the organ music upstairs and I can just tell she’s winding up for the mother of all bitch sessions toward Alfred who seems pathetically content with noodling on the organ instead of personally combing the general vicinity on his hands and knees for her rescue.
Alfred hears a noise and turns to see Helga standing. He screams “Helga!” so at least he remembers her name, then runs down to greet her. The relief on his face almost makes me feel sorry for what's in store for him as Helga is literally vibrating with rage. For a giddy moment Alfred is thinking – That Kahlil Gibran guy was right! If you love someone let her go. And Helga came back!
Helga’s vicious slap knocks that notion out of his head for good as she screams at him. Alfred’s on his knees begging forgiveness, pleading he did all he could. Helga explains simply “We were trapped on a barge. I escaped.” And oh, by the way, mom is still there. Alfred’s concern for Helga quickly evaporates. Helga has no clue where to find her, citing the anonymous forest road, no notion of where the barge was and the hours of walking in the rain. Helga then collapses to the floor which finally gets Alfred’s attention.
Toni’s shown taking a well deserved nap as Lotte and Gereon debrief at Gereon’s kitchen table. He speaks of White Hand staff interviews which revealed a “yard of the dead” located at an abandoned building near the Sonnenborn. We cut to dead bodies and clusters of human bones lined up. More than 150 dead is the first estimate. Gereon explains those White Hand guys have been busy for some time and thanks to Lotte, they’re not anymore. But why? Lotte asks. “Our system is too lax for them” says Gereon. “So they took it into their hands.”
Lotte is stunned at how such grotesque evil can exist in the modern world, hidden by government status in proper society. And I’m sad to tell her nothing’s changed since. But Gereon bottom-lines “they were murderers and will be brought to trial.” Perhaps this will get Buddha to relent and hire Lotte back, we’ll see.
Lotte has clearly surprised herself of what she’s capable of via the White Hand standoff, admitting to Gereon, “I killed someone . . . Kunschke.” She’s trying hard to feel bad about that, but can’t quite. Gereon is still PTSD coaching, “If you hadn’t shot him you’d be dead now” which works for me. The scene ends with Gereon’s hand taking hers.
It’s night-time, Sunday, I’m guessing. Wendt is walking up to the hunting hut and gazes warmly at MaLu inside. He knocks and enters. They both act restrained for some reason then Wendt offers a small wrapped gift box containing some ladies leather gloves which at least gets Wendt a kiss hello. We’ll be kept guessing if any frisky stuff happened as now we cut to watching Wendt sleep peacefully as MaLu strokes his face. She’s thinking out loud, “Don’t we want to do everything differently?” MaLu is definitely having 2nd thoughts. “We could leave. Politics, all of it.” Wendt replies, “There is only us!" but sadly MaLu and us know that’s wrong. It’s a quiet moment now as MaLu persists in wanting “to go away.” Wendt quotes some baffling literary passage having a lot of “I’s, we’s" and "ours" in it as my eyes glaze over. Not the strongest finish, this episode. The scene cuts to a campfire glow on Dr V's lurking face. Credits!
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Gosh, that was action packed! That breathless 20 minute Lotte rescue caper was a highlight for me and we had no low-lights at all except for that weird Wendt poem at the end. We’re 3/4th of the way thru the season now and it’s all I can do to not go into even more exhausting needless detail as a way to savor the last remaining 140 minutes. We’ve still yet to see if that WH800 original shows up in time for the appeal hearing. We’ve stalled out a bit on the Ringvergein conference. I’m guessing we’ll soon see where Gaunt Guy hid bombs planned for it. Perhaps we’ll have a drive-by from the mysterious mob guy who’s identity remains unconfirmed. But at least Kunschke is finally dead! I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Benni and Rudi’s deaths have now been avenged at the hands of their respective girlfriends - an interesting symmetry. As always, countless edits and spelling corrections while I struggle with the stupid Blogger html text editor. And if you’re still reading this far, thanks!
