Tomorrow is Tomorrow. Now is Now.
Tomorrow is Tomorrow. Now is Now. S4E12
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Gereon is dressed in his browns hanging on inside a military transport truck along with a dozen or so other SA homies. He screams some pep talk to boost energy & morale. Everyone seems pensive, so robust screaming is sure to spike their testosterone a bit. The trucks stop at NSDAP headquarters and everyone dismounts. Moritz looks pensive also.
Those 50 or so SA brownshirts storm the front entrance of the NDSA building. “Out of the way” as various scenes of brown shirts bullying and being generally unpleasant to the regular 9 to 5 staff there. They’ve invaded the Der Angriff offices where Fred Jacoby and Hermann Blank are predictably cowed. Fred gets punched for simply picking up the phone which seems harsh, then a punch to Heymann follows so as to not play favorites. Gereon then enters to put the SA Special Propaganda Extra issue in play.
Somewhere else Hellsdorff is on the phone trying to update Wendt but gets only a shove from Stennes. Stennes puts his ear to the phone, hears Wendts voice on the other end then smacks Hellsdorff’s face viciously with the receiver, ouch. Stennes pitches – “You may join us or refuse the renewal of the party!” The afternoon edition has already been printed, but Gereon thinks fast and orders the front page be replaced with the one Stennes had worked up. The front page will be an heroic pencil drawing of Smug Stennes posing victoriously before a Swastika & Eagle with the headlines –“Hitler Overthrown - Stennes Takes Over – Majority Cheers.”
“This is not a coup” Gereon lies, “This is the SA’s revolt against Hitler’s submissive vassals in Munich.” OK. Jacoby is shorthanding all this down but before Gereon is called away to join Stennes, Fred grabs Gereon to ask, “But Hitler?” Gereon replies “Hitler is gone.” Jacoby is as confused as I am, “But this is . . . good?” To which Gereon answers “Yes, of course.” There are shades of nuance that I fail to comprehend here but I think Jacoby has caught on to Gereon. I dunno.
Wendt is now in full bristling snit and bursts into the Police Presidents office to excessively bitch and moan about the Police not stopping an obvious coup attempt in NSDAP headquarters. The PP is pretty sanguine about it, explaining it’s not his job to police politics. And since, by the way, I’m your boss, I’m ordering you to chill. But Wendt hits a nerve, correctly accusing the PP of wanting the SA and NSDAP at each others throats which PP scoffs at unconvincingly. Nevertheless, PP has the last word and with one twitch of his right eyebrow he orders Wendt out of his office.
Not done yet by a long shot, Wendt stomps thru a corridor with Sebald and plots to get some guys with guns to the NSDAP office ASAP. Most of his guys are still out checking all the airports, bus stations, rail stations, ship terminals etc so he’s down to only 12 armed men. They’ll need a SS “Century” (100 guys?) also for which he’ll personally equip with police guns. That oughta do it so we have quite a battle in store for us.
Gereon enters the NSDAP head office. We see Hellsdorff all bloody and restrained to a chair while Stennes rains sadistic blows on his face. What follows is a cruel and grotesque play by Stennes which I don’t have the stomach to detail. Basically, Stennes runs a con ordering Gereon to murder Hellsdorff as a loyalty test. Gun in hand aimed at Hellsdorff’s face, Gereon is clearly in moral anguish, checking off exactly how many levels of hell this drops him. Moritz is in the room watching as Gereon murders the chair instead of Hellsdorff. This gives Stennes the proof he needed that Gereon was a traitor to order Gereon bludgeoned and dragged out to the basement for disposal. No Christmas present from Uncle Gereon this year Moritz, you little sh*t! Stennes reassures Moritz with “We don’t know blood, only convictions” then exits.
The Police President is doodling at his desk, hearing clamor he crosses to the window and sees brownshirt men lining up and signing out guns from a military truck. He hears Wendt telling them to hurry and just initial for them instead of writing your full name, which is faster. “Oh, Crap!” PP thinks and races to get “In House Operations Management” on the phone, on the double, whoever they are.
Gereon is dragged thru dark basement corridors.
Stennes screams at the phone which told him that the Wendt SS militia are on their way. It’s not going to go as smoothly as he thought. He throws the phone at the fireplace in rage and gets ready to rumble.
In the basement a guy shovels coal into a furnace. The guy dragging Gereon chases the shovel guy out, drops Gereon near the furnace grate then pulls out his knife. Gereon executes the tried and true coal-dust-in-the-eyes gambit which gives him an opening to knock the knife to the floor. His assailant’s got about 80 pounds and 6 inches on him so he easily regains the upper hand pounding on Gereon’s head as we cut to . . .
Stennes pep-talks his SA troops who are about to “achieve something great” and I remain in awe at his gift for inspirational rabble rousing as they all seem to buy it. Meanwhile in the basement, I can tell by the ears we’re seeing the back of Moritz’s head walking the basement corridor to find Uncle Gereon, now seriously busy trying not to get killed. Gereon lucks into the blistering-steam-vent-into-opponent’s-eyes gambit but still gets muscled to the floor.
Stennes isn’t finished rousing his SA troops into a lather just yet. He lies that Hitler has already resigned so this battle to come is somewhat perfunctory but necessary. Historians will analyze their heroism for decades, probably. Meanwhile the furnace fight enters it’s 4th round as we see Moritz (Heh!) scanning the basement lockup for Uncle G.
The SS Calvary arrive at NSDAP headquarters but valet parking has shut down so they have to leave their trucks in the street. Bummer. Spirited music ramps up the excitement. Moritz recognizes Uncle Gereon screaming as he’s about to get his face incinerated and I’m happy to report that blood is thicker than “convictions” as Moritz takes a shovel to Gereon’s assailant like the good lad I always thought he was. Seems that brutal Hellsdorff murder scene didn’t go down well with Moritz either. Together they singe the guys ass on fire then Gereon finishes him off by slamming him unconscious with a shovel to his face.
Trucks now pull the entrance door open with hooks and chains. The SS storm in wearing just slightly lighter brown shirts than the SA guys so this could get confusing.
Being the good sport that Gereon is now, he graciously dumps water on the burning SA guy that tried to kill him.
The SS enters to a hallway blocked with 30 or so “storm troops” reciting some kind of inspirational battle-rap. Wendt enters and all his guys have guns and rifles whereas the SA guys just have big sticks but they seem ok with that. It’s a standoff apparently as the SA guys don’t think the SS will use the guns against them. “Fire on my command” Wendt orders as Stennes arrives. “Fire!” and one guy goes down while the SA guys react, come on, wtf? Since they’re still standing there, blocking the hallway, Wendt orders “Fire” again, and another one goes down. Sweat breaks out on Stennes’ clenched forehead. Now that Wendt has everyone’s attention, he barks at the SA – “Truncheons down!” and just like that I’m disappointed to see they do actually lower them in defeat. The smirk is gone from Stennes face as he’s led away while the SS retake the building so that the 9 to 5 crew can finally get some work done, (but now they’ll have to work thru lunch!) This all seemed pretty easy for Wendt’s guys and I’ve lost all confidence in Stennes now, he’s just an empty smirk.
The light brown shirt SS guys clear out all the darker brown shirt SA guys to reach Hellsdorff finally and boy is his face a mess. Stennes is dragged before Wendt once more so he can snark then take a rifle butt to Stennes’ face for being a smirk-faced loser. “Take him away.” Just then Gereon and Moritz appear and Wendt mutters “mole” at Gereon as they’re led away also. All of this is going to look really bad on the dark brown shirted SA guys quarterly performance appraisals and I doubt after this any of them could even get a warehouse gig at Amazon now.
I’m confused because Gereon and Moritz are now walking outside the building free as birds. Moritz no doubt in need of a hot bath and Gereon looking much, much worse for wear. Wearing the dark brown SA shirts should have gotten them apprehended and hauled away but Gereon called out as a “mole” meant Gereon was on the light brown shirt SS good guys side, I guess. Confusing, I know. I suppose Moritz gets a pass by just being a nepo baby.
As they walk they have a heart to heart about Uncle Gereon being a traitor to the SA cause as well as to Moritz. Gereon explains again his specific order from The Police President was no one was to know, not even nosy nephews. He goes for the big picture stating “The SA, the party, Stennes or Hellsdorff, Goebbels or Hitler, they all have the same goal. No matter how much they fight internally, they want to subjugate our state and lead the people into a new war” I hi-5 the air as the writers are just toying with me now by painting a parallel to contemporary US red/blue politics. Things never change, do they.
Gereon bottom-lines Moritz. “Stennes would have had me killed without batting an eyelash. Do you want to be led by people like that?” Poor young Moritz is so confused by Uncle’s lecture and the days events it’s all he can do to simply run away off down the street.
And so, clocking in at 16 minutes, this exciting SA rebellion is put down quickly with minimal casualties. I have to point out that curiously, we have yet to formally “iris open” this episode yet, as all previous episodes, but maybe they’re saving that for later.
Violins play and we view a wide shot of Alfred’s Great Hall. Mourners assemble to comfort our matching blonds. Wegener’s already seated, still happy to be alive and we see Hermann Blank’s face has healed up pretty quickly from a few hours ago. Helga suggests that Hermann bring his little friend Hitler over for dinner sometime and depressed Alfred goes “sure, what-ev.” Alfred places a rose in front of AnnMarie's portrait, standing in place of a casket they couldn’t find a body for. He’s in tears as he walks away.
Outside, Abe is visiting his dad’s headstone once more as a farewell. There are still some rocks on top that the wind and rain hasn’t knocked off yet. Abe is as dour and inscrutable as ever, I simply can’t read this guy at all. He got his diamond back, (maybe! (1) ), he has closure on how his dad died, he chose not to kill the guy who blew up the cruise ship, and he left the one person responsible for the entire sh*tshow to drown in a dank lichen infested sinking barge. So with all that he should be cool, but still we see this sad grump-face. Cheer up dude, you got what you wanted! (2) Abe places his own rock on top of the headstone next to the others then “later, dad. . ." walks away to Jacob who asks “What is your last word?” sparing us all some fresh tidbit of sure to be ignored advice. “Buh-bye!” is Abe’s last word and as he walks off coyly mentions, oh by the way check on dad’s grave now and then for me, K?
Jacob now faces the headstone, sighs obviously like he knows the director and crew are all watching him, then reaches up to place his own rock. But! Just! Then! The camera pans up for us all to see the Rothschild Diamond resting there! I slap my forehead cause I shoulda seen this coming! It’s a brilliant resolution for Abe and Jacob. Except I dunno what centuries old Jewish cemetery headstone rock protocols are in play here cause I’m concerned that taking, then selling a valuable stone placed on a headstone puts Jacob in a moral/ethical quagmire that would take Talmudic scholars decades to unravel, but we’ll leave that for another time.
Gereon is meeting with the Police President now that he’s bathed and rested up. Face looks ok in spite of his beatings, but his hand is wrapped. He’s pretty hot and has a right to be upset because his 8 or so months of being undercover as a brownshirt, doing all kinds of violent and ugly stuff has crashed and burned due to the SS quashing Stennes' rebellion. “How was Wendt able to supply weapons to the SS? Wendt used the SS for an illegal operation and no one here stopped him!?” Teflon Police President has no answer to that but offers he could open a disciplinary procedure, but Wendt’s poll numbers are still in the high 40’s so that might come to nothing.
With uncanny timing, Wendt saunters in and boy is he preening like a “cock of the walk”. His first salvo is rank with sarcasm and snark, which is met in return by the PP – “Arming illegal combat units for breaking up a conflict within a party” seems pretty damning. Wendt counters with “Intervention with party manners is a central task of this division,” to which Gereon accuses Wendt that he “used the SS to back up Hitler’s Munich leadership” which also seems pretty damning. Damn. Wendt counters that Gereon snuck “into a legal organization as if it was organized crime” and I gotta admit he’s got a point. The argument is pretty nasty but I’m sure all this fascinating SS versus SA conflict will feed plot lines for the next few years while that Hitler guy comes to power, so wake me up when Hitler gets that dinner with that cute blond Nyysen couple. Wendt climaxes with one final snark about how both Gereon and the PP will be behind the times with their “outdated politics of stagnation” then saunters out preening on “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen.” The PP, Gereon and I watch him exit thinking the same thing – “asshole. . . “
Next up is our old Dance Contest MC typing away in the der Angriff office, the upcoming edition pages pinned to the back wall. Apparently he types better when he talks out loud as he taps the keys, I’ve been guilty of that too. He’s typing us the fake truth of what went down at the NSDAP office. “Day of reckoning for the rebels.” Fred’s typing is intercut with scenes of police leading Stennes out in handcuffs from the NSDAP building. “The mutiny of Police Captain Stennes . . . No SA man obeys the orders of a disloyal traitor . . .” Stennes’ face is bleeding like he accidentally cut himself shaving or perhaps walked into a door or something. Hermann showboats to the crowd of press, “It was nothing less than an attempted coup . . .” Jacoby continues typing “ . . . against the leadership of a legal party. Loyalty to Hitler rules the field. The NSDAP stands unwaveringly for this is our slogan. ‘Our honor is loyalty!’”
Fred stomps those last few keys pretty decisively with no small measure of disgust on his face. He yanks the page from the machine, stares at it a moment then crushes the page into a ball. Rising from his desk, he exits by Hermann and throws the paper ball at his face. Heh. Fred Jacoby and his new spine grabs his coat then stalks out to the classic refrain of “Take this job and shove it.” It’s as sweet a resignation scene as I’ve ever seen and I wish I could go back in time to try it myself.
Wistful music sets the tone perfectly, I’m thinking accordion or concertina. Lotte is dialing the phone at Jacky’s place and I have no doubt she left a dime for the call. She chats up Rosa Helfers at Social Services. “Good news, Miss Ritter, there is a place for your sister. I’m going to take her to Insel Scharfenberg now.” Wow, that’s great news to Lotte! What a relief! The camera pans to the girl sitting in Helfers’ office and I have to laugh seeing Renate answering to “Antonie” as the scene closes.
It’s a fun play for Toni and Renate to switch. 1931 has been sheer hell for Toni so far and she could use a change of scenery. So could Moritz who’s maybe outgrown his confusing brown shirt Scout troop activities. But honestly I’m kinda rooting for Renate to stick at Insel Scharfenberg. Sure, there’ll be badminton and math she'll have to learn, but she won’t go hungry, she’ll have baths and a roof over her head so this could be her big break out a lifetime of grinding poverty. Heh, who am I kidding, it’s Babylon Berlin for god’s sake! Renate will boogie out of fancy Insel Scharfenberg as soon as she loots the kitchen, hot bath or no.
We cut perfectly to Toni walking down leaf strewn railway tracks. There’s Moritz looking out for her arrival. They greet each other quietly, but clearly glad to see each other. Moritz is a man of few words, “there you are, shall we go?” and the grin won’t leave my face as they hitch a ride out of bad old Berlin to new adventures westward. Good luck guys, see you next season, I hope. Lotte and Gereon will miss you so don’t forget to write.
Gereon is leaning on the stove, smoking, listening to the concertina music still playing likely. He hears someone at the door and opens it to see Lotte leaning on the wall at a saucy angle. So fun to see them grin and gape at each other like teenagers. She pulls up a huge boxing ad in the paper, “Come with?” “Sure!”
Wendt’s vast sprawling network of Political police combing the ports, railway stations, shipping docks and air terminals paid off with Sebald phoning in that Kulanin was spotted at the Zeppelin terminal where he’s planning to float to New York. My subtitles are hopeless here, but I’ll trudge on. The Zeppelin departs in an hour and Wendt makes it clear that Kulanin’s not to leave.
The camera pans from Sebald heading to the tarmac to Ms Korda doing autographs. Hollowed out with utter grief that she’ll conveniently never see her children again, Esther will soldier on to seek fame in Hollywood. It must have been one hell of an advance to front her $12K floatfare for travel, but that’s Hollywood, I guess. The press spots her and snaps pics which she loves. Her smile to the camera is surreal.
Sebald confronts Kulanin on the tarmac and executes “passport control.” Kulanin hands his over then requests his phone call. The breathtaking “Casablanca” shots of the Zeppelin behind Kulanin are some of my favorite scenes in the series.
Wendt is racing to the Zeppelin-port, pedal to the metal, grinding his molars harshly.
We cut to a daytime shot of the same “Sportpalast” we saw episodes earlier. It still looks pretty cool. Our two jugheads-in-love are out on a date! They pause at a kiosk to gaze at the playbill of Lotte’s half-brother. “He looks more like a dancer.” They’re inside now, placing bets on Rukeli to win with 5:1 odds against him. Lotte adds her 38 cents on top of Gereon’s bet so she’s going for broke. Close by are Graf and Fred, also out on a date and they all have fun catching up. Fred is going for broke as well, spending his last der Angriff paycheck on Rukeli. “I heard you gave up your side job?” notes Fred cooly to Gereon who replies, “I heard you did also!” and I gotta marvel at the speed and reach of the Babylon Berlin grapevine these two are hooked into. Ever the reporter, Fred obliquely inquires if Lotte and Gereon are an official “thing” thus deserving of an apres match toast. "No comment."
Wendt arrives and it’s dark now. Inside the terminal Kulanin et all are gathered. Some officious chit-chat follows where Kulanin is being retained for questioning. Just then General MacFarland walks up. And yes, it’s the same American General MacFarland we saw at Alfred’s New Years Eve bash who was introduced to the Nyysen’s just before in-law insults were hurled. The General is here to point out that Kulanin has US diplomatic immunity. Hmmm. Game set and match and Wendt clearly hates being defeated. Kulanin gloats in Wendt's face then walks off. Bon voyage, I won't miss you, Oscar.
Again I have to stop awestruck at the tarmac shot of Wendt and Sebald looking up at that massive modern Zeppelin drifting away lit by towers. Wendt is less impressed than I am and remains unhappy.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.” Gereon continues to get really great seats on a detective salary, but I guess he wants to impress his date. The writers set the scene with Hermann sitting front row, accompanied by about 60 of his SS squad out partying their recent success. They’re pretty rowdy and start chanting “Germany to the Germans!”
The boxer dressing room shows Rukeli getting trainer advice, but no Ringverein show up to fix the match. Rukeli is getting a heads up on the SS troop likely hurling “gypsy bullsh*t” (3) but Rukeli doesn’t care.
The boxing drama is ok, but it’s not my sport so I’ll just cut to the chase here. Rukeli holds his own against the home town favorite. The SS gets rowdy, yelling “gypsy” and other nasty stuff and one of them throws a bottle at Rukeli, missing him. Rukeli spots a box of chalk dust in his corner. He’s inspired to pat it all over his chest and face and it’s as if Rukeli taps into some primal warrior spirit with “Apocalypse Now” vibes and it sure did work! After pummeling the hometown favorite, Rukeli takes a moment to gloat at the SS guys before he delivers the knockout blow.
The SS are very unhappy, having wagered away all their riot bonus money and now they’re seconds away from violence. Gereon notices someone near Hermann, it’s Hellsdorff, his face still back and blue. Gereon goes to Hellsdorff as we flashback to Gereon’s gun aimed at Hellsdorff’s face just before Gereon murders the chair. We can imagine big bold letters the thought balloon over Gereon’s head, “You owe me, dude. . .” Hellsdorff can’t argue, so he whistles his SS guys out of the boxing arena as Gereon saves the day. Gereon and Lotte make plans to spend their winnings partying. Lucky Jacoby likely won a few months rent.
Intercut with the boxing scenes, we watched Kulanin cooly dressing formal in his awfully narrow cabin. As huge as the Zeppelin is, there are only about 24 or so cabins for travelers so square footage is precious. Next, Esther walks up to Abe seated at the Mile High lounge. They chit chat to get acquainted and trade names. Her table is ready so she walks away with a very clear come hither look and I can’t wait to see how these two pan out. Just then, Kulanin enters and there is nothing more I enjoy than a good pair of narrative bookends as Abe and Kulanin recognize each other cooly from a few weeks ago.
Now we cut to a fun James Bond caper. MaLu is in maintenance overalls, sneaking thru the passenger corridor seeking Kulanin’s room. She picks it’s lock, finds the WH808’s and rolls them into a leather case. Viewing the map where Dr V plotted out the Zeppelin’s travel route, MaLu checks her watch then waits for the precise second to hurl the WH808 case out the Zeppelin window to Dr V waiting below. Dr V walks a whole 8 steps to pick the case up from where it parachuted down then mentions a stop at the embassy before returning to Moscow. I'm assuming the WH808s gets dropped off at the embassy so Litten can have them eventually, but we'll have to wait till next year for all that.
Kulanin and Abe catch up with world-weary philosophical banter now. Kulanin asks if Abe got his revenge, “They got what they deserved.” Abe counters why Kulanin is headed back to NY? “I’m hiding home,” which makes no sense to me either. But you’re a Russian spy, aren’t you? “That’s true, but not for the communists” doesn’t clear it up much. (4) Abe doesn’t get a chance to probe further as Kulanin’s table is ready. “I didn’t reserve a table for tonight!?” then we pan to our favorite boyish cross-dresser looking irresistible in her New Years Eve tux she happened to have packed along with her caper overalls. Kulanin sees MaLu and the looks on both their faces are pretty intense. Sensing he’s in deep waters, Kulanin turns to check Abe with, “Any useful advice?” Abe answers “Don’t believe your own lies.” I could replay this 5 more times and still not understand what any of this means so I’ll just leave it at Kulanin really has some ‘splaining to do with MaLu and neither MaLu or I can wait till he finds out she stole his WH808s!
The writers have spent quite a bit of the last few episodes checking off plot boxes on their clipboard at a pretty healthy clip, so it’s about time we had a bit of fun. In a rowdy packed club is a piano cello duo entertaining the packed room of dancers and drinkers. Look! There’s Grau and Freddy! Lotte and Gereon! Even Rukeli is here for a good time! A song ends to applause then the piano player calls out a local celebrity. It’s Emil Engels! We last saw Emil on the stage of the sadly lamented Moka Efti so long ago, breaking out his new single “A Day Like Gold.” I’m bracing myself now but what the hell, I just caught my toe tapping to the beat so I guess I’m finally hooked on the tune. The crowd loves it too. The intro part of “A Day Like Gold” plays out on a violin we never see as Gereon takes two schnapps to his table with Lotte. He just now remembers something he’s had in his pocket all freaking day then reaches to pull out a small box. Lotte hilariously guesses “A ring?” which makes both me and Gereon laugh, then he opens the case to show Lotte her Detective Badge courtesy of The Buddha. It’s a cool moment and while I would rather have seen the Buddha eat a bit of crow first, perhaps that’s still to come. Lotte’s reaction surprises me, she’s pleased but coy as she leaves considerable doubt as to her wanting her job back. “Tomorrow is tomorrow. Now is now.” which sounds about right. They dance to the dulcet smooth crooning of Emil rocking the joint with the glorious “A Day Like Gold.”
The grin on my face watching the dancers enjoy the song increases as we intercut to some really frisky naked stuff Lotte and Gereon are enjoying. The writers hilariously show an empty-glass ladened bar table shaking like an earthquake suddenly hit, then cut to Lotte and Gereon having their own personal earthquakes. Heh.
It’s morning at Gereon’s place. Gereon looks like he’s remembering something as we see him at his bathroom mirror and I get this dread in the pit of my stomach wondering if there’s a Dr Anno segment coming up. Gereon studies his face in the mirror and we cut to a view from his window down to the street where someone exits a car parked at the curb. Damn, it’s Graue so my hunch was correct. It’s one of the few major plot points unchecked so we may as well see where this goes.
Gereon enters the car, sits next to Edgar who asks, “Are you ready?” I’m not, but he didn’t ask me. Gereon nods slightly yes as they drive off. They stop in front of a familiar building. In the car Gereon tells Edgar, “I’ll do it. On my own.” which gives me pause.
Gereon climbs up those lit stairs of Dr Anno's Institute, then approaches Anno’s lab. Anno is gazing dramatically out the window with his back to Gereon. “I hear you want me dead” and I can't wait to find out more about that awfully prescient Babylon Berlin grapevine the writers rely on so much. Tense violins keen dramatically as Gereon answers. “No. Not anymore.” Dang, just like Abe, Gereon has had his own interior emotional arc regarding Anno Schmidt all this time, but I’m just going to take it in and not ask questions.
Gereon to Anno, “It’s over.” They approach face to face. “Our pact, it ends here.” Gereon asserts. “I’m not afraid anymore. The source of my fear has run dry.” Gereon turns to leave but not before Anno insists “Then you’ve reached your goal. Come and see.”
Gereon’s curiosity gets the better of him so he returns to Anno’s window as we hear Anno, “Look at it. They are waiting. The ill-treated masses." Gereon looks out at the featureless dark eventually panning down to a possibly imaginary regiment of thousands of soldiers at attention crowding Anno’s vast courtyard. Some of the soldiers faces are war torn and scarred and I dunno if these are real or simply ghosts until I see Graue and now I’m really confused.
Real or imagined, Anno intends them to be Gereon’s personal army. “Now you are ready to lead them.” Astonished Gereon can’t believe his eyes.
Lotte wakes with a start. “Gereon!” Credits!
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So breaking tradition, no iris open this episode! But what a hell of an episode it was! I got to see my favorite Zeppelin scenes once more! Not too many loose ends remain, but certainly a lot were tidied up giving us a lot of excitement and drama along the way. I suppose Katelbach is gonna have to chill in jail till next season as that whole WH800 chain of custody gets worked out for his trial which Litten never checked back about. The whole Rothschild Diamond caper is finally concluded. Buh-bye Abe, have fun with Esther, you two deserve each other. The White Hand thread certainly kept us entertained with mad-dog Kunschke at large, dead missing Street Urchins and murdered autopsy interns. The SA and SS drama will likely percolate thru to the final season as will Anno's many mysteries. We now know who the shadowy dude in the car was who caused so many mob boss murders. I’m so crushed that I don’t get to see AnnMarie rise from the dead as I predicted, but I suppose narratively she had to make way for Alfred to take charge of the family business and cosy up his new rocket factory to whatever that Hitler guy has planned. I’m thinking it’s likely that Lotte goes back to her old detective day job which will make Jacky a little bit less grumpy now that he’s getting rent paid. One loose end still bugs me and I wonder what happened to the Wendt frisky photos with Arndt which gave the Police President considerable leverage over him. And I’m thinking we still might not be done with Bohm getting away with the Kaffeeklatsch fiasco, but that might be wishful thinking. I’ve run a bit long this recap but it was certainly a lot of fun and I truly hope someone found it useful. So if you’re still reading this far, thanks!
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This just in! - Season 4 Babylon Berlin DVD's have finally dropped in Great Britain in PAL format! In the US the DVD's will likely play in your computer's dvd drive or you could buy a cheap "all regions" DVD player. It'll be well worth it for the official production English subtitles not to mention easing the nagging guilt you have from shoplifting all these episodes off the internet and cheating the producers out of their well earned money. Given how Netflix and HBO aren't making the profits they've been used to, they may not pay up for Germany's most expensive series for quite some time.
Footnotes!
1) Maybe I'm being churlish, but in spite of the wonderfully authentic paper animation backstory of how AnnMarie stole the diamond from her husband's valise and sunk the entire ship to cover her tracks, the exact route of the diamond from the sunken cruise ship to Helen's neck is still puzzling.
The clever colored cutouts informed us that the Nyysens' businesses were failing which motivated AnnMarie to steal the diamond. So in order to save her businesses she would have had to sell the diamond for cash to put into the businesses. Certainly there's the possibility that she might have gotten a loan using the diamond as collateral and then later repaid the loan, but then as now, a reputable bank wouldn't loan full value on dubious collateral. So in 1915 AnnMarie would have had the same problem Wegener had when he tried to sell the gem to his university pal.
On balance this original bit of razzle-dazzle in story telling to gloss over the fact that it simply didn't make sense was fine, as it was entertaining. But maybe given how crucial the gem was to Abe's entire motivation, they could have spent a little more time cleaning up it's history. I considered reading the 3rd book "Goldstein" to see how the gem was referenced but after 4 chapters I faded on plowing thru it.
2) OK so here goes, Abe did get softened up by his return to his Berlin family roots, with that 8 hour Jacob dinner extravaganza as well as Jacob’s relentless nagging about being true to his faith and heritage. As Abe declared in the Zeppelin Mile High lounge to Oscar, at first he wanted “revenge” but when he had the opportunity to kill the Nyysens, he didn’t. I think he found little joy in the diamond’s return because he realized his true goal was simply to finish what his father got cheated out of doing 15 years prior, which was to gift the diamond to the family synagogue in Berlin. That done, his hands relatively clean, he takes home that revenge is a hollow emotion of little worth. And that’s all I have to say about Abe, like ever.
3) The term "gypsy" seems innocuous in the year 2023, summoning images of colorful fortune tellers and such, but back then it was quite a derogatory insult similar to the n-word now.
4) And so this is how we find that Kulanin was a double agent for the US all this time. He initially was on MaLu and Dr V's team with the notion of assassinating Wendt, but when MaLu mentioned the WH808's, Kulanin decided he had to have those to take to his US spy bosses. Doing so outs him as a Russian spy hence "hiding home" means he will be hiding from his Russian bosses in the US. I'll confess that I never bought Kulanin's argument with MaLu that he had to have the originals. Unless they could do comparative chemical analysis on the paper documents in 1931 which I doubt, a good photo of the WH808's would have sufficed to determine it's legitimacy. But I'm no spy. . .
