We’ll always have Sanatorium Ahlbeck
S4E8 We’ll always have Sanatorium Ahlbeck
So far this season the opening pre-credit scenes have always been fairly short. One beat. A quick visual dunk into figurative ice water to get in the Babylon Berlin swing of things. This time we have a 9 minutes self-contained Act One involving a caper that Ms Benhke plans and executes to the delight of us all. You may have picked up that she’s one of my favorites in the series.
I'd seen Fritzi Haberlandt before in “Deutschland 83, 87 & 89” (1) where she played a similar unremarkable spinster enduring a sadly average life with no hope of excitement or adventure. Seeing her offer and execute the caper to help get her man out of jail is such fun.
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After their phone call last episode, Benhke and MaLu meet and are poring over a notebook at a cafe. Litten enters and asks about the conference in the newspaper that Benhke saw. “Tomorrow, 9:00 at Reichswehr headquarters” MaLu explains. The conference agenda will be to amend an important document termed “WH808.” That document appeared in the "Plan B" negatives which were in Ms Benhke’s silver canister that deceased scum-bag Peter stole. Later they landed in Wendt’s hands as well as MaLu’s sneaky palm.
WH808 is said to reveal “illegal rearmament on all levels” and “they’re talking about a new type of weapon” which likely references Alfred’s rockets. Litten starts out skeptically, verging on condescension, “In order to exonerate Katelbach and Heymann, we need to present the original.” before the trial “next Monday.” Which is exactly Benhke's and MaLu’s plan.
Here it gets funny as the gals are so excited to explain their plan to make a duplicate WH808 that they step on each other’s lines. The key to the caper is that Benhke recalled an old admirer, Dr Anslem Gregorius mentioned in the news article, who is the “minute taker” for those conference meetings. He will be intercepted at the train station on his return trip from the conference. The camera cuts to the beginning of the actual caper while the two gals explain it to Litten.
We now see mild mannered Gregorius at the crowded train station seeking out his railcar when Ms Benhke happens to run into him. “Dr Gregorius? Elisabeth Behnke, Sanatorium Ahlbeck, 1920! Do you remember?” Yikes, that’s 11 unrequited years ago. He apparently cured her lengthy case of “glandular fever” at a health spa on the Ahlbeck shore during which he developed feelings for Benhke. Glasses on finally, he recognizes her fondly and mentions he is returning home to Breslau. Nope, Elizabeth is going anywhere elsewhere unfortunately but it would be a shame not to catch up after bumping into each other so fatefully!
Back at the cafe, MaLu explains Benhke will lead Anslem Gregorius to a coffee kiosk where she’ll distract him so that a familiar looking mustachioed Gereon in a dapper white waiter’s coat and bow tie, will clumsily drop a tray at Docs' feet allowing him to rifle thru Gregorius’s valise.
“A quick moccha” perhaps?” Elizabeth invites sweetly. He’s game, but has only “10 minutes at the most.” Gereon delivers coffee and dives under the table picking up something he dropped as Benhke starts to riff on “those carefree days by the sea.” Anslem is so enrapt with lovely Liz, Gereon could steal his shoes and he wouldn’t notice. But instead he grabs an important looking folder from the valise and hands them off to MaLu waiting nearby. She takes them to a train cabin where none other than Lotte mans the typewriter. Ms Benhke continues to sweetly reel in Anslem such that my own heart strings are tugged on. "Coquettish" is not something I figured was in Ms Benhke's wheelhouse but she’s really going for it.
Back at the cafe, the two gals continue to explain the caper to Litten who will ride herd on typist Lotte. Her task is to retype the original WH808 document so they can swap the fake back into Anslem’s valise. The trial commences in 2-3 days and I’m still unclear on why Gregorius sounding an alarm would change anything. “You have 5 minutes,” MaLu states. Curiously, Litten starts reading the document including detailed formatting as I scratch my head here a bit. It does seems odd that Lotte can’t simply look at the pages she’s copying herself instead of being read to, but I suppose she’s not such a touch typist that she can take her eyes off the keyboard. Perhaps that’s it.
Anslem humble-brags about being called into the Council of Experts of the Reichswehr while Elizabeth sips her moccha pretending to be fascinated. Shyly, has Ms Benhke re-wed? Nope, not that she didn’t have offers! And cut to Litten parsing every colon and tab stop as Lotte’s index fingers start smoking. “I was in my second year of mourning back then” Benhke continues as the train whistle signals all aboard. “Check please!” Benhke goes for Anslem’s hand to keep him in place and starts to quote “Stay with me, thou art so beautiful. . .” which melts our hearts for a moment. MaLu notes 2 minutes remaining as tension ramps up.
With Anslem’s emotional reserve now breached, he confesses years of unrequited love to Elizabeth. Gereon finally arrives for the tab. Oops, no change! Gereon takes his sweet time returning and as he counts out change shoots a significant look at Benhke signaling “Stall, they’re not done yet.” “Escort me to the train?” asks Anslem. Elizabeth fights panic as Gereon mouths “IMPROVISE!” Lotte is nearly finished and as the smoke rises from her fingertips, she rips the last page from the typewriter for Litten to stamp “Confidential.” MaLu shuttles them quickly to Gereon.
Near desperate, their goal unmet, Benhke asks flirtatiously “Can’t you take the next train?” Nope. At her wit’s end, she executes her last resort gambit and plants a big smack on Anslem’s lips as I fall off the couch. It works! Anslem literally swoons “recalling the scent of your skin” and the grin won’t leave my face. “I fell into the hands of a Siren!” he accuses naughty Elisabeth. Ha! Benhke can’t believe he said that either. Boldly, he goes for a fare-well kiss but is out of practice as Elisabeth heads that off nimbly. Elisabeth then hilariously wipes his kiss off her lips unseen.
Gereon returns in street clothes to save the day. Anslem is still emotionally fragile after 11 years so he needs to know “Are you playing with my feelings again?” Benhke improvs “I never stopped thinking about you!” Anslem now implores Elizabeth to throw caution to the wind and come away with him. Benhke relents and enters his train car while tension mounts. MaLu sneaks into the rail car behind her while their attention is diverted to . . .
Gereon snatches the ear of the nearest disreputable looking 17 year old lad to raise an alarm – “PICK-POCKET!” This gives MaLu cover to place Lotte’s still smoking fake WH808 copy in Anslem’s valise. And while it’s not exactly Bogy & Bergman parting in "Casablanca" it’s pretty damn close. Benhke – “We let ourselves get carried away too soon!”, her heart not breaking at all then protests dramatically, “We must make sacrifices too!” Which probably made no sense to her either. “Attention, the train departs.” Benhke promises poor sad Anslem, “We’ll meet again, soon!” Outside, Gereon flips out his badge to call off the arriving cops then drops some coin in the poor sore-eared kid’s hand.
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Iris opens on sleepy Gereon in bed alone and he’s disappointed too. Lotte is way ahead of him on taking on the day, plus they need to keep pretending they hate each other maybe so they can't be seen together in public. They’re all smiles of course and can’t keep their hands off each other and so I’m thinking the writers are setting us up for something horrible between the two fairly soon. Sorry about that. Against their better judgment they go for a frisky encore so Gereon can “stockpile” for the rest of the day. Heh.
Back at foggy barge, mean-mom is scraping lichen off the porthole or some such since they haven’t been offered breakfast. Now she’s sopping up condensation with a handkerchief to squeeze into her mouth which I wouldn’t have thought of either. Helga is collecting ballast bricks for some reason and mean-mom is p*ssing her off with her unsolicited brick stacking advice since AnnMarie’s such an expert on everything. “Cubiform capitals” bad – ”Single lattice” good! Helen's hair-trigger anger shoves the bricks back down into chaos and demands AnnMarie tell her where the diamond is. Recriminations are exchanged. AnnMarie pleads ignorance on the diamond and honestly I’d rather recap Katelbach’s trial here. They close by trading vicious acrimony and then AnneMarie commandeers the brick stacking engineering and I’m done with these two. (2)
Abe is in a phone booth dropping a line on Chez Al’s. Wegener answers. Abe promises this is the last time he’ll threaten death to the two woman which is a relief to me as all this has been dragging on a bit. Wegener discloses that the diamond has surfaced. “Tonight, 9:00 at Scheunenviertel” is the meeting time and place. The scene isn’t over yet. Outside the phone booth, a “blind” man hits on Abe for alms and Abe calls bs on the guy being blind. “So? . . . ” This excellent rejoinder impresses Abe so much he rewards him with a few shekels anyway.
It’s pony ride time and Wendt is horseback for his morning constitutional. It’s the same path he rode with Alfred and he soon meets surprise-surprise Arndt pushing his bicycle instead of riding it normally for some reason. I wonder if proper bike technique has been explained to him. “Is this a coincidence now?” Wendt asks. They gaze into each other’s eyes a full 30 seconds before we cut to some rustling bushes. I’m glad I don’t have kids to shoo out of the room so they won’t see all the frisky business happening that I have no intention of describing. Look! There's Graf! Dateless, sadly, but with his camera and he happens upon Arndt and Wendt doing furious frisky business. "Snap," "snap," "snap," which Wendt hears and a chase is on. Graf escapes with his life and boy is Wendt distraught. Looks like the plan wasn’t abandoned after all!
Gereon ascends the Paternoster, arms and legs intact he's in his office now on the phone asking for Weintraub. Next, Gereon has sought out Else having finally finished up that Costco run. It’s Muscle-Adolf’s turn next, then Blind Bob and Ede the Knife. We rotate locations while Gereon does 4 variations of his Ringvereins Conference invite. It’s a pretty efficient way to show us this as they all have the same misgivings that Gereon overcomes with his natural boyish charm and good looks. Else has the most colorful acceptance – “If all the other d*ckheads are in I’ll think about it.” Gereon cons them all with the old cop trick that all the others have already said yes and at the end of the day they all agree to the meeting.
Lotte is in a phone booth speaking to Dr Schwarz asking for Rudi and it dawns on me that several episodes have elapsed since his murder and it’s gonna be so sad when Lotte eventually finds out poor Rudi's fate. Schwartz lies ignorance and Lotte hangs up, her brow concerned.
Gereon answers his phone. It’s Lotte! It’s been a whole 3 hours! since they've seen each other and she summons him to the parking deck for a quick face to face. They goofy-moon each other and the happier they are the more horrible it’s going to be when the writers figure out how to make this all crash and burn. Sorry, but you know I’m right. Still, it's such a sweet scene and in between kisses Lotte shares that she phoned Dr Schwarz and that Rudi is still MIA. But Schwarz's lies don’t match up for Gereon. Lotte leaves still suspicious but not until Gereon suggests hopefully, “Tonight? . . .” and the game continues to the 3rd inning, “We’ll see . . .” Heh.
Gereon returns to the office and as he walks he seems puzzled by this novel sensation he can't quite put his finger on. It's been a while since he's been happy so he's kind of out of practice.
Graf, however, is not so happy. He’s done his job and submits the pictures of Wendt & Arndt. Gereon is sensitive enough to catch that Graf isn’t proud of his good work so they talk it out unsatisfactorily. (3)
Abe smokes in his bedroom fondling his pistol (???) then gets up. (4)
Walter Weintraub exits a synagogue and gets hit on by the same “blind” guy. Walter doesn’t give af and spots him some change. He meets Gereon there in the flea market and apparently Walter didn’t get the full invite convo yet. “They’re all in,” Gereon reports but only if Walter agrees to attend. They’ll meet at Berlin’s Police headquarters which tips the balance for Walter so now he’s in. Gereon is on the phone telling someone I suspect is our mystery mobster that the meeting is on.
Abe is loitering the flea market when he hears someone call his name. It’s Jacob’s wife with a dinner invite he couldn’t get out of. An entire apartment filled with in-laws, cousins, nephews and distant relatives are gathered so Abe must join them for dinner as guest of honor. It’s a curious beat to show us such an elaborate family dinner complete with 20 course meals, Torah readings and Manischewitz wine.
For several episodes there has been something nagging at me and with the next scene it finally dawns that poor Stennes has been locked up and ignored for several episodes. And honestly, he wasn’t missed. We never get learn the details of exactly how the frisky Arnt pics got Wendt to release Stennes but he finally is after having spent all that time perfecting his default smug facial expression and boy is it a glorious work of art now that he’s finally walking out of jail. Gereon is there to greet him, receives thanks for his part in getting him out and now the Police President will be happy once more. However Lotte and I won’t be now that Gereon has to pretend Nazi once again.
It's hour 3 of Abe’s dinner or perhaps it just seems that way. Abe has settled in now with a few belts of Manischewitz. They’re curious about his wife and Abe has to confess they’re divorced to their dismay. Those American Jews, tsk tsk. They pry at what Abe does for a living, but he’s cagey and lies he’s in the chewing gum racket. “Don’t worry, it’s Kosher” as he passes some around. I am so glad I’m not missing any of this.
Ah, it’s time to check in on Toni and it's nice that she’s back to looking like a girl once again, though I must confess that she really rocked that rock-star androgynous look which I kinda miss. Her hair has grown out some and it’s at least combed. She’s peering out the window to see a car drive through the courtyard. A man exits and tugs on a pair of white gloves then enters the building across from her. Several more do the same and one of Toni's Sonnenborn inmates explains “Tonight is court.” That inmate is kinda nut-so as she demonstrates what will happen when court adjourns by miming a gun to her chin then going “click.” Sweet girl.
Dinner has entered it’s 4rd hour and Jacob takes a moment to nag Abe about the women he’s kidnapped. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll release them tonight, tomorrow.” Jacob doesn't think Alfred has the diamond for some reason, but Abe reveals “his helper” Wegener does and has arranged to return it. “On the Sabbath?” Jacob objects. “For you, it’s Sabbath, for the Germans it’s Friday night.” Abe is toasted by one of his 3rd cousins twice removed and takes that as his cue to exit pleading a prior engagement. “But we haven’t sung yet!” Yikes. I'm guessing another hour, then.
The singing has a distinctive 1960’s Broadway vibe to it. Honestly, I don’t get it, someone please explain if this is supposed to be an hallucination. (Something Julie Andrews might have sung or something?) The lyrics seem to be hitting home with Abe and it’s saccharine wholesomeness is getting on my modern cynical nerves. At the window Abe looks down at a figure in the street holding a briefcase which I’ve decided is Wegener. It is, and Wegener checks his watch gazing expectantly at every person on the street. Over all this we listen to the Broadway number which makes an interestingly odd contrast to Wegener's tension. Jacob keeps nagging that meeting Wegener is a trap and it’s either that, it being the Sabbath, or perhaps the saccharine show tune got to him, but Abe decides to blow off meeting Wegener after noticing the police chase him away and thankfully this dinner is done with. I'll pass on desert, thanks.
Couples are walking into the Moka Efti getting my hopes up. The marquee promises “Kabarett Der Namenlosen” and since I don’t read German, I guess that this is the “Cabaret Nameless” event Esther promised. I can’t wait! Jacoby is inside ordering his free first drink and checking out the crowd. Our first Nameless is an odd one. A lady is doing a high wire act which isn’t going over too well as the SA boys are jeering and throwing some of the free “MokaEfti” wrapped mints (or gum?) at her. Jacoby’s boss Hermann is sitting with his unruly SA boys gazing back at Jacoby. Jacoby picks up his drinks on a tray and joins him.
Hermann rises and now toasts Hellsdorf who took Stennes’ place at the SA. Jacoby looks like he's having only a slightly better time than our Nameless tightwire artist who just now fell off the wire to raucous applause. “The Hand” from the MC shoves her rudely off the stage into the audience below where she crawls on her hands and knees for tips and more mints. It’s a really tough start to her promising showbiz career.
Lotte is payphone calling “Detective Rath” but he’s not at his desk. Next we see Gaunt Guy! He's masquerading as a maintenance dude when Henning & Czerwinski stroll in chatting. C&H spend the entire workday together and still find things to talk about at day's end which always impresses me. They remark that it’s odd for maintenance to be working on the weekend, so this must be Saturday.
Lotte is walking up to Cop HQ and has to lie her way in past a familiar cop claiming she’s there to pick up her badge she left on her desk. Lotte’s skill set has ramped up considerably this season, that girl can lie her way past anything! Next a shot of two SA guys on a motorcycle with sidecar in traffic, likely Gereon and Stennes heading to the Moka.
The house band backs up the gender fluid Ronald McDonald Master of Ceremonies to announce a very special guest from Bavaria, “The King of Yodel.” Oh crap. I guess Esther was this desperate or perhaps having "The King of Yodel's" Auntie and older sister show up topless tipped the balance in his favor. (5) The band is really rocking it and I’ll have to admit the guy has talent if you call making your vocal pitch leap up and down 3rds and 5ths for no apparent reason worthy of showing off. However, the crowd is really into it but the um-pah-pah tuba threatens to drive me insane.
Just then Gereon, dressed in his SA browns, and Stennes enters the Moka. Hermann says hello and oh, by the way, here’s your successor who Stennes immediately punches in the face by way of hello. Hermann is next for the knuckle sandwich and falls bleeding to the floor. Gereon then races to the stage and at the microphone commences a high spirited rabble rouse urging the brown shirts “Down with the SS and the traitors from Munich!” pointing to bloody Hermann with Jacoby nearby. We hear a lot of “Heil Stennes!” which Stennes acknowledges by punching out yet another face. All hell is breaking loose now as brownshirt guys start punching each other randomly with the band um-pah-pahing them on which adds quite a bit of hilarity. This is all deliciously choreographed and edited via alternating shots of feet kicking, bodies flying, chairs breaking, Yodel King yodeling, boobs jiggling and Esther freaking out viewing all the destructive chaos. Mercifully the song ends. Bodies litter the floor. Stennes smirks victoriously.
Lotte is descending the stairs to the Pathology basement after having “retrieved her badge from her desk,” heh. We hear noises and see shadows in the lit windows of the offices behind the closed doors. She’s wary of being caught and calls out at the Pathology office door, “Rudi?” Finally she enters and sees blood and broken glass on the floor. A facet is still streaming water into a sink. Perhaps she’s scared someone away? Carefully turning off the facet with a towel she looks into the adjacent room and peers thru the glass. The score is somber and creepy here, adding to the tension. “Hello?” No answer so she enters the autopsy room and we see a sheet covered body lying on a gurney with blood on the floor and overturned bins nearby. Clearly Lotte is afraid to look, assuming the worst, but she has to. And among the top 10 cruelest ways to discover your lover has been dead for days this ranks up there fairly high. Lotte flips the sheet over to see Rudi’s face and screams. Disbelieving and shocked, she hears more noises and turns to the window to see Kunschke and other cops hustling Dr Schwarz into a paddy wagon. Lotte connects the blood and broken stuff to Schwarz's arrest, then gtfo to follow the van exiting out of the parking deck. We see Schwarz's bleeding face inside the van as Lotte hitches a ride on the rear running board which I highly approve of.
Gereon enters his dark empty flat calling for Lotte, disappointment clear on his face.
Lotte is still riding the running board, her face numb with fear and concern . . . and Credits!
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This episode sure had some extremes! The high being the Benhke’s Caper, the low being a four way tie between mean-mom’s barge fight with Helga, Abe’s family dinner, "The King of Yodel" and Lotte’s sad discovery. But at least the White Hand didn’t kill anyone new. While it took a while to get the Wendt plan back up, at least it served to get the SA thread on the front burner so Stennes can stir sh*t up. And I look forward to another set-piece when the Ringvergein meeting happens. I have a hunch that it would be boring for the meeting to go as smoothy as Gereon promised. Gaunt Guy showing up in Gereon’s office does give me some qualms, perhaps he planted a microphone somewhere – we’ll see, won’t we? Meanwhile, copious corrections and revisions plus I’ve discovered misspelling many various character names and calling Alfred Albert an embarrassing number of times. Bear with me guys, I’m still in beta! So if you’re still reading this far, thanks!
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Footnotes!
1)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4445154/
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/deutschland-83
2) Just to bloviate here, Helga and AnnMarie started the season about as nasty as it gets during Alfred’s New Years Eve party. Trying to figure out why there’s so much hate between the two all I can point to is the mother/son dynamic clashing majestically against a son/wife dynamic. As we saw during that shameful Dining hall scene, Mom simply won’t let Alfred go, preferring to keep her baby boy under her wing forever rather than allow him to own his own life with a new younger woman. Understandably Helga resents AnnMarie’s influence over Alfred quite a lot. So for him to continue as a mama’s boy is untenable for her.
3) It’s an interesting aspect of the series that they would even choose to delve into such an emotional nuance as Graf is going thru here. Lets ignore for the moment the fact that Graf and Gereon got frisky themselves a few seasons ago. Yikes. What Graf is going thru now is a sort of self-loathing shame that he’s outing a fellow gay man who would be just as shunned by contemporary society as Graf is if his secret was revealed. Graf knows he was just doing his job as a cop photographer and that his sexual preference is his own cross to bear but he still wants it noted that he’s not happy with it or himself.
4) This was an interesting choice here from the writers. The scene is so brief it could have easily been omitted, but they felt the need to show us Abe’s state of mind pondering while on the bed fondling a gun.
So I’d like to step back and bloviate Abe’s arc now into it’s 8th episode. The action has frankly stalled out in favor of constant nagging from Jacob. Recall on the Zeppelin he revealed to Oscar he was out for revenge. He was greeted by his uncle who made a big point of pointing out his success and his unfortunate drift from age old Jewish values and traditions. At the dinner Abe wouldn’t reveal what he did for a living, but we know he’s a success due to that $12,000 Zeppelin ticket. And we know he has significant ninja skills from the beatdown he gave the two youths who attacked Jacob. All this kinda places Abe’s high up in the criminal industry, likely bootlegging given the era. So perhaps the monetary value of the gem is less an issue than how the theft of the gem impacted his family and their pride.
His first act was to burgle his way into Alfred’s mansion, then threaten him with a bullet for the gem. Seeing Alfred’s surprise that his vault was empty he then gave Alfred 12 hours to find it and give it back. I think it’s significant that he didn’t follow up that threat and instead kidnapped Alfred’s wife and mom to pressure Alfred to turn it over.
There are repetitive scenes with his Uncle Jacob who never failed to remind him of his Jewish heritage while shaming him for his actions that fell far short of Jewish values. Abe paying his respects to his long dead father is significant in that perhaps it starts Abe thinking of his heritage and how his own legacy might be viewed.
The family dinner may have been the plot point that tipped the balance for Abe. So his arc may be simply a homecoming from his American self of success and corruption to his Jewish self of integrity, nobility and tradition.
5) Having been spared for years, that’s twice in two months I’ve been subjected to the dubious loathsome art of yodeling. The first was an episode of “Atlanta” that included Yodel rap! I’m not even kidding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymxRJ-84yv4
