This has been my quarantine binge-watch as well, so I'm happy to read your take on it. I wasn't even sure if people in the US knew about it.
I like that you say "the show knows that we know what happens next." I hadn't thought of it quite that way. But at my age one of my main ways of judging a show is how often I can predict exactly what's going to happen next, and this series has been remarkably successful in not being predictable that way.
It's interesting, because, as you say, there are some standard TV tropes. Good cop, bad cop; Nazis are evil; prostitute has heart of gold. But it works and survives its cliches as well as anything I've seen in a very long time. I've just started season 2 (not up to the airplane yet).
I'm not the type to stay out all night at cabaret shows, so I don't feel any nostalgia for missing that. On the other hand, I'm wildly jealous that all the men can wear suits and hats like that. Why did our clothes get so boring?
Really enjoyed your critique, Connor. I've watched both seasons and will watch another if there is one. Rath is a fascinating character. He is basically a dead man walking after what he's been through. He and Charlotte are both twisted but are the moral centers of the series in a lost cause, as you point out. The First World War wiped out a generation of men. Berlin is filled with ghosts. Gereon sees and feels them every day and maybe they are who he fights for. The Nazis and the Communists and the wastrel capitalists say they are fighting for those killed in the war. But they don't see them as Gereon does.
Poggers
Thanks!
This has been my quarantine binge-watch as well, so I'm happy to read your take on it. I wasn't even sure if people in the US knew about it.
I like that you say "the show knows that we know what happens next." I hadn't thought of it quite that way. But at my age one of my main ways of judging a show is how often I can predict exactly what's going to happen next, and this series has been remarkably successful in not being predictable that way.
It's interesting, because, as you say, there are some standard TV tropes. Good cop, bad cop; Nazis are evil; prostitute has heart of gold. But it works and survives its cliches as well as anything I've seen in a very long time. I've just started season 2 (not up to the airplane yet).
I'm not the type to stay out all night at cabaret shows, so I don't feel any nostalgia for missing that. On the other hand, I'm wildly jealous that all the men can wear suits and hats like that. Why did our clothes get so boring?
I've been having that same thought! It's a shame the fedora has such negative connotations now. We need to redeem it
Really enjoyed your critique, Connor. I've watched both seasons and will watch another if there is one. Rath is a fascinating character. He is basically a dead man walking after what he's been through. He and Charlotte are both twisted but are the moral centers of the series in a lost cause, as you point out. The First World War wiped out a generation of men. Berlin is filled with ghosts. Gereon sees and feels them every day and maybe they are who he fights for. The Nazis and the Communists and the wastrel capitalists say they are fighting for those killed in the war. But they don't see them as Gereon does.