There are actually grown people who meet on remote industrial sites to really beat each other up. This time, the Saarbrücken investigators are dealing with a particularly silly subculture: hooligans.

What is happening?

After the technically explosive Pfalz-Saar-Derby between Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken, a young man, covered in blood, drags himself to the emergency room. The fact that the man died shortly thereafter, despite the efforts of the emergency doctors, is due to a knife wound in the femoral artery, which was so deliberately placed that a coincidence can be virtually ruled out.

During their investigations, the Saarbrücken commissioners soon found out that the dead man had fought with enemy hooligans in a “field match” shortly before his death. It remains unclear for a long time whether he also suffered the fatal injuries there. Because despite all the enmity among themselves, the hools agree on one thing: the biggest enemy is still the police.

What is it really about?

About anger and a bizarre subculture in which honor weighs more than human life. Also a bag full of money lying around at Inspector Schürk’s (Daniel Sträßer) home. In order to understand where it comes from, what it’s all about and who this “Uncle Boris” actually is, you should definitely know the previous episodes.

Roadzapp Moment?

“If you were a couple, one would say you have a toxic relationship,” says colleague Heinrich (Ines Marie Westernströer) to the two main investigators Schürk and Holzer (Vladimir Burlakov). Although their side story is basically exciting, it requires too much previous knowledge for the fact that the Saarbrücken “crime scene” only appears once a year.

Wow-Factor?

It’s the fine details that delight, especially because of the brutal subject in “The Cold of the Earth”. So the dead hooligan was a budding intellectual in his second life, more precisely: a philosophy student with all the important classics on the bedside table. The scene in which a particularly bad hool climbs into his red VW Golf after the night shift and sings along to Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” jubilates into the sunrise is also wonderful.

How is it?

7.5 out of 10 points. “The Cold of the Earth” is excitingly told and strongly staged: The heat shimmers in the industrial wastelands, a hint of Western vibrates in the air. However, the focus on the insufficiently explained side story of the two investigators costs points.