Exactly in the middle of the new Dortmund case it’s that time again: Inspector Peter Faber (Jörg Hartmann) freaks out. He smashes a sink and then throws up – on duty, in the police toilet. This makes it clear that the heavily traumatized investigator will continue to be at the center of this “crime scene”.
This is not a matter of course, because the Dortmund team is the only one in the crime series that consists of four people. This unfolds a very special dynamic: Because the four investigators do not pull together, but go in different directions. While Faber is the full-time lunatic, Nora Dalay (Aylin Tezel) and Daniel Kossik (Stefan Konarske) are on cloud nine and enjoying their young love happiness so obviously that their colleagues also get wind of it. And Martina Bönisch (Anna Schudt) despises her callboy, whom she books for a nice time in the hotel, and finally seeks a clarifying conversation with her husband.
So a lot of private things that spill over into the case of a murdered schoolgirl. But unlike most “crime scenes,” these scenes don’t take the pace from the thriller, but rather produce an energy that goes straight into the case. When Faber and Bönisch reenact the murder, hitting each other and getting at each other, it goes far beyond professional practice. Aggression from other areas flows in here and makes these situations highly explosive.
With Nora, on the other hand, energies of a different kind flow: In the intoxication of love, she exudes a strong erotic charisma. She uses this for a special kind of undercover research: she pretends to be a young girl, mingles with the murder victim’s school friends and makes eyes at the men – while her cuckolded lover has to wait outside. Even if the love happiness of the two starts to get on your nerves – here it was intelligently woven into the story.
The story addresses an exciting topic: because Nadine, the murdered 16-year-old high school student, comes from a socially disadvantaged family – and has done everything in recent months to conceal her origins. She now runs in a clique of wealthy little boys, lawyer’s sons and high-ranking daughters. The family – mother hairdresser, father on shift – is just embarrassing for her. Like the great Gatsby, she quickly reinvents herself. Sends her Moroccan boyfriend Tarek into the desert, borrows her best friend’s fancy outfit, and creates a new Facebook profile. It’s that easy. And it works. The ugly duckling has become a beautiful swan. She now hangs out in a posh disco and belongs to Dortmund’s socialites – “people who eat sausages with a knife and fork,” as Inspector Bönisch bitingly notes.
It’s just stupid that she uses her charms too generously. She flirts with her best friend’s partner. He misunderstands the signals and rapes them. Later that night, furious with jealousy, her friend pushes her into Lake Phoenix, where she drowns.
Ultimately, the truth comes out through the joint work of all commissioners. This is all the more remarkable as the four investigators hardly ever appear as a team. Faber in particular turns out to be impossible to integrate. He still hasn’t come to terms with the loss of his wife and child. In this episode he has received hints that his wife was not killed in an accident but may have been raped before her death and then murdered. So this story will continue. With success, the WDR is trying to use horizontal, i.e. episode-spanning, narrative forms, as they are common in US series. That’s not the only reason why this was the best “crime scene” episode in a long time.
