NinadeL

The ending is a combination of kitsch in the style of Downton Abbey (everyone important gets their happy ending), and at the same time, there's plenty of time for the brawl between the SA and SS, the opulent beauty of the Zeppelin airship's interior, and a fight involving the Gypsy boxer (and future German champion) Johann Trollmann. But the only thing that truly matters is Fred Jacoby's awakening, as he realizes that nothing in the world is worth working for a propaganda rag. Yes, the denazification of Germany has been working since 1945, and this is the result.

Sharp humor and genuinely sad situations polarized to the extreme. Alan is going through another divorce, Charlie is somewhere between the bedroom and the bathroom, and Herb is getting married... but the best jokes, as usual, come from Berta, Evelyn, and Kandi. A memorable episode is the one featuring Rose's "departure" and, of course, the wedding, which happened exactly how Judith definitely didn’t want it to.

This series began very ambitiously, and there was good reason for that. The lavish previous seasons became the most prominent German export, representing in a nutshell that legendary myth of the Weimar Republic... An unmistakable combination of decadence, corruption, politics, art, and crisis. Who wouldn’t be curious about what 1931 had in store for the homicide squad and everyone else fighting daily on the brink of poverty? While the previous seasons still provided a very realistic depiction of that time within the realm of fiction, emotionally believable and dramatically compelling, the 4th season seems to have become more of a guidebook. There are too many plotlines, too many characters without strong connections, and at least three or four separate finales followed one after another in the second half of the series. But where did the point of the Sonnenborn project go? Why did the climactic action of the Berlin police unfold in the style of Al Capone? And was it really necessary to introduce yodeling at Moka Efti? So many questions. Nevertheless, the train called Babylon Berlin is still moving, and it will be interesting to see whether the filmmakers take Gereon all the way to America or completely part ways with the novels.