Thanks for stopping by. I can only hope to be a better friend than Bartosz.
Quick Plot Synopsis:
A boy is missing in Winden. The first episode focuses on 3 or 4 families and how they are coping in the aftermath of two town events – a suicide at the beggining of summer and a missing child 13 days prior. The teenagers are looking for the missing boy’s marijuana when they are chased from the caves by a sound and flashing lights. One of the kids in the group goes missing. They search throughout the night and a dead child is found – not the one they were looking for.
What are the secrets?
- Ulrich cheating on Katharina with Hannah
- What is happening with Erik????
- What is the purpose of the room where Erik is being held?
- What is Helge (the old man) talking about?
- Jonas and Marta seem to have something between them. Is Bartosz oblivious or a douche?
- Why doesn’t the grandma pay the power bill for Hannah? Why is there animosity?
- Erik’s secret weed stash
- Franziska going by herself and not telling the other 4.
- Mikkel not revealing his magician’s secrets
- Where is Mikkel???????????
- Who is the boy Charlotte and Ulrich find at the end of the episode?
Characters: 3 up, 3 down
Trending up
- Franziska Doppler – Franziska’s first moment on the show features her dunking all over Magnus. Magnus is smoking a joint on school grounds and makes a comment about how Franziska should be hanging out with the nerds. Fran smokes his joint, clowns on him for being the principal’s son and then calls his weed bad. Queen. Later, Bartosz (more on this jagweed in a moment) wants to take the missing kid’s weed stash. Fran beats him to the punch and is offering him a DISCOUNT for just a brick of weed. Bartosz being Bartosz decides to shove Fran to the ground. And this prick Bartosz is saved by the supernatural. A terrible noise comes from the cave, their flashlights go haywire, and everyone scrambles. I believe Barty absconded with the weed. Look for Franziska to break his kneecaps in the next episode.
- Mikkel Nielson- We of course feel terribly for Mikkel being lost, especially in light of his monologue about how being lost is worse than death itself. The skeleton costume made me roll my eyes at first but now I can’t think of it as anything other than endearing. He had a nice moment with Ulrich (and let’s just say he needed a nice moment in the episode) when he performs the magic trick. “Ultimate Fistbump” is an iconic line. He also gets hit on the head hard by either Magnus or Bartosz throughout the episode. His sister seems to think he doesn’t fit in with his Houdini fascination – “are we sure he wasn’t adopted” – Martha mused.
- Charlotte Doppler – Charlotte is the female police officer investigating the case. Karoline Eichhorn does a fantastic job portraying this character. She brings a lot of gravity and seriousness to the show. One word comes to mind when I see her: stern. Why is she trending up? She had to put up with Ulrich musing about his lot in life. There’s a part where Ulrich is thinking about all of the cheating, the lies, the deception that is clearly in his past. He posits “Do you ever wonder when life took a wrong turn? Where life became the exact opposite of what you wanted?” Charlotte just kind of looks at him like “Dude, it’s monday morning and I haven’t even had my coffee.” I get the feeling she puts up with Ulrich’s guilt a lot. There’s also a moment where her husband is on the phone with her and he wants to know if they can talk. Her response is basically “Nah” and she hangs up. Like mother, like daughter. Queens wild!
Trending Down
- Bartosz Tiedemann – Dark’s answer to King Joffrey. He has one semi-decent moment where he tells Jonas that he told everyone that he was in France playing hide-the-baguette (instead of, ya know, coping with the loss of his father… how could anyone possibly understand Jonas might have been sad?). It’s all downhill from there. We find out he is dating Martha and the two of them are prone to PDA. My second entry for trending down should be Martha. Why? She’s dating Bartosz. That’s it. I digress. I cringe every time I see Bartosz throw his arms around Marta with the force of a linebacker. When he tells Jonas, “maybe you did miss something” in regards to him and Martha, one wishes to deliver a swift kick to his nuts. He makes selling weed seem so lame. I swear as soon as he said “if there are capacities on the market,” I wanted someone to shove him into the lockers. My man can’t stick to a schedule, he gives Jonas and Martha a chance to reconnect while they’re waiting for his untimely ass during the great weed heist. The worst thing about Bartosz was his assault of Franziska. He shoves her down and takes the weed and nobody says a word about it? Granted, the supernatural took over, but I feel like he needs some comeuppance for what he has done. Jonas and Magnus need to boycott Bartosz.
- Ulrich Nielson – One could argue that he should be number one, but come on, Bartosz figured heavily in this episode. Ulrich is cheating on Katarina which landed him on this list. Besides that repugnant fact, dude is just so thirsty for Hannah. They go to meetup in a back alleyway of the SCHOOL where all of the parents are meeting to discuss a MISSING CHILD. Ulrich is one of the lead investigators! Don’t you think maybe they wanted his input? Ulrich is just thinking of Hannah and his future hotel room in Frankfurt. Hannah tries to see where she stands with Ulrich and tells him that she loves him. Ulrich’s response: You’re beautiful. Not quite as bad as “Thank you…. Thank you very much?” from Maura Tierney’s character in Liar, Liar, but that’s gotta hurt. He also never visits (or contacts) his mom. Come on Ulrich.
- Regina Tiedemann – Oh what a surprise! We find Bartosz’ mom on the list. Now, she was not in this episode very much, but I found her behavior to be unacceptable. She is going through something it appears (I mean besides being Bartosz’ mom LMAO) but let’s take a step back and examine her logic. She is yelling at the bankers on the phone, letting them know that the only reason her business is not successful is because there is a missing child in Winden and who wants to vacation in a town where a child is murdered? So this happened 13 days ago – most people plan their vacations out in advance of 13 days. People are cancelling because of this? Am I crazy to think this is unreasonable? She is pretty unbearable at the parent meeting. She thinks that it is clear that Erik just ran away. Charlotte, being smart, sees right through this act of transparency. Charlotte tells her that you just want your business to pick up again and Regina is all like “What? I’m not even thinking of my hotel… that couldn’t be further from the truth.” We needed Reverend Lovejoy there – “Oh come on Regina, it’s obvious that you are lying, everyone can see that.”
When you find out your weed sucks.
Random episode thoughts:
-Helge looks just like Chief Garvey’s dad from The Leftovers. Different language show, but you can’t tell they are not the same person.
-How ominous are these tones that are played throughout the episode?
-Hope the opening quote of The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubborn persistent illusion didn’t make too many people get up and say “iight I’ma head out.”
-Intro song is forever creepy…
-We hear about the nuclear power plant closing throughout the episode. The power plants’ shadow looms large in Winden.
-Love the family scene at the Nielson’s house. Katarina has her hands full and Ulrich is little to no help.
-How does Bartosz know about Erik’s drugs?
-Charlotte gets spit on and doesn’t react.
-Ulrich needs to start visiting his mom more. She’s taking walks in the dark forest finding old candy wrappers. The only way she can get in touch with Ulrich is through an emergency contact number.
-Regina alludes to Katharina having problems. Do more people know about Ulrich and Hannah? Katharina said she didn’t know what she was talking about.
-Maybe the power plant being the town’s only landmark has something to do with tourism industry.
-Who is the boy at the end and what’s up with the walkman?
Wake Up Winden 