Berlin Station s2 season finale
Jul. 18th, 2019 06:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessBerlin Station 2.9 Winners Right the History Books
Caught this on the last day before it dropped off All4.
Everyone settled themselves in for the morning after the night before. I loved the moment where BB turned up outside Robert’s, surprising him and delighting him with intelligence, allowing the station’s officers to start putting things together while under anti-American pressure and a deadline. I was less sanguine about what he told his son and the Ambassador (perhaps he had more reason to tell the latter, while Noah is bound to ask him sensitive questions over the phone).
Nice payoff, left unsaid, that Danny was required to babysit Hector – whose response was entirely understandable – as Daniel had been the one to pull him back into all this. I was still side-eyeing Haines. BB was right to offer Valerie support, as, however much of a pro she was, she was realising how much Josef had played them (her).
Good acting by Ifans to make it seem like Stephen had stopped using clichés to try to talk Hector into doing what he wanted. They’d built up Stephen’s return to the station and reunion with Hector valiantly. Of course, I was curious about that one thing that Hector is meant not to give up.
Valerie played the encounter with Josef very well, using all the info at her disposal, never mind her feelings. He was clearly surprised about Nick Fisher. And she deserved Robert’s reluctant admiration for flipping him. I also liked both Josef and Valerie’s admission that what they’d had had meant something to them – but they’d both used each other and lied too much. (I’m ignoring the part of me that still thinks it unlikely that such a suddenly prominent political figure would have so much free time at home with a lover or to have clandestine meets in public locations at this time – and having a character lampshade it doesn’t reduce that.)
What followed next was excellent, though. Josef being mad enough not to follow Valerie’s orders made sense. I then thought Emmerich had been stabbed dead. We then had a brilliant chase scene, in which April showed off her competence, down to shooting the man with the gun trained on Danny. AND IT WAS STEFAN. Stefan who I’d castigated for uselessness, but who turned out to be part of a neo-Nazi conspiracy that made the PfD seem like amateur hour. And this had to shake all the spies when they thought about it, because no, they didn’t have each other. And the episode had been so ridiculous about the conspiracy’s motivation until then!
AND THEN Esther went from upset to logical in one scene and it looked as if Hector’s only choice was to give himself up. The second I heard a gunshot, I had an inkling of what would ensue, but it was a brilliant callback to shooting Katerina, and the hazy bursts of visuals worked very well (compare that to April telling us how she and Daniel were going to get the florist’s hard-drive instead of our getting to see it play out) to inform us of what had happened.
Cue a German-language (why?) funeral, where BB looked amazing, and I think the priest said something about ‘beloved colleague’. Stephen got the offer to hunt this conspiracy down (I am more ‘eh’ about this than what the station does next). We had a lot of grace notes – April having the humanity to talk to Lena, and Danny and Esther having a hopeful moment, both speaking to US-German relations. And Hector got to sail off into the sunset, hopefully with enough of a bank account to fund the rest of his life. Don’t know if they’ll be able to resist bringing him back or try to cast someone equally charismatic to play someone equally big in the next season.
Oh, for more time to post about other things that I've watched recently!
Caught this on the last day before it dropped off All4.
Everyone settled themselves in for the morning after the night before. I loved the moment where BB turned up outside Robert’s, surprising him and delighting him with intelligence, allowing the station’s officers to start putting things together while under anti-American pressure and a deadline. I was less sanguine about what he told his son and the Ambassador (perhaps he had more reason to tell the latter, while Noah is bound to ask him sensitive questions over the phone).
Nice payoff, left unsaid, that Danny was required to babysit Hector – whose response was entirely understandable – as Daniel had been the one to pull him back into all this. I was still side-eyeing Haines. BB was right to offer Valerie support, as, however much of a pro she was, she was realising how much Josef had played them (her).
Good acting by Ifans to make it seem like Stephen had stopped using clichés to try to talk Hector into doing what he wanted. They’d built up Stephen’s return to the station and reunion with Hector valiantly. Of course, I was curious about that one thing that Hector is meant not to give up.
Valerie played the encounter with Josef very well, using all the info at her disposal, never mind her feelings. He was clearly surprised about Nick Fisher. And she deserved Robert’s reluctant admiration for flipping him. I also liked both Josef and Valerie’s admission that what they’d had had meant something to them – but they’d both used each other and lied too much. (I’m ignoring the part of me that still thinks it unlikely that such a suddenly prominent political figure would have so much free time at home with a lover or to have clandestine meets in public locations at this time – and having a character lampshade it doesn’t reduce that.)
What followed next was excellent, though. Josef being mad enough not to follow Valerie’s orders made sense. I then thought Emmerich had been stabbed dead. We then had a brilliant chase scene, in which April showed off her competence, down to shooting the man with the gun trained on Danny. AND IT WAS STEFAN. Stefan who I’d castigated for uselessness, but who turned out to be part of a neo-Nazi conspiracy that made the PfD seem like amateur hour. And this had to shake all the spies when they thought about it, because no, they didn’t have each other. And the episode had been so ridiculous about the conspiracy’s motivation until then!
AND THEN Esther went from upset to logical in one scene and it looked as if Hector’s only choice was to give himself up. The second I heard a gunshot, I had an inkling of what would ensue, but it was a brilliant callback to shooting Katerina, and the hazy bursts of visuals worked very well (compare that to April telling us how she and Daniel were going to get the florist’s hard-drive instead of our getting to see it play out) to inform us of what had happened.
Cue a German-language (why?) funeral, where BB looked amazing, and I think the priest said something about ‘beloved colleague’. Stephen got the offer to hunt this conspiracy down (I am more ‘eh’ about this than what the station does next). We had a lot of grace notes – April having the humanity to talk to Lena, and Danny and Esther having a hopeful moment, both speaking to US-German relations. And Hector got to sail off into the sunset, hopefully with enough of a bank account to fund the rest of his life. Don’t know if they’ll be able to resist bringing him back or try to cast someone equally charismatic to play someone equally big in the next season.
Oh, for more time to post about other things that I've watched recently!
no subject
Date: 2019-07-18 06:50 am (UTC)From what I've had the next season doesn't live up to this, so I shall wait and see if More4 show it - I believe they only initially bought the first two seasons.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-20 07:23 am (UTC)