#wow this show is making me write meta while I should be. applying for internships

[sherbertilluminated]

Watched Babylon Berlin S2E7 tonight and I have some predictions. This show is about police violence and the fall of the Weimar Republic.

This episode was probably the climax of the Prangertag storyline. At least, it feels like something definite has happened and a new/unknown condition has been established.

Namely: Although Operation Prangertag was halted, the influence of its aristocratic/high-ranking architects prevents them from facing consequences for their plots. Benda—and Gereon, who since Stefan's death has become Benda's right hand—has continuously stymied in his efforts to prosecute the nationalists. All he can do is play defense as the attacks come.

On the other hand: assassination attempt #13 has been foiled.

Benda and Gereon have succeeded on a mission together. Through their combined efforts, the republic has been preserved, and Benda has made good on his narrative function as "only guy in the room who cares about preserving the republic." Which among other reasons is why I'm scared he's going to die soon.

It looks like Greta is going to kill him too.

This episode she's contacted by a friend of her creepy boyfriend Fritz, who returns his effects to her and directs her grief toward Benda, despite the identity of Fritz' killers being carefully obscured last episode.

This is the same rhetoric that Fritz has used throughout the last few episodes: he reminds her that Benda's position as Regierungsrat/leader of the "politische" implicates him in the state violence against communists, especially during the May Day Demonstrations.

This would be a compelling rhetorical tack, if Fritz' character were not consistently framed as an aggressor. Every time they meet up, he a) violates one of her boundaries, b) tries to play it off as mischievous sticking-it-to-the-man, and c) reminds her that Benda is complicit in the violence of the state.

But Fritz' persuasive tactics have been mostly been orthodox communism. His friend throws some antisemitism in.

Notably he says "seine Leute," which implies a looser epistemological association than the hierarchy implied by "his men". Either way, the conversation priming her for ideological violence based on sweeping divisions between societal groups.

So Greta, whose arc since getting hired by the Benda family has been about small tests of loyalty—Fritz's needling, Mrs. Benda's instruction of "no meat!" vs. Mr. Benda asking her to fry a sausage, the secrecy of the household, etc.— is probably going to turn against them.

Another person with reason to dislike Benda is Bruno, who is shown at the end of the episode sulking and smoking in the sun sets.

But it's more likely that Bruno will go after Gereon in the next episode; they've been fighting all season, and while I do like this show I don't think they're so innovative as to avoid doing "good cop vs. bad cop" character things.

And since he's already murdered Stefan and tried to kill Streseman in this episode, killing Benda would make it seem like he's a unique danger to the stability of the Weimar Republic. That's not the kind of story the show wants to tell. It's interested in representing a diverse array of people with unique motivations who inexorably contribute to the changes in their society.

\In Greta's case that might mean being (figuratively) seduced into ideological violence which, although urged by the death of her ostensibly-communist boyfriend, is terribly convenient for all the nationalists Benda is trying to hinder.

But if that's to be their arc, I don't think it can come to a satisfying end without a response to Fritz' argument. Benda is portrayed onscreen trying to prosecute nationalists and prevent political violence, but his complicity or lack thereof in violence against communists is almost deliberately obscured.

The most we actually see of him in conjunction with police violence is in Season 1 Episode 3, where he's seen introducing the police president Zörgiebel

and afterward in episode 5, where he discourages Zörgiebel from using force against the protesters.

So we get the argument that Benda is complicit in police violence only from Fritz and his antisemitic friend. But now Fritz is dead. And his argument remains unresolved.

And if Greta is going to kill Benda, who has proven himself to be such a pillar of stability that his death would destabilize the narrative enough to distinguish seasons 2 and 3, that resolution needs to come soon, probably in the next two episodes.

Here's how.

At the end of S2E2 Gereon is approached by Dr. Völcker for help in clearing the names of two women whom police killed on May Day.

Gereon refuses. Because he's a cop. But last season he also threw out the false testimony which would have implicated the women. So the guilt of the police is a matter that remains both unresolved and on his mind.

It's a matter that directly pertains to the question of Benda's own guilt that day, and that acts in narrative parallel.

Now that the plotline of the attempted assassination is resolved, there's a little space to pick up running threads. Including Gereon's own guilt (for violence he definitely did commit) and Benda's role in the institution of police.

Gereon and Benda have been working together all season to foil a coup that a large number of cops were involved in. It might make sense for Gereon to turn to the one authority figure he respects for advice about individual responsibility and institutional corruption.

Any response that Benda gives, from "I've been urging deescalation for years but you see how little power I have to change this institution" to "I completely endorse violence in the name of preserving the Republic," would provide closure to this question. It would move Gereon's character development re: being a cop and make his eventual death hit harder.

I want this scene to happen because it would make sense, and because like Greta I don't like the dissonance between the show's portrayal of a soft-spoken champion of democracy/mentor figure and the rhetoric of a man who is personally really creepy. The show is good enough that I want narrative closure for Benda.

But I don't want him to die. And I suspect I'm running out of time.