Love is impossible to live without

These two are hopeless!

After season 3 with all its little lovely GerLotte moments, we’ve got the trailers of season 4 and what do we see?

Charlotte hates Gereon and sleeps with Rudi.

Inspector Gereon Rath is a complicated protagonist and a typical flawed hero. The viewers are charmed by his charisma and stoicism, even though most of the time Gereon is trying to get through the heavy fog of his professional and personal life like a blind kitten.

Let´s try to figure out - is he a good cop? 

Right in S1 E1 Gereon was disarmed by a detainee (very unprofessional) and could not prevent him from committing a suicide. 

Later in S1 Gereon killed a person under the influence of drugs (gangster who was known as the Priest or St Josef), tried to cover up traces and replaced the bullet which was a key piece of evidence with another one. + He and Bruno destroyed films that showed sexual perversions done by some high-rank politicians and Gereon’s father.

Generally his deductive skills usually don’t help much, and he seems to lack a gut instinct to detect the criminals. In S3 Gereon is even more off track than before. He was absent when Tilly Brooks was murdered and couldn’t prevent Felix Krempin from being shot in his car on the way to the Burg. Ok, in the situation with dancer Vera Lohmann he had a bad luck, but well, failed again. If anything ever can go wrong, it will go wrong in his case.

Should we mention his perjury concerning the events of May, 1? He believed he was protecting the police force, but doing so he betrayed the whole legal system and undermined the ideas of democracy.

Gereon doesn’t have great physical strength and is often attacked and beaten. He can´t shoot that well (for ex. in the episodes with crazy Ullrich) and he is not a team player (sharing investigations with Böhm did not work).

In S1-2 of Babylon Berlin we meet Toni Ritter, Lotte´s little sister (actress Irene Böhm). She is probably 11-12 years old. The girl is smart for the age and has a bubbly personality. Lotte and Toni resemble each other and have a nice emotional bond. Lotte is trying to take care of Toni and wants her to study at school instead of doing poorly paid random work. Toni is worried about Lotte being away at night and probably has an idea of Lotte´s night shifts. Other members of the Ritter family are too concerned about their own issues and they pay little attention to Toni, or even worse want to exploit her (Erich). In S2 Toni becomes an orphan as her mum dies.

In S3 we meet Toni who has quickly grown into a teenager. She lives with Lotte, goes to school and from time to time has lunches in Aschinger. Her life seems more stable and secure. However, Toni is not a happy girl, she feels lonely and neglected as Lotte is often missing their lunch appointments and comes home late. After school Toni has a lot of spare time but she can´t go home till evening (as they used the apartment taking turns with a guy from the bar who slept there at day). Toni finds a bad company, a questionable assignment and eventually gets molested by some elderly pervert. Lotte is trying to discipline Toni and prevent her from getting into bigger troubles. Toni wants to be independent and is annoyed at Lotte scolding her while generally neglecting her. Toni is also upset because she found out that she and Lotte have different fathers. By the end of S3 Toni decides to leave Lotte and join the group of homeless kids. Lotte is totally devastated as she truly cares about Toni, and once again her efforts to be good to her family member are not appreciated.

In S4 we might find out what happens to Toni. Probably she will be engaged in some illegal activity (for ex. street gang) and at some point face the police and Lotte.

Last episodes of S2 are so far the most dramatic in the series. It took lots of time and effort for Gereon to save Lotte from the drowned car and revive her. And though these scenes are super emotional and even painful to watch, they are incredibly beautifully shot and there is some interesting symbolism enclosed.

The crucial moment is when Lotte gave up letting water to her lungs. Probably she lost her hope for being saved by that point, or maybe she was already weak from oxygen deficiency and afraid of dying all alone. So she decided to die holding Gereon´s hand and having him by her side. Quite selfish but we can´t blame her in the given circumstances.

After that it is shown how Gereon swims to the surface and screams with pain and horror. Then we see two swans flying up together and also screaming. It´s a beautiful allegory since swans symbolize loyalty and choose a partner for life. If one swan dies, the other remains lonely.

For obvious reasons Helga Rath née Schwartzbach is quite an unpopular character of BB. She is a part of Gereon’s trauma and an obstacle between him and Lotte. In the hotel registration book Helga wrote she was born 23.7.1901 which makes her 28 years old. She got married young as by the end of WWI (1918) she was already having her son Moritz. We don´t know for sure why she preferred Anno to Gereon (in Gereon’s dream she said she fell in love with Anno) but we can speculate she chose the more promising of the two brothers. Anno was older, probably could provide for her better and had leadership qualities according to old Rath. Delivering her speech for Nyssens’ foundation Helga looked pretty sincere crying over her missing husband. Or was she feeling sorry for herself?

Helga got a conservative upbringing, she wants to be a housewife, to have a cosy home and fancy clothes. She is quite a down-to-earth and unsophisticated lady (her awful checked hat says it all). She has a practical touch to life! As soon as Anno is pronounced dead she comes to Berlin to get settled with Gereon (her plan B) and in S2 succeded in it, but in S3 something went wrong. Dr Schmidt did good job to brainwash Gereon, and Gereon became cold and indifferent to her.

I actually feel for Helga as she found out about her pregnancy after moving to Nyssen’s hotel which made the whole situation fishy. When she came to see Gereon in hospital in S3E8 to tell him the baby news, she found Lotte next to him. Gereon was clinging to Lotte’s arm and she was sitting on the edge of his bed, and not in the chair for visitors. Helga noticed that the girl is younger than she, good-looking and apparently very confused to see her. 2+2=4! What is worse Gereon noticed Helga right away but didn’t immediately release Lotte´s arm and just stared at her without saying hello. Poor Helga couldn´t introduce herself to Lotte. She couldn’t call herself Gereon´s wife and she didn’t want to say she was his sister-in-law. Her only weapon was a hostile glance.

After Lotte left Gereon scolded Helga about staying in the posh hotel paid by an unknown man and questioned his paternity (he wasn’t happy to hear the baby news at all). It´s understandable that after such a reaction Helga went for abortion as having a child outside of a wedlock would be a disaster in her case. Another misfortune for Helga was that Lotte accidentally bumped into her as she was going through the abortion. Now Lotte has another ace up her sleeve (remember it was Lotte who revealed to Gereon the hotel where Helga was hiding in S3E5) because Helga lied about having a miscarriage.

Alfred Nyssen appeared in Helga´s life just in time (an amazing coincidence, right?) They make a perfect couple as both are tired of loneliness and disappointing relationships. I wonder what Dr Schmidt will say about their union as he is also Nyssen’s therapist. Or was it Dr Schmidt’s plan to get them together? Well, it depends if he really is Anno (I’m still not 100% sure yet) or is he just cheating Gereon to manipulate him and exclude human relationships and passions from his life in order to turn him into a human android or Mensch-Maschine .