Angela Merkel has blood on her hands. By making Germany energy-dependent on Russia, she enriched and empowered Putin—even after he annexed Crimea and invaded the Donetsk region. Her perverse insistence on including Huawei in Germany’s telecom network, despite her own security services’ contrary advice, did more to weaken the NATO alliance than anything Trump would ever dare. If the 21st Century is dominated by Xi and Putin, Merkel will deserve a good portion of the credit, but she would probably argue it was all worth it to sell a few thousand more Volkswagens in China. It will take a lot to level her karma (just ask the citizens of Mariupol), but maybe solving a handful of murders will be a start in the first two TV-movie length installments of Miss Merkel, which premieres today on MHz Choice.
Merkel has retired to the Uckermark countryside, without any visible guilt or shame. She just wants to walk her pub, Helmut, and bask in the gratitude of the world’s dictators. However, dead bodies start to turn up around her, which is why her husband Joachim Sauer and her “Guarding Tess” protection agent, Mike start calling her “Miss Merkel,” in honor of Miss Marple.
In “Murder in the Castle,” Merkel is just starting to adjust to retirement and life as a local celebrity. As such, she reluctantly agrees to attend the local lord’s restaging of his ancestor’s murder—and wouldn’t you know it, history repeats itself. Somehow, he was poisoned in the wine cellar, which was locked from the inside, lazy Inspector Hannemann writes it off as a suicide. Of course, Merkel knows better.
The surviving family, an ex, the sort of ex-step-daughter, and the resentful current trophy wife are all suspects, as is Marie Hortsmann, who carries the victim’s unborn baby and his ironclad non-disclosure agreement. At least Stefan Cantz’s adaptation of David Safier’s novel winnows down to a full two suspects, which is one more than you usually get from detective shows.
Katharina Thalberg definitely strives for Jessica Fletcher vibes, but her Merkel carries a lot of baggage. Her chemistry never quite clicks with Thorsten Merten as “Achim” Sauer, either. His performance is the wrong kind of sour, depicting the former camera-shy spouse-of-state as rather pompous and socially awkward. Frankly, Thalberg develops better rapport with Tim Kalkhof as her constantly stressed-out bodyguard.
Frankly, the second mystery, “Murder in the Graveyard,” features better supporting work, especially including Sven Martinek, playing mortician Kurt Kunkel, who is called to collect a murder victim from the cemetery, which obviously seems somewhat ironic. Naturally, Hannemann decides the victim just got drunk and accidentally buried himself, after smacking the back of his head with a shovel.
Merkel and Mike quickly discover the deceased had been blackmailing Charu Borscht, the unfaithful wife of Kunkel’s rival undertaker. Her secret lover happens to be Peter Kunkel, the mortician’s son, who also happens to lead the local Satanic cult.
They also perfectly represent the show’s fundamental dishonesty. Supposedly for the sake of authenticity, Miss Merkel constantly drops references to world leaders—like Donald Trump once stepped on her foot or Pope Benedict used sickly sweet aftershave. Yet she never, ever mentions Putin, for whom she did so very much over the course of her chancellorship. (Yes, these are light mysteries, but would you consider it equally reasonable to produce a series about the retired Herbert Hoover solving murders that never refers to the Great Depression?)
Indeed, you would hardly get the sense from Miss Merkel that its amateur sleuth a controversial figure to any extent, beyond partisan politics. There is no mention of the Nordstream pipeline she championed, nor the death and destruction in the Ukraine which it paid for. These mysteries might be passable for Miss Marple, but they do not generate sufficient redemption for Miss Merkel. Too much of a whitewash to recommend, Miss Merkel starts streaming today (10/22) on MHz Choice.
