Once in this crime scene Inspector Tobler from the Black Forest meets the wolf in the forest at night, who is killing the sheep in the valley. It’s what you would call a special moment, and yet casually, the wolf is a bit unspectacular. “Absolutely beautiful,” says Franziska Tobler (Eva Loebau) later in the car to see colleague Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner), but because she was kind of scared and is an honest person, she says: “So afterwards.”
That’s pretty much right in the middle of the new episode “Down in the Valley”, which takes place in a remote village with old houses and old stories. Tobler and Berg are investigating, excuse me, a wolf when the skeleton of Rosa Winterfeld is found nearby. Rosa’s story: Teenage pregnancy, her daughter Toni is now almost the same age as Rosa when she disappeared. Back then, Tobler and Berg were already investigating, and Berg was already giving away little red-cheeked apples. But nothing seems to fit in this case, only the people in the village know, it was Werner Trondle who lives in the house with the stuffed birds in the forest, because he killed his girlfriend years ago while drunk. The Tröndle actually seems refined and credible to the viewer. In general, almost everyone seems believable here, in their good wooden rooms, with the red wine in the evening, with their diligence, their sadness, their silence, and so many believable people together can be like a wall.
The key sentence: “I have to go there for a moment.”
This wall falls ten minutes before the end. What happens next is something you would never have guessed in your life. In such a case, the question often arises: Why all the preliminary work? So it’s a good thing that “Down in the valley” wasn’t very boring in the 80 minutes before. This is because Julia Langhof (director) and Nicole Armbruster (script) create an atmosphere in their Heimatfilm that makes use of contemporary streaming genres and immerses the Black Forest in the characteristic permanent darkness of a mystery series. Things are archaic between the families in the village, the snow is falling and people think of The passport or the classic the dark valley by Andreas Prochaska. Rosa’s story, told in flashbacks as a coming-of-age rebellion, remains a mystery. Really nice, it’s just stupid that Tobler and Berg have to answer the phone all the time, where someone tells them what’s going on now. No, nonsense, where to get important information. If they mumble “I have to go there for a moment” and “Sorry, I have to”, then it’s a normal ARD thriller again and the wolf trolls to the sheep.
The first, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
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