Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 16 Notes

WELL. Well well well well well! Brethren! A fucking RIIIIDE this one is!! Jen had assured me this was a great finale, and picked it as the one* she wanted to watch with me, à la how she picked Episode 9 of The Young Pope that one time. (*specifically not Episode 15, which she described as “Excruciating,” not inaccurately)

Which means! Deluxe notes! As they feature live [previously recorded] commentary from both of us as we watched this together over the phone. Then I watched it again and wrote down, to the best of my memory, all my thoughts from the first go-round I hadn’t managed to scribble down, added in some of those Classic @memory-for-trifles #observs Alex had sent over, and like, descriptive moments, many screencaps, etc etc, I think you’ll figure it out.

Up front: I AM 65% LESS SAD and 100% MORE SURPRISED!!! Like every ten minutes Jen would just start laughing and go “you’d think this would be enough for the finale, but there’s more coming!” and I’d be like “Whaaaaat!” and then THERE WOULD BE.

~Join us~

Episode 16

oh no the war flashbacks! this is the last ‘Bisher bei’ I wanted! (and by that I mean exactly what I wanted [creepy hands])

this one picks up right were we left Gereon last time, in fact overlaps a bit with it, meaning I had to watch him scream in anguish again while the fucking beautiful swans fly over the surface of the lake, and made known to Jen just how much I resented when they used this technique in Season 3 of Hannibal and also now!!!! Jen was just making pitying noises.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 15 Notes

NOT SINCE EPISODE 10—— 

have I been so…..

heart-rent.

Struuudels :(

[waving mutedly] Let’s go then:

Episode 15

I mean, structurally, that this season is clearly going to end where the show began, with a train heist by the Russland border, is tidy af

I still love these credits so much, god

wow get yours, kids! she’s still got her stockings on, hot~

Charlotte how did you figure out Gereon’s hotel! ah who am I kidding, she’s the best detective

memory-for-trifles, correct: “Boy Charlotte and Gereon’s eyes have enough bags to spend a month on vacation”

well looks like after Bruno hadn’t been holding her hostage or something, Gereon never came up with a solid alternate idea of where Lotte was and instead just got REALLY AGITATED. you were worried about her bud! we’re gonna have to teach you about emotions

god I love that she gets the usual male hero thing of just going “I’ll explain later, get in the car”

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 14 Notes

This show has so much effing plot and simultaneously my feelings for all the characters just grow continuously, WHAT a watching experience. I get a little overwhelmed in this one!! And not only because there are theatre shenanigans!!! My heart, unready.

Episode 14

Katelbach is warning Gereon not to scare off whatever gentle engineer he’s rustled up to…protect him? I’m a little unclear and VERY excited to see how whatever this is keeps shaking out.

oh my god certainly it’s this man

WAHT THE VERY FUCK HE JUST GOT SHOT DEAD RIGHT BEFORE THEM!!!?

seriously I about had a HEART attack!

oh my GOD, now fucking General Major Seegers just up and calls him “the little brother” out of nowhere?? I’m too keyed up for this!

what are you doing to us!!

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 13 Notes

I was hoping the German for “notes” would be “notten” or something because I could use that and it’d have like, inferential clarity, but it’s not that at all.

Anyway a lot of exciting things happened in this episode! By exciting I mean sometimes my babes get hurt and I am very alarmed! BE SAFE, STRUDELS.

Episode 13

Charlotte! at least your drugged little head is resting on a velvet pillow I guess? or like, a velvet jacket? a velvet pillow

who has this shackle set up just in their parlor!!!! Yikes!™

(and not the time but seriously gal, great trousers always 👍)

[points] HORSE. PORN HORSE ROOM HORSE.

oh so okay that’s why the shackles

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 12 Notes

It has been two weeks since I was last able to keep watching Babylon Berlin (a Lenten period), and in that time, to further pain me, Netflix rolled out THIS new black & white icon:

Danke, Netflix.

Incidentally, I don’t believe I’ve reported yet some of the structural deets Jen shared with me about this show! Did U Kno that what appears on American Netflix as the first season is actually two season’s worth of Babylon Berlin? So when I commented in Episode Nine about the pilot-esque elements, I was watching the season 2 premiere so no wonder! I had thought it seemed unusual that there would be 16 episodes in one season, because as Alex quipped: “the European television exchange rate is so low.”

Anyway there will be a few more choice Alex comments scattered through here, ALSO Jen send me your own notes already. Sincerely, your Babylon Bebuddy ♥

Episode 12

oh it is GUT to be back, wow, missed you so much show, u are my world.

you know it’s intricately plotted television when the “Bisher bei” takes a solid minute thirty

(I just looked up what that directly translates to in English and at least according to Google Translate it’s “So far with,” and I love that so much I burst into laughter!)

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 11 Notes

I talked to friend of the podcast Jen Last-name-redacted this past weekend, about other things too but a *significant* amount about Babylon Berlin, which will probably all be filtering in over the next several episodes. But notably for where I am at present, she told me that she straight up didn’t watch another episode after Episode 10 for like three weeks—“I was in mourning!”—and that’s relatable.

However, Jen also told me that the eleventh episode, this one, is in considerable portion a quasi comic reprieve in the form of a silent film-esque sequence with Gereon Rath and the queer photog being tossed around in an old timey plane, and science doesn’t yet know how many concepts I would find more appealing than that, but their best guess right now is ‘not many.’

Episode 11, or, Me: “Oh my god Volker Bruch IS Buster Keaton.”

N.b. @memory-for-trifles has started watching this show (huZZAH) and came to this life-affirming realization a whole seven episodes before me, along with the very good joke: “Büster Keaton”

okay on with the NOTES

and gosh silver-haired Soviet diplomat is SWEATING

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

The Good Place - 3x09

As there’s gonna be another break in new episodes until next month, have a single ep notes post! Also it was terrific and D’Arcy Carden wins everything.

3x09 ‘Janet(s)’

obviously Janet’s void looks like an Apple ad

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 10 Notes

I regret so much about how my fool affections set me up in this one. To lose a favorite right in the episode where I’d so grown to love…not since An***w D******er have I been so!!! so dunked. God. I’m mourn.

But also, this one opened with my favorite thing that can ever happen in a television program: a TANZ SEQUENCE

Episode 10

…..please tell me this is real. PLEASE O PLEASE O PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS REAL that they just DANCETHEATRE with each other in the mornings because they’re ABSURD PRECIOUS TINY LOVABLES.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

DAMN STRAIGHT

I mean actually no, please, please review 🙏🏻

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

BABYLON BERLIN - Ep 9 Notes

Well at this point these liveblogs are definitely as long or longer than my Young Pope notes, so they’re getting their own single posts! Also I went ahead and included All of my screenshots because it was too good a happening not to bookend this with little Gereon trilogies that basically seem to mark out the two poles he’s swinging between. (Even the one in the middle really feels like the midpoint, his steadiest fulcrum of [*level dark-circled stare*])

I’ve also reached the point, in my TV show love affair, where I’ve started telling even offline people about it. I just have to tell everyone that I’m in love! It’s a love that’s gotta speak its name! Ich bin ein Babylon Berlin.

Episode 9

oh my hun

btw these are the only 3 angles men should be shot from

wait, Kardakov finally got a death that stuck? aw man, he had such a good run of it. Godspeed you, Alexey.

just, hell yeah for good production values. and Tykwer on this eery little bell score…ja

ah, they only identified Kardakov with a telegram—bet it’s not my guy!!