The Saarbrücken crime scene “The Heart of the Snake” is again about the worst of all fathers and the difficult family case.
There is not a whole year between the second and now third crime scene in Saarbrücken, but a short what happened so far is definitely useful: At the end of the first TV appearance of the young investigator duo Adam Schürk and Leo Bäumer, Daniel Sträßer and Vladimir Burlakov, Schörk senior wakes up from the coma into which Leo has thrown him with a spade because Adam was severely abused by his father. In the second case, “The Lord of the Forest”, there was a showdown between the psychopathic serial killer of young women and the equally psychopathic old scoundrel. And now the third Saarbrücken crime scene, ominously titled “The Heart of the Snake”: Schürk senior, Torsten Michaelis, is finally dead this time, unfortunately Schürk junior is suspected of having shot him.
Didn’t I, you might think, just see the Commissar-under-serious-suspicion number? Do you have. In the most recent Münster crime scene, there Messrs Thiel and Boerne still took care of the actual criminal case. Here, however, it’s once again about childhood friends Adam and Leo and evil incarnate, old Schurk. Whose influence extends beyond death, as befits a devil in human form. And one can only hope that screenwriter Hendrik Hölzemann will understand and that this influence no longer plays a role, at least in the fourth case involving the two young investigators.
Or the two women in the team become more important, Brigitte Urhausen as Esther Baumann and Ines Marie Westernströer as Pia Heinrich. So far, her boss Leo has mainly thrown her into conflicts of conscience – which Esther at least solves by having Adam arrested.
Munster and Saarbrücken: the coincidence of the broadcast dates means that a direct comparison is possible. While one can assume that Chief Inspector Thiel will not be harmed, but that artfully tortuous paths will lead to his relief, it is clear from the outset that Adam Schürk will once again be tortured by his father according to all the rules of the art. He has, “my new hobby”, a terrarium with a snake and a frog, the former charcoal black and ominously tongue-in-cheek, the latter motley – director Luzie Loose and camerawoman Anne Bolick force the word poison on you.
Then there are mysterious burglaries, one of which kills a young woman. And the old Schürk was also broken into. What does that mean and is it all related? As in the Punch and Judy show, one would like to call out to the still puzzling investigative team: Attention, this snake not only has a heart, but also many heads. And when you cut one off, another grows back.
The crime scene from Saarbrücken seems to have found its niche: It’s primarily about the private problems of the inspectors, everything keeps getting worse and everything has to do with the Schürk family and possibly Leo’s fall from grace. Oddly enough, the colleague has to point out to him that it was “emergency aid” and is statute-barred anyway.
“Crime scene: The heart of the snake” , ARD, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
