Happiness – Episode 2 begins with Detective Nicole Egmann briefing a team of officers on Dragan Sergowicz (Sascha Alexander Gersak) and Bjorn Diemel (Tom Schilling) while simultaneously showing them the video of the Igor attack. When she finishes, she is approached by Moller, who apparently has concerns about her and Bjorn being classmates. She assures him that it won’t be an issue while pointing out that Dragan is their target.
The story briefly goes back in time to show how Bjorn hid Dragan in the trunk of his car to get him to the lake house without being seen. His plans were nearly thwarted and if not for his vast knowledge of criminal law likely would have been when Moeller stops him at the exit of the underground garage. With Dragan safely hidden in the trunk, Bjorn and Emily Diemel (Pamuk Pilavci) have a pleasant drive to the lake house except for the brief call from Egmann, looking for Dragan.
Bjorn arrives at the lake house with the intent to let Dragan out of the truck but Emily stops him. This is when he realizes that he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He spends the entire day at the lake with Emily while Dragan withers away in the trunk and suffocates.
A very excited Emily wakes Bjorn first thing the next morning with pleas for another fun-filled day of swimming at the lake. By the time their weekend is over and they are headed back into town, Dragan’s rotting corpse has stunk up the car enough for Emily to notice. In addition to that, Bjorn has an entire log of missed calls and voice messages from everyone from the cops to the media.
Much to Bjorn’s surprise, Katharina Diemel (Emily Cox) is extremely grateful for how happy the time at the lake house has made Emily and invites him in for coffee when he drops her off. It is when he leaves from this encounter that is approached by Toni, who is not at all happy about the ignored calls or the missing Dragan. Toni notices the smell as the conversation continues, but Bjorn is clever enough to blame it on rotting meat that he left in the car. In addition to this, Bjorn claims that Dragan gave him explicit instructions not to share his location. This certainly doesn’t appease Toni any further but he lets it go for the moment.
Bjorn realizes he can procrastinate no longer and needs to do something with Dragan’s body, which leads him back to the lake house. It takes some clever ingenuity just to get Dragan out of the trunk but Bjorn manages. He then considers several options for cutting the corpse up and ultimately decides to erect a plastic sheeted room and dismembers Dragan with a chainsaw before feeding the piece through a wood chipper. Although the process does not go so smoothly, Bjorn recalls lessons from his Mindful seminars with Joschka Breitner (Peter Jordan) to get the task completed. It is when Bjorn is feeding the dismembered parts through the chipper that he realizes he needs to save Dragan’s thumb to keep his presence alive. He also removes the ring finger because it contains a ring that could possibly lead back to a connection.
As Bjorn puts the final touches on his little project, Moeller gives Egmann a copy of surveillance photos from the agent they had sitting on the lake house while Bjorn was there with Emily. Egmann doesn’t appear to discover anything from the photos but is kind of rushed from the task with a message from her babysitter, Tini, with the news that she needs to leave.
The episode ends with Bjorn enjoying a celebratory beer by the lake and bonfire when a raven swoops down and makes off with Dragan’s ring finger.
Murder Mindfully Review
Episode 2 was certainly a good way to continue Bjorn’s story. As I’ve said before, I greatly appreciate the shorter runtimes and feel that it cuts out a lot of unneeded content. This episode was filled with all kinds of hijinks and most of it was surprisingly believable, except for the raven incident and the encounter with Toni. The raven incident could be mildly believable I suppose, but it’s hard for me to imagine that a seasoned gangster like Toni wouldn’t recognize the scent of the rotting corpse.
The surveillance photos and introduction of the police force add a new twist to the story as does the turf war that Toni mentioned. I am interested in seeing where these two plots take the narrative. I’d give the episode a 6 out of 10.
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