"Murder Mindfully": "Family is everything," a limp-wrist villain, too much smarm, and not enough murder. In Germany. With Bjorn's backside and Hoseman's hog

I wanted to review the first episode of Murder Mindfully (Achtsam Morden, 2024) because I haven't watched a German tv series for awhile.  

Problem: the first five minutes had my blood boiling, and the rest was nauseatingly saccharine.  But the two main guys have favored us with a lot of n*de photos.

Scene 1: Narrating, Bjorn (Tom Schelling) tells us that he didn't used to be a killer.  He didn't murder anyone until he was 42. Then it was six guys all in the same week, and he did it for a good reason: to get a work-life balance.

Cut to the judge's chambers, where lawyer Bjorn is arguing that his client, accused of a jewelry store robbery, should get out on bail.  He was having a bad day, but he had a noble goal: he wanted to get an engagement ring for his girlfriend.  He may be an immigrant, but he has the same values we Germans do: "he dearly treasures marriage and family."  Heteronormative jerk! 

 Getting the ring was an important step toward "cementing the relationship with his girlfriend."  Ok, he's heterosexual, so he can't be a bad guy?  

Discovering that the defendant has slept with a woman and is therefore a good guy,  the judge quickly grants the bail.  

Except Bjorn was lying: the guy actually has no girlfriend!  He is immersed in a homosocial band of brothers.  Evil!

Bjorn notes that early in his career, he would never have petitioned to let an evil/no girlfriend guy out out on bail,  but now he works for a disembodied limp-wristed hand with an ostentatious lady's ring.  On your way to audition for RuPaul's Drag Race, girlfriend?

Limp-Wrist, aka Dragan Sergowicz (Sascha Gersak), is the head evil/no girlfriend dude in town, running drugs, weapons, prostitution, and other disgusting things. Sex work is legal in Germany.   He keeps Bjorn busy cooking his books and bailing out his no-girlfriend goons.
 

Scene 2: Bjorn (left) gets home late, having missed...you know what's coming, right? -- the birthday of his young Daughter/Reason for Living, who is asleep on the couch clutching a stuffed animal, pushing up the cutesy junk to the max. This is the meaning of life!  Family is everything!   At this point Tonstant Reader thwowed up.  

Wife is angry with him, and suggests mindfulness so he can go back to "family is everything" again,  But you can't spend 24 hours a day gazing at your wife and Daughter/Reason for Living.  You have to eat and sleep sometime.  

But Bjorn gives it a try.  He stares at Daughter/Reason for Living for about 10 minutes, then carries her upstairs to her room and has endless tender tucking-into-bed moments that I fast-forwarded past.

Scene 3: The next day at work -- wait, why are you still working? Why aren't you home gazing at your wife and daughter? Family is everything, remember?

Bjorn is upset because there's a roomful of suits congratulating each other over some sort of work victory.  The bullying secretary taunts him: "Oh, weren't you invited?  What a pity."  You weren't invited either, lady.   

Bjorn narrating: "I was the Cinderella of the law firm."  He had to do all the dirty work -- anything unethical or illegal -- but it was all hush-hush, so no one knew that he did anything at all.

Darn, dude is a failure at "work is everything," too.   

He has to make a change.  He hates "trite, useless New Age junk" like the idiotic mindfulness his wife suggested, but "I'd have moved to Sodom, Gomorrha, or a hippie incense shop" to get back to "family is everything!" Hey, is that a homophobic dig?

Scene 4: Bjorn's appointment with the mindfulness guru, an elderly guy with a huge empty studio, who chides him for being late.  Stay in the moment, dude.

Left: Bjorn's d*ck

He spends the next 17 minutes of screen time in his mindfulness training, and the rest of the episode trying to combine "family is everything" and "work is everything" by taking Daughter/Reason for Living to work.  When is he going to start murdering people?

Scene 10: At Minute 27, Limp-Wrist seeks out Bjorn for help.  He got a tip that Igor was moving into his territory, so he beat him to death and set him on fire.  But Igor worked for rival Crime Boss Boris, and now Boris wants to kill Limp-Wrist. Neither of these guys appear in the cast list

By the way, 50 schoolkids on a field trip videotaped the murder and posted online.  Limp Wrist jumped on the bus and yelled for them to keep quiet or he would kill them all.  They recorded and posted that, too. 

You're getting in deep, Limp-Wrist buddy.  See what happens when you don't have a girlfriend?

"So, what are you going to do for me?" Limp-Wrist asks.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.