Crime series
Charlotte Lindholm’s last “crime scene” case in Göttingen
Commissioners Charlotte Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler, l) and Anaïs Schmitz (Florence Kasumba). photo
© NDR/ARD/dpa
Lindholm is allowed to return to Hanover. But first there is one more case to solve. It’s about the precarious situation of parcel delivery drivers. It is also a farewell to the duo with Anais Schmitz.
Finally it comes to Charlotte Lindholm Göttingen once again really big. Lower Saxony’s chief detective has actually – after solving six “crime scene” cases – integrated well in the picturesque university town by her standards. The TV investigator was transferred there in 2019 due to her lack of ability to work in a team.
She is recognized by superiors and colleagues. For example with Anais Schmitz (Florence Kasumba, “Get Up”), with whom she now works with relatively little conflict after initial quarrels. And yet Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler) reacts happily in the “Tatort” case “Ghost Ride” (Sunday, 8:15 p.m., the first) when she is told that the State Criminal Police Office in Hanover would like her back as an investigator.
A whirlpool of grievances
The still rather headstrong detective longs for her little son David, who is in the care of his grandmother in the state capital. First, however, one last case must be solved in Göttingen. The bloody events in icy winter southern Lower Saxony are both exciting and striking. It brings Lindholm into contact with sad events in the world of low-wage workers. It is also about violence in marriage and adultery. A whirlpool of grievances that occur all too often in real life and are already widely discussed in the media. Lindholm is drawn so deeply into this maelstrom that even her vest doesn’t stay white.
In the end it will also be a farewell for her to Schmitz, who remains in Göttingen after Lindholm’s departure and – it is implied – continues to pursue a career there. Kasumba leaves the Sunday crime classic. The responsible Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR) announced this at the end of December without giving any further reasons.
Cross-over episode with Kasumba
However, the expressive 47-year-old will be seen again in another “crime scene”. A cross-over episode was filmed in Hanover in the fall, in which she, alongside Thorsten Falke (Wotan Wilke Möhring), who otherwise works in the Federal Police “crime scene” from Hamburg, is part of a supra-regional investigation group into a fatal stabbing. According to NDR, the film with the working title “The Coldest Machine” will be shown in 2025.
In “Ghost Ride”, Lindholm initially celebrates a happy party. Police Director Liebig (Luc Feit, “Berlin Babylon”) turns 60 and gives out champagne. In his humorous speech he also introduces his subordinates to his new wife Tereza (Bibiana Beglau, “The Barcelona Crime”). She is a doctor and works in the very clinic where two people are soon taken to the intensive care unit after a serious car accident – one a driver, the other a passer-by.
It concerns the Romanian driver Illie (Adrian Djokic), a precariously paid sub-sub-contractor for a parcel service, and a teenager who happened to be in the city center. Courier Illie drove his transporter straight towards a group of people. After the celebration, Lindholm and Tereza Liebig quickly arrived at the crime scene. “Amok? Suicide? Murder? The whole program,” Schmitz states soon afterwards.
It’s also about violence against women
In order to clarify the motive, the two police officers investigate the parcel service that Illie was traveling for. There they deny any responsibility – and point to the subcontractor Reichelt (Christoph Letkowski). He then feels cornered and thinks of special measures.
What is clear in this socially critical aspect of the “crime scene” story is that the online order drivers are overloaded with double shifts, financially exploited and sometimes only keep themselves awake with energy drinks. They can hardly understand the dubious contracts as subcontractors of subcontractors that the men, obviously all migrants, were given to sign due to their lack of language skills.
Lindholm, who doesn’t believe in Schmitz’s preferred motive for the accident, amok, and doesn’t exactly feel supported by her authoritarian boss Liebig, is once again fighting alone in the open.
There is another dead person – and that will please the fans of actor Daniel Donskoy, who plays the role of coroner Nick Schmitz. A victim of domestic violence who did not defend himself during his lifetime died. This builds a bridge to reality: Violence against women is a social problem that Maria Furtwängler has been fighting with great commitment in real life through her “MaLisa” foundation since 2016.