When Night Comes
Episode 7 of We Children From Bahnhof Zoo begins with Christiane arriving at rehab. She’s sharing a room with other addicts too, and they’re immediately encouraged to head to the sauna. This is obviously therapeutic to sweat away her sins. Although Christiane does get involved in all the different activities, she eventually slips into old habits and return home. In fact, she heads over to see Benno. He’s not there, instead Benno’s angry Father answers the door and confirms his son has called in sick to work and taken off to Prague with Michi. In Prague, Benno is a mess and Michi isn’t much better either. Together, they wind up drinking under a bridge as their plan for getting clean is obviously out the window. That evening, they both hook up together. Benno eventually makes his choice in the morning, deciding to head back to Christiane and leave town. Only, he tries to contact Christiane before he does but runs into trouble at the phone box. Benno’s father is pressing charges against him, leading Benno into the police station. Meanwhile, Babsi embraces her newfound passion for art and starts to get invested in her work. In fact, her therapist even encourages her grandmother to let Babsi continue drawing at home and to nurture her talent. The therapist warns that if she tries to coddle Babsi, she’ll inevitably leave again. Back home, she takes this advice to heart and begins warming up to her Granddaughter. In fact, she poses for a portrait as Babsi draws her. Christiane shows up at the door though but she’s unceremoniously dumped and told she doesn’t belong there any more. Christiane heads back home but an enraged Karin slaps her across the face and slams the door. She’s not letting her back in and refuses to acknowledge her own daughter until she goes back to rehab. As Karin stares dumbfounded around her apartment, she starts sobbing, believing she has lost her daughter. With nowhere else to go, Christiane shows up at Gunther’s place. After staying there for the night, Christiane and Babsi eventually run into each other at the station. They go for a drink, where Christiane tries to entice Babsi to join her in SOUND. Although hesitant to begin with, Christiane uses the excuse that Dijan, the DJ, has been asking about her. After promising her Grandmother she’ll be back by midnight, Babsi heads out to the club with Christiane. She races up to the DJ booth where she tells Dijan that she’s doing well. However, he seems disinterested. Anyway, Christiane and Babsi eventually leave the club and head back to Gunther’s apartment. Speedy – the guy Robert has hired to keep an eye on Christiane – spies her heading inside and immediately tells Robert. Inside Gunther’s, Babsi learns Christiane lied about the club. Dijan wasn’t asking after her after all. Babsi stays strong though, even going so far as to refuse a shot. It’s not easy, and she sits uncomfortably while Christiane does a line and starts to get high. Babsi, unfortunately caves and gives in to temptation. Anyway, Speedy and Robert break into Gunther’s place and take the girls away. Robert slaps Gunther in the face, calling him a pervert, as Christiane is taken back to Robert’s quaint apartment. There, she meets Lamai but its a short-lived greeting. In fact, Christiane brings out her stash and heads to the bathroom, shooting up again. Stella is eventually freed from prison, where she heads straight back to the street corner with Babsi. It’s a heartbreaking moment to see Babsi slip like this, doing drugs and waiting on the street corner for a hook-up. Meanwhile, her Grandmother waits outside for her and leaves Babsi’s keys hopefully dangling on the mailbox. Babsi eventually does catch a ride but she’s left beaten and bloodied afterwards. Sat in a van, she starts sobbing. Muscles screaming in agony, Babsi stumbles away and straight into the path of Dijan. He picks her up and helps the girl out, driving her back to his and wiping down her wounds. No music. No fanfare. Just the cold, hard shock that Babsi could have been killed.
The Episode Review
We Children From Bahnhof Zoo delivers its best episode yet, but it’s taken quite a while to get there. The entire journey t0 seeing these kids slip up – thanks in part to Christiane’s influence – is really eye-opening and there’s some pretty shocking and heartbreaking moments here. Babsi in particular, and the way her Grandmother has tried to keep positive and hope her granddaughter is okay, was incredibly difficult to watch. The ending here should (hopefully anyway) show the dangers this line of work can have and the very real consequences. We Children From Bahnhof Zoo hasn’t always done a good job of this, flirting that line between drugs being a glamorized, hedonistic trip, and something that’s actually incredibly dangerous and addictive. This has definitely been a much smoother and gritty episode but it’s taken a while to get to this point. Let’s hope the finale actually ends things with a similar tone.
