"Beat": Bisexual Bohemian James Bond in Berlin

It's hard to investigate the German tv series Beat, on Amazon Prime, because google keeps changing "Beat tv series" to "Best tv series."  So, out of spite, not knowing anything about the show except for a blurb about corruption in the club subculture, I start streaming.

Scene 1: Beat (Jannis Niewohner), a skinny, tattooed, vacant-eyed young man in a dirty t-shirt, enters Club Sonar at 7;30 am.  It's a horrible dark basement space, crowded with grungy-looking clubbers.  He kisses two girls and a boy. greets a lot of people, then dances with/makes out with a male-female couple.  Are we supposed to disapprove of the shocking bisexual decadence?

Scene 2:  Headquarters of European Secret Intelligence in Brussels.  Head agent Richard is discussing Beat: a promoter in the Berlin techno scene,  lots of narcotic violations, one assault charge,  a boyfriend and a girlfriend. And an idealist. Perfect!

Scene 3: Beat and another guy drive their van through the horrible run-down slums of Brandenburg, discussing "the perfect boy."  I've had many similar discussions in gay bars at 1:00 am. 

They unload their stuff into a warehouse, and are told "Don't screw it up" or they'll be killed.  Beat wonders whether the endless silence of death will be his salvation.  Dark!

Scene 4: A naked Beat, back home in bed with his significant others.  A glimpse of cock, which would be interesting if he weren't so darn ugly.  He goes into the other room and talks to young blond Janik (Ludwig Simon), who's getting ready for work.  They discuss why Janik isn't on the guest list for the party tonight (he "doesn't have his shit together").

Yeah, I'm lost, too.

Scene 5: Janik goes to the club, which is closed, the staff mopping the floor and washing glasses.  He talks to Paul the Club Owner (Hanno Koffler), who is rich, with a wife and kids, and doesn't party anymore -- now it's all about the money.  Sad that financial success and heterosexual marriage go together, like the "job, house, wife, kids" litany of my childhood.

Scene 6: It's night, and Beat and a guy with glasses and weird curls on his head  (Ryffco?) arrive at the club. He hasn't been there in awhile. He explains: "Everything is spinning faster and faster.  Sometimes I think the old days were better."  You and me both, dude.

Turns out he is the guest dj.

Jasper (Kostja Ullman), a weird crazed guy (well, more crazed than everyone else) walks up to Beat and says "God is evil.  He must be evil because we were created in His image."  Good pickup line.  I'll have to try it at the Rage.

Beat and Janik investigate the weird liquid dripping on the dancers.  Blood!  There are two naked, decomposing corpses hanging from the ceiling!  Finally something happens. This is like the gay bars in the 1990s.  Two hours of boredom, and then someone takes off his clothes.

Scene 7: Beat is interrogated by the police.  He's the main suspect: he was the last one to leave the club, at 7:00 pm, before the staff all returned at 10:00 pm to set up for the party. Then they inexplicably let him go.   

Beat overhears the cops talking in the bathroom (they all go at the same time? bizarre!).  Apparently the order to release him came from a higher-up.presumably because he is a secret agent (remember Scene 2?).

Scene 8: Beat walks out onto the deserted street, and a redheaded girl pulls up in a car and flirts with him.  Really?  No way I'd be interested in a hookup after all that happened that night.

It's Emilia, the agent assigned to his case in Scene 2.   But she doesn't tell him that;it's all vague, tenuous conversation: "Is techno the only thing you believe in?"

Scene 9: Beat doesn't go home, he goes to Paul the Owner's house, where the wife and kids are still up.  It must be 3:00 am by now!

They discuss possible motives for leaving bodies at Paul's club. A warning?

Beat turns out to be very close to the kids.  He helps them fall asleep and ends up sleeping with them.  All innocence and domesticity, meant to humanize Beat, so he's not all about partying.

Later Beat comforts Janik. Are they like boyfriends?  What about the boy and girl from before? Just a hookup?

Scene 10:  ESI Headquarters in Brussels (um...Berlin is 475 miles from Brussels, quite a drive).  Emilia explains to the Boss why she acted: she couldn't let Beat get arrested. But now the cops know that the ESI is interested in him. They decide to use the murders to convince Beat to "get on board" with the mission.

What mission?  Why can't they just recruit Beat?  Are the murders irrelevant?  Help!

Scene 11: At the now-closed club, Beat sees "God is evil" Jasper and follows him into an even more run-down neighborhood, down a scary staircase into a scary labyrinthine basement.

That's horror movie stupid, Beat. "The killer is inside the house!  I think I'll take a shower."

Crazy Jasper says "I've often wondered what it would be like to talk to you about everything, but now I'm nervous."  Turns out that he was in love with Beat when they were kids, but Beat always ignored him, so his love turned to hate. And he hates techno music -- the best music is from the 1960s, when he wasn't born yet, or "dead yet." 

So, did he kill the people in the club?  Nope. Then why is he even in the story?

Meanwhile, remember Scene 3, where Beat and a friend deliver some stuff to a warehouse, and are told "Don't screw it up?"  The boss from that scene walks through a room full of body parts in caustic acid to a guy eating soup, and tells him to "Get that little psycho in here."

Scene 12: Beat in a diner, asking Chris's agent if he would like to perform at the Club.  Then Emilia shows up, finally admits to being with the ESI, and recruits him to help find the murderer. 

Scene 13: At the club.  The murderer had to enter twice when no one was around, once to install a winch and again to put up the bodies, so he must have had a key.  Only employees have keys.  There are six; the silent partner, Philip, has one.

There was a silent partner that Beat didn't know about?  He is furious, and rushes off,while Paul the Owner tries to explain: "You know shit about business. You're 28 years old.  Life goes on."  Why should Beat care?  He doesn't own the club; he works for it.

Emilia shows up yet again with yet another offer: become a cocaine informer.  If he does a good job,they might move him up to human trafficking.  "You're 28," she points out."Time to get your life on track."  Why is everyone obsessed with his age?  Beat refuses; he can't be bought.

Scene 14:  Back at the club, Beat is using drugs and flirting with people.  He has sex with a girl in the bathroom, and quotes Goethe: "No one is more a slave than he who thinks he is free without being so."

Scene 15:  Crazy guy -- Jasper -- is in trouble.  They know what he did with the bodies.  Apparently murdering them is ok, but playing with the bodies is forbidden.

Beat comes home and finds Jasper's souvenirs of his childhood crush on the floor, leading to Janik -- but Janik is alive, just drugged out.  So Jasper has a key to the apartment.  He must have a key to the club, too.  He's the murderer!  (Well, obviously).  

Scene 16:  Emilia shows up yet again again  Beat takes her to Jasper's basement.  The local police are already there.  Crazed Psycho has been incinerated.

Whoops -- no, he hasn't  He's dancing in a room full of body parts as an accomplice cuts out a human heart and packages it for sale.

Beefcake: Beat's butt and cock, some miscellaneous chests.

Other Scenery:  Mostly decrepit, run-down, scary urban blight Berlin.

Gay Characters:  Beat is bisexual.  Janik and Jasper are probably gay.

Pretentious Quotes:  Lots.

Plot:  Convoluted.  I gather that it's not sequential, and Beat will eventually go undercover as an employee of the organ-harvesting business. 

Will I Keep Watching?  At least until the next episodes of Rick and Morty drop.