Capitani – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Oh You, Up There

Episode 1 of Capitani season 1 begins with Luc Capitani driving through the quaint countryside. It’s Luc’s day off, and he’s on the verge of some well-earned time away from the force… until he receives a call from the office. They’re short-staffed and with a body up in the Kelling area, he’s requested to go and take a look.

On the way, Capitani is stopped by a rookie officer called Mores, who apologizes and mentions how there’s a body in the bush. Sighing, he encourages the officer to get in the car, flashing his badge, as they drive down to Kelling.

With no phone signal in Durer woods, the duo arrive to find a 15 year old girl called Jenny lying down. With only four officers on duty, the inexperienced officers have no perimeter set up. Capitani worries they may have contaminated the crime scene, organizing the officers and ready for forensics to show.

Well, show up they do. It seems like this could be a suicide, and he tasks officer Elsa Ley to follow him as he conducts his search. Only, on the way they find a hooded figure charging through the woods and make haste to catch up. A gunshot ricochets through the air though signifying their loss, as Capitani and Ley come up emptyhanded.

Meanwhile, Rob messages his wife Nadine and lets her know that Jenny and Tanja didn’t show up at school. This sends her into a frenzy, desperate to find her girls as she spies an ambulance and hurries after it. Unbeknownst to her, Jenny is the dead girl in the woods. Well, while driving she phones through to Mick, who also tells her she hasn’t heard from the girls.

Capitani and Ley break the news to Nadine as she arrives on the outskirts of the woods. With Tanja missing and step-father Rob confirming the body they’ve found is definitely Jenny’s, the investigation shifts to finding Tanja and interviewing the different villagers.

Ley lets her partner Steve know, who happens to be a soldier operating at a military base nearby. Here, we see an aerial shot of numerous different tents set up.

Rob and Mick are interviewed first, which makes sense given their family connection, but eccentric Usch raises suspicions at the hospital, at least temporarily, as he starts mumbling and fiddling with items in the hallway. This man is also the same one we’ve seen lurking around in the streets all episode too.

With night drawing in, Capitani leads a whole host of officers and villagers to comb the woods and try to find any scrap of evidence. As they do, the scene cleverly cuts to a number of different villagers… before we cut to Rob hanging himself in the attic.

The Episode Review

Capitani gets off to a suitably grim and intriguing start, consuming this series in a thick veil of mystery. There’s lots of possible suspects, a nice introduction to all our different villagers we’ll be following over the season, and plenty of unanswered questions.

Where is Tanja? Was this really a suicide? Or is there something more going on here? Why did Rob hang himself at the end? And who’s telling the truth and who’s lying? We’ll have to wait and see of course but this one is just starting to get interesting!