Gifts
Episode 5 of Dear Child begins with Ines, the policewoman, instructing a team to look for the remains of more women in the forest. And indeed, more remains are found.
Gerd’s doctor tells him that he’s taking too many pills. Turns out, his medication is for depression. His doctor wants him to get admitted in the hospital and change his medicine but Gerd refuses. He needs to work on the case instead. As is made clear by a phone call from Aida whose team has found another dead body of a woman. Once again, not Lena.
Gerd leaves the doctor’s place and finds a newspaper with a crass headline about Hannah, calling her a zombie girl. He calls Aida and they discuss how someone from the clinic must have taken a photo of her and sold it. Gerd is working on another theory that Lena was already pregnant when she was kidnapped.
Matthias comes home furious about the newspaper. He tells Karin they have to get Hannah home now for her safety. Karin gets angry when she realises that he’s already arranged it all behind her back. Hannah will be staying with them for a few days. When she asks about Jonathan, he doesn’t respond and leaves the house instead. Alone, Karin calls Gerd and asks him if this is legally allowed. Unfortunately, he says it is since Matthias and Karin are Hannah’s closest relatives.
At the clinic, Benedikt admits a fault with the security. He says an unauthorised person could have entered the clinic and taken a photo of Hannah. About Hannah going to live with her grandparents, Benedikt says it could be good for her since she needs social contact. Jonathan is not quite ready for that.
In the clinic’s garden, Hannah is reading with Matthias. Gerd watches them from afar. Hannah then finds Miss Tinky left on the ground nearby. Jonathan, too, finds a snow globe under his pillow. But he, unlike Hannah, throws it on the ground.
At home, Jasmin tries to deny the voice and step outside the apartment. On the road, she approaches the detective waiting nearby but gets overwhelmed by the traffic and runs back upstairs. In her room, she uses the shard of glass to cut her wrist. While she’s in the bathtub, her neighbour enters the house and tells her that her father is on the phone. Of course, Jasmin knows who it really is.
She spots a hole in the ceiling and we realise there’s a camera there. He’s been watching Jasmin this whole time. A flashback shows Jasmin was made to sit in the house, wearing a thin nightgown that left her cold. Hannah assures her that their father will give her clothes back soon. When Jasmin breaks down, the kids wrap her up in their clothes and Jonathan gives her his snow globe to feel better.
Gerd tells Karin, on the phone, about his conversation with Benedikt. He then says he misses her but Karin changes the topic. A man named Florian arrives at the house and Karin greets him. Florian says that Gerd asked him to come down from France for an interview. He shows Karin photos of his two young boys. He says moving away was what was best for him.
Aida’s team identifies the two bodies found in the forest as that of Stella Webber and Caroline Zimmerman. They have a list of other missing women as well. Gerd theorises that Lena is special, the original, and so her body won’t be found in the forest with the others. The head of the security company who has sued Aida for the mine debacle is then seen in the office.
Aida and Gerd are told that he’s dropping charges, which seems suspicious to the latter. Aida thoughtfully looks at the photograph of the security guard who was there the day they found the house – Klaus Reinhardt. Matthias then comes home with flowers and apologises to Karin. He then hears about Florian. While Florian waits in line, other men are taken in for a DNA swab. They’re also asked if they recognise the photo of the dead man.
Aida makes a visit to the security company and speaks to the secretary. She realises the secretary knows all the goings on in the company. Armed with more information, Aida approaches Klaus Reinhardt and questions him about missing equipment from the office. He claims to have nothing to do with it.
One of the men who gave his DNA swab bumps into Matthias and recognises him. He turns out to be Murat Wos, an old flame of Lena’s. Matthias then sees Florian (another ex-boyfriend of Lena’s) leaving Gerd’s office. Matthias insists to Gerd that he always thought Florian had something to do with it. Gerd explains these people aren’t suspects. They are being tested to find Hannah’s biological father.
Which would make the father Hannah’s closest relation, instead of Matthias. This makes him angry. When Gerd tries to dissuade him from bringing Hannah home so quickly, Matthias lashes out and brings up the fact that Gerd once slept with Karin. Aida visits Max, the SWAT team member who lost his foot, in the hospital. She brings flowers and tries to apologise but he tells her to leave.
In her apartment, Jasmin is bleaching her hair back to blonde. She looks at peace. While in bed, Hannah whispers to Jonathan that Matthias will take her home for a few days. But she and her father will come take Jonathan and become a family again if he behaves. Jonathan says his mother is dead and so is the baby.
A flashback shows the kids back at the house, with sounds of a crying baby and a distraught Lena coming from another room. Hannah and Jonathan listen as she begs the father to call an ambulance but he doesn’t. A voiceover from Hannah shows it was due to childbed fever that the baby died and Lena probably died from a related infection.
Gerd gets a phone call in the night and checks the internet to see news of a burning car. Aida comes home to her partner who’s sleeping next to two kids. He wraps Aida in his arms as she’s upset about Max. The next day, Gerd calls Florian and informs him that he’s Hannah’s father. He’s clearly shocked by the news but point blank refuses to have anything to do with Hannah. Gerd informs the same to Aida.
Later, Ines and Aida question Klaus Reinhardt about his whereabouts on the day they found the house. They ask where he was during the two hours between the time he met Ines and the time he met Aida near the military field. He is not inclined to answer.
At the clinic, Benedikt tells Jonathan that Hannah will be staying with Matthias for three days. On the drive home, Hannah once again tells herself she’s done all the right things. She asks Matthias if she can go to the sea, near the lighthouse that looks like a candy cane. Matthias recognised the place as Egmond. Hannah says it was her favourite trip with her mother.
Jonathan looks out the window wistfully after Hannah leaves. The boy in the wheelchair, Ruben, approaches him and starts talking to him. Gerd goes to see Jasmin and she reluctantly opens the door. Her hair is in a towel but he notices she’s dyed it blonde again. He makes an excuse to go to the bathroom and finds the package of bleach. He looks at the hole in the ceiling.
Elsewhere, we see a room with screens showing all the rooms in Jasmin’s house. The man walks in after Gerd has already left the bathroom. Gerd tells Jasmin about the burnt car, which was the same one that hit her in the accident. While he talks, he notices other cameras hidden away in fire alarm-like protrusions of the ceiling. He asks Jasmin if she is aware of other women being held hostage like her.
She seems shocked and gets angry to hear that she was the replacement of a replacement. Gerd is shaken by her response and leaves. Outside, he gets in his car, checks on his gun and has one of his pills. Inside the apartment, Jasmin sets out Lena’s clothes that she used to wear in the house. Elsewhere, we see the man has already set up another house ready for ‘Lena’ and the kids.
The Episode Review
Another thrilling addition to this series, Dear Child episode 5 has a lot of things going on. We learn about more women being involved and the crime itself takes on a clearer shape. And the clearer it gets, the more revolting it is. Heightened by the fact that it was orchestrated by more than one person.
The way the series shows us the man is incredibly well done. We never see his face but his presence is felt and most importantly, the feeling that he is watching everything. One of the best things about this episode is Jasmin’s descent. Her transformation continues the trajectory of the previous episode. Despite her best efforts, she finds herself watched and controlled. It’s like she never left the house at all. There’s a sad finality to her situation.
The investigation of Klaus, the security guard, feels like a bit of a goose chase at the moment. But maybe it will become more relevant later on. With another house set up and waiting, this ending sets us up for the final episode and hopefully, we will see all the threads tied up.
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Episode Rating
(4)