'The Defeated' review: Delivers on the gore and intrigue

'Er, Mister New York Detective, just what are you reaching for, exactly?' Photos: Netflix

The brief synopsis for The Defeated on Netflix simply reads "In 1946 Berlin, an American cop searches for his missing brother while helping a novice German policewoman fight the violent crimes engulfing the city."

Hah, talk about barely scratching the surface.

This grim and gruesome tale is way more complex, nuanced and culturally rooted than that cursory description indicates, and takes on the allure of a guilty pleasure quite early on.

Known in Germany as Shadowplay, this multinational production comes to us from Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, two co-creators of the "Nordic noir" series The Bridge.

From the get-go, the series shows us it will not be pulling its punches.

A cheery newsreel celebrating the end of World War 2 in Europe opens the first episode, showing smiling and welcoming Germans and Allied troops celebrating in Berlin.

The scene then shifts to the reality of post-war Berlin, a bombed-out husk of a city where skeletal remains of buildings seem to outnumber standing structures and every citizen seems to have become a scavenger.

This is the setting that welcomes Max McLaughlin (Taylor Kitsch), a NYPD detective sent to help train the German police, many of them raw rookies.

'That badge means nothing 6,400km from home, Yank. Oh, sorry – you guys don't do metric. I meant 4,000 miles from home.'

The city has been divided into four sectors, controlled by the Americans, Soviets, British and French. It's an uneasy structure, with tensions heightened by the growing suspicion between the occupying powers.

Max is also there for another reason: he's looking for his missing brother Moritz (Logan Marshall Green), a soldier who disappeared after his unit liberated the concentration camp at Dachau.

Max's counterpart, more or less, in the German police is Elsie Garten (Nina Hoss, Homeland), who is also looking for a missing soldier, her husband. While balancing his training duties with his personal search, Max is recruited by US vice consul Tom Franklin (Michael C. Hall) to carry out some, let's say, off-the-books investigations for the sake of the "national interest".

To give Max and Elsie reason to collaborate, there's the matter of a criminal mastermind known as the "Angel Maker" (Sebastian Koch) who offers underground abortions but exacts a toll on those who need his services.

That's a lot of material for one show to juggle, and we still haven't gone into the reasons why Moritz went missing, and what he is up to in Berlin.

'It's very generous of you, sharing your fine imported cigarettes with a disposable character.'

The brothers were named by their German mother after two mischievous lads in an illustrated 19th-century book by Wilhelm Busch, Max And Moritz: A Story Of Seven Boyish Pranks (images from this book are drawn by animated rivulets of... I guess it's blood, in the show's rather slickly done opening credits).

Google it and you'll see that these pranks have an unusually cruel edge to them that fits right in with Moritz's mission (warning: some seriously unpleasant imagery here, starting with the hanging chickens).

Max and Moritz (20th century) also share a dark, violent past which is gradually revealed as the series progresses.

Yes, it's a lot for one show to contain and sometimes, the strain of managing so much shows. The proceedings tend to get a bit scattershot at times, and some elements get shallow treatment.

The Soviets, for one, come across as one-dimensional villains. And did we really need that subplot about Franklin's alcoholic wife Claire (Tuppence Middleton) and her fascination with "Mister Max"?

On the whole, though, The Defeated is a superbly realised production as far as the realism of its setting and the struggles of its characters are concerned.

And the performances are generally fine, with Hoss stealing scenes from just about everyone, be it Max or a lascivious Soviet underling. (Though Hall has been pretty much underutilised in the six episodes I've caught at the time of writing.)

Marlind has reportedly structured The Defeated as a 16-part story to be told in two "chapters", so a second season is more than likely – and it would be a loss to the Binge Brigade around the world if it doesn't materialise.

For now, though, "chapter one" has more than enough intrigue, suspense, gore, espionage and interesting characters to satisfy us in these, um, jaded times.

All eight episodes of The Defeated Season One are available on Netflix.