Anyone watch Kleo on Netflix? I have a question about the last episode (spoilers)

Cafe Society
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1

So, the main thrust of the plot after Sven and Kleo teamed up was to get ahold of the MacGuffin® brand red suitcase containing evidence of collaboration between former East German leader Honecker and Reagan.

But Sven was a former West German cop and Kleo was a former East German Stazi assassin who had been betrayed by her government. I’m not sure what they were planning to do with the suitcase once they got it. When they did, the widow Margot Honecker, representing the tattered remnants of the East German regime, shows up and tells Kleo her long-lost mother is alive, and would reveal her mother’s location if she gave up the suitcase, which she reluctantly did, angering Sven.

So Sven secretly tells the West German Intelligence (the BND) that Margot has the suitcase, and they arrange to swap it with a dummy suitcase to fool her. When Kleo’s reunion with her mother did not go so well (her mother had a new life and wanted nothing to do with her) she expressed regret to Sven for givng the suitcase up and said she wondered where it was. When Sven let slip that he told the BND where to find the case, she is enraged, calls him a ‘traitor’, and chases him with a gun, almost shooting him but deciding not to at the last second.

But why did she consider him a traitor? A traitor to who? To her, maybe? She knew he was West German, and she had been reluctant to give the case to Margot, and regretted doing it afterward. Who did she want the case to go to? Did she still have some shred of loyalty to the remains of the East German government, despite their betrayal of her? I didn’t understand her intended end game or motivation regarding the suitcase.

2

That was mostly my take. He went behind her back and mucked with her plans. It’s a little hypocritical of her of course, but a bit typical of how she seemed to view things. Maybe there was just a tinge of old, reflexive East German loyalty as well coloring her reaction.

As to her plan it was a combination of simply burning curiosity (what was worth destroying my life over?) and maybe vengeance (I’ll spill their secrets for destroying me!). But the case’s contents were ultimately somewhat banal, only really embarrassing to Cold War East Germany, and finding her mother was worth far more to her than a late date embarrassment of a past regime.

3

Thanks! Makes sense. I’d say that’s as good an explanation as there is for the Kleo character’s motivations.