The new Berlin Tatort episode 'Erika Mustermann' deals with the theft of illegally prepared passports from the Bundesdruckerei. Detectives Karow and Bonard uncover the fraud through a dead bicycle courier, which aims to allow Venezuelans legal entry to Germany. The episode is criticized for its convoluted plot.
The episode 'Erika Mustermann', produced by the rbb editorial team under Verena Veihl and the Degeto editorial team under Birgit Titze, is set in Berlin and centers on a heist at the Bundesdruckerei. Here, fake passports are to be stolen to enable people from Venezuela to enter Germany legally. The story begins with the death of a bicycle courier named Tomas Rey from Venezuela, played by Hannes Wegener. He is killed by Xavier Weberlein, also portrayed by Wegener, with a car, as Rey was using one of Weberlein's passports.
Detectives Karow, played by Mark Waschke, and Bonard, portrayed by Corinna Harfouch, take on the case. The script is by Dagmar Gabler, based on an idea by Gabler, Josefine Scheffler, and Thomas André Szabó. Despite a writers' room at rbb, the narrative is described as convoluted and uninspired, with dialogues where the investigators must clarify the case themselves.
One scene depicts Karow and Bonard delivering the death notice to Weberlein's wife (Magdalena Wiedenhofer), only for Weberlein to arrive home cheerfully. In the end, Weberlein is revealed as a middleman in the document fraud, disguised as a driver for a logistics company smuggling the passports. An invisible puppet master from South America pulls the strings from afar, while Bonard gets stuck in a security airlock. The episode is criticized as clumsily filmed and lacking esprit.