Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kleo’ Season 2 On Netflix, Where Kleo Pursues The Suitcase, But So Are Sven, The CIA And The KGB

When Kleo premiered on Netflix two years ago, we were pleasantly surprised at it was unapologetic about what it was: An action spy thriller with some comedic aspects. It wasn’t trying to be deeper than that, and we loved it. But then it did get a little bit deeper, and the show didn’t stray too far from its action-comedy roots. Will the second season keep that momentum going?

KLEO SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “This is a true story. None of this really happened.” A red suitcase sits on a chair in an office with an American flag. A woman handcuffs herself to it.

The Gist: The woman leaves the U.S. Embassy, but her Marine driver stops in front of West Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and shoots the woman in the head. She takes the Marine she killed out of the trunk and puts her back in the front seat, cuts the red suitcase loose, and blows up the car as she walks away.

Kleo Straub (Jella Haase) is holed up at a suburban home when she gets a surprise at the door: Her mother Brigitte (Anna Stieblich) who turned away from her only the day before. She brought jelly doughnuts and indicates that Kleo’s house is likely bugged. Kleo removes all the microphones planted by what she likely thinks is her former Stasi colleagues, then finds a note in one of the doughnuts: “Destroy the suitcase.” But how does her mother know about the suitcase?

In the meantime, Sven Petzold (Dimitrij Schaad) is dealing with some personal issues; he walks through West Berlin in his underwear because he’s been shut out of his house by his wife Jenny (Thandi Sebe). He’s goes for help to the apartment of his former police partner Freddy (Taner Sahintürk) and notices his Mustang in the parking lot; Freddy doesn’t deny sleeping with Jenny, though he’s apologetic. Jenny doesn’t seem so, though. After Jenny leaves, Freddy offers a place to crash, as well as some information on the car bomb at the Olympic stadium, where the name of BND agent Min Sun was found.

The first person Kleo suspects has the suitcase is her aunt Margot (Steffi Kühnert). Kleo is shocked to see a very-not-dead Uwe (Vincent Redetzki) at Margot’s apartment, but also sees the suitcase full of toilet paper that Margot got instead of the one with the secrets about the US funding reunification.

Sven gets the police file on the bombing with Freddy and approaches Kleo to try to partner up again, but Kleo — who lobbed a stun grenade at him — wants nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, a CIA agent named Rose Carmichael (Robin Gooch) is also after the suitcase, and as Sven finds out, she and her colleagues won’t let anyone stand in their way to get it.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Americans meets Revenge meets The Sympathizer.

Our Take: The first season of Kleo had a lot of action, but it definitely dug a little deeper into what motivates Kleo and some of the relationships she has while in the spy business. Season 2 dives a bit more deeply into those relationships, especially the one Kleo had with her father before he died. But the show continues not to take itself all that seriously, which is why we liked it during its first season.

As Germany reunifies, there are still remnants of the old mistrust between spy organizations. But as we see via Rose Carmichael, the CIA has contacts everywhere, as we see when Rose finds a KGB agent she knows lurking outside Cleo’s house. It definitely seems like Rose is going to be a key figure in the second season, and Gooch’s performance certainly indicates that she’s a person that no one, including Sven or Kleo, should mess with her.

Sven has definitely become more of the show’s comic relief than being an effective investigative partner for Kleo. At some point he and Kleo will reconnect to find the suitcase, but the fact that Kleo wants to stay away from re-partnering is indicative of just how far Sven has fallen. But watching Sven flail his way back into the pursuit of the suitcase will be fun to watch.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: The KGB agent comes to Kleo’s door and gives her a warning about pursuing the suitcase. He gives her the seahorse pendant her father gave her when she was a kid.

Sleeper Star: As we mentioned above, Robin Gooch plays Carmichael in an endearingly menacing way, and slides easily from English to German and back again. A perusal of Gooch’s IMDb tells us that she’s been in a number of German-language series, which is why she’s so smooth going between languages.

Most Pilot-y Line: Playing Roxette very much tells viewers that the show is taking place in 1990.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Kleo doesn’t take itself seriously at all, which we enjoy. But there’s enough character drama there to make the show even better than the spy thriller we reviewed during its first season.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.