This article contains spoilers for Money Heist: Berlin episode 1, "The Energy of Love"
Netflix's smash-hit Spanish drama franchise Money Heist has expanded once again. Following the 2022 Korean remake (aptly titled Money Heist: Korea), the latest installment is a prequel that takes us back to Berlin's (Pedro Alonso) glory days. After assembling a crack team, the group managed to steal 44 million euros' worth of jewels... in a single night.
The first episode of Money Heist: Berlin introduces Berlin's gang of thieves, and shows how they set that plan in motion. Here's our full recap of the Money Heist: Berlin episode 1.
Setting things in motion
Money Heist: Berlin begins with Berlin telling us that his wife is leaving him, before he promptly is picked up for a heist by his crew, Keila, Roi, Damián, and Bruce. The five of them arrive at a stately home disguised as police officers, and Berlin walks into the dining room, asking after Mr Antonio Vals.
Berlin produces a search warrant for the home and disappears with Vals. He is taken into a locked storage room; inside, he asks Vals to open a case holding a chalice and tells Vals he's not really a police officer. In exchange for the chalice, he tells Vals he won't tell the police he's got a collection of priceless artifacts locked away in his home.
Another dinner guest realizes the rest of the squad aren't really police officers, and tries to challenge them. But when Berlin returns, he threatens the man into submission after isolating him from the group and taking their ID cards.
We then cut back in time to the rest of the gang heading to a fancy hotel in Paris. There, Berlin lays out the plan for the new gig and introduces Cameron, a "thief-in-training" to the rest of the team.
The new plan? To use the stolen chalice as a "key" to enable them to break into an auction house to steal a treasure trove of royal family jewels by digging through a wall in the Parisian catacombs.
Damián ages the chalice in ammonium chloride, and they head to a church. Pretending to be archaeologists, they pay a visit to a church run by Father Toureaux and overwhelm him with fake evidence that suggests the oldest church in France could well be buried beneath his building.
Eyes on the prize
After we see the team convince Toureaux to let them dig, Berlin explains why the group met in a luxury hotel. Their room is across the street from the auction house's director, Monsieur Polignac, and the next stage of the plan is to break into his apartment to learn exactly when all of the jewels they plan to swipe in one night will be delivered to the building. Berlin also pulls Roi aside; he'd spotted Roi taking an interest in Cameron and warns Roi to keep their relationship purely platonic.
Roi, Keila and Cameron proceed to break into Monsieur Polignac's apartment; Bruce is following the director on his bike, whilst Damián and Berlin keep watch from the hotel room. The three crooks break in and set up hidden cameras all over the place, narrowly avoiding detection by a dogwalker who looks after Polignac's pet dog, Quentin.
After leaving Polignac's place, Roi visits Cameron and tells her they have to keep things professional. During the night, Berlin takes over watching the cameras from Damián, and swiftly becomes distracted by Polignac's wife, Camille. Berlin ends up following Camille to a bar that evening and watches her sing, entranced. Damián wakes up from his nap and notes that Camille is no longer in the apartment, and Berlin has disappeared from the hotel room.
At the dig site, Berlin's teammates plant the stolen chalice as fake evidence to convince Father Toureaux to let them keep digging. Berlin arrives halfway through the day and proceeds to tell Damián all about the new woman he's become infatuated with; Damián reminds him that Camille just so happens to be the wife of the man they're about to rob, suggesting he should really go after anyone but her.
As the priest descends the stairs under the church, the crew pretends to find the buried chalice; Toureaux is amazed, and promises to get the necessary parking provisions for all their extra equipment so they can continue their "excavation".
Complications
We then cut to Berlin and Roi sitting in a car outside the bar Berlin followed Camille to the previous evening. Berlin ropes Roi into the "chance meeting" which Berlin has carefully engineered in order to woo Camille. He tells Roi to pretend to be an old friend he's meeting for the first time in a while, and promptly walks in to try and charm her.
Although their chat goes well, Berlin does not get the desired response from Camille, and worries that he's done something wrong. Roi reminds him that she's still married, but he refuses to believe her marriage to Polignac is enough to keep her from him.
Meanwhile, the rest of Berlin's crew are making their way through the Parisian catacombs. They follow Damián's digital map to the precise location they can drill through to gain access to the auction house, and set up their drill.
Later, in the hotel room, Roi is keeping watch on Polignac and Camille, and overhears the auctioneer having an argument with his wife because he forgot they were supposed to go the opera. Berlin sees this as his chance to charm her, and prepares to go to the opera.
However, there's a problem under the church. Father Toureaux tells Keila, Damián and Bruce that he's taking the chalice to the University of Salamanca to present the Dean with the chalice... which risks exposing the entire operation, as he'll soon realize the artifact is a fake.
Having received the news, Berlin tells Roi to do "whatever it takes" to get the chalice back from the priest... whilst he dons his tuxedo and gets ready to go the opera.
Money Heist: Berlin is now streaming on Netflix.
