Dark, delicate, smart: that’s why Meryl Marty is the star of the SRF series “The Shattered Ones”

Much ends in Kleinhüningen. Basel, Switzerland, prosperity. Even the Rhine has enough. From Kleinhüningen it flows through France and Germany. There is a harbor for this in Kleinhüningen and every pub has something to do with it: the ship’s restaurant, Bürgin’s fisherman’s cottage, the rusty anchor, only the Sahara stands out.

There are also places like Kleinhüningen in France, Germany, Belgium or America. There used to be a small fishing village here. Today it’s a little ugly, a little depro, but good. Cosmopolitan. And good stories begin in Kleinhüningen. agothas. And Meryl’s.

It was hard for her to let go of Agotha, Meryl Marty says, as she was “terribly sad” that she would have loved to be with the 18-year-old for a long time. Agotha, the street-smart, tough boy from Kleinhüningen, zookeeper at the Basel zoo and daughter of a disappeared prostitute. Was she the victim of the Sleeping Beauty killer?

Meryl is also from Kleinhüningen, used to be an extremely shy child, hardly spoke, after school she ran home, lay down on the floor and fled to fantasy worlds. She was in a choir and the first time she was allowed to participate in a musical comedy and stand on a stage, she experienced the liberation that it is to dive into another character. The euphoria of entertaining people without indulging in them. The exciting escape in disguise.

When she was eleven, she saw Harry Potter and it amazed her. She wanted to be an actress. It was then that she met her role model for Agotha: “One day some men surrounded me, threw a glowing cigarette on the floor and ordered me to pick it up. Then she came, said fuck off, and just kicked me out.”

“She” was another girl, a cool one that Meryl greatly admired. Of course Meryl didn’t dare to talk to her at the time, but should she happen to read this she should be very proud of her former rescue mission, Agotha ​​is amazing, a mishmash of Arya from “Game of Thrones” and a teenage -Lara Croft . Dark, delicate, strong. Determined to get revenge.

Meryl Marty is so authentic in everything – looks, language, physicality – that people are terribly mistaken about her age: is this actress 16 or 18? 22 at most! “No, 32”, she laughs in the zoom talk, “the director loved that I had real pimples during filming.”

There are over twenty years between the scene with the cigarette and Agotha, a degree in social work, then drama school and finally trying to survive as an actress. In Berlin. “Even at drama school we were told that we had to go to Germany, that we would have better opportunities there to work there.” Because the Swiss market is small. And for Meryl Marty, with her Filipino background, he was even smaller.

“In Switzerland I was told that I would never get beyond a typecast, that serious dramatic roles would be closed to me, that I should take what I could and do what was asked of me.” Which characterization? «Exotic, young, dynamic, thirty. I usually like to be cast as an influencer or the sneaky one who creates drama. They said you would never play anything serious. Agotha ​​was exactly the role I’ve been playing for years. It’s very different.”

Do you think the German-language film scene is racist? “No, only when inconvenient. You always have to explain my appearance. How many times have I heard in Switzerland that it would be too difficult to find parents for my character. And I thought, hey, just look around you, outside, on the street, there you will find so many different, individual people!» For example in Kleinhüningen. At one point she told herself that persuasion is a waste of time and emigrated to Berlin.

But even there, no doors opened at first, Meryl worked in call centers and went to castings, often thinking about stopping, but whenever she got close, this little door opened, urging her to keep going. And just during the pandemic, when most had nothing to do, she got her first major role in Germany in the streaming series “Sunny – Who Are You Really?”, followed by the daily RTL soap “Everything that counts”.

And now “The Shadows” with Agotha. The big new Swiss series event directed by Michael Steiner. About a detective school in Basel led by Roeland Wiesnekker as detective Leo Brand. You can already see in the title that “The Beshatter” bows to “The Undertaker”, the great long-standing success vehicle with Mike Müller.

Like its predecessor, “Die Beschatter” is also mainly funny, it is not neo-Nordic-Noir à la “Wilder”. But much less comfortable than “The Undertaker”. What if the soundtrack already includes Knöppel’s “Prada” in the first episode?

Michael Steiner understands Basel, which is unusual for a person from Zurich (and which he also owes to the screenplay by Simone Schmid, who grew up in the Basel region), he leaves behind what has been cleaned up to the city and brings his darker to the front, the industrial areas, the Environment, FCB’s unglamorous training ground, a bar that looks like it’s under the Heuwaage Viaduct, and the back of the zoo.

Agotha ​​works at the zoo, at the elephant enclosure, and because Meryl Marty wanted the elephants to get used to her, she worked with them for a while before filming. “I finally knew what Agotha ​​smelled like. I was on the train to Rheinfelden and suddenly I had a lot of space.” Perhaps that’s why Leo Brand tries so hard to get rid of Agotha, who can’t afford her detective school course, until he arranges her mother’s disappearance.

Like Mike Müller, Roeland Wiesnekker plays an ex-cop in a new job and can’t stop investigating. This fulfills a long-cherished national wish. Finally there is Wiesnekker in a Swiss series leading role (why not in “Tatort”???). Although there is not such a clear lead role besides Meryl Marty. The two grow into a detective and a surrogate family against their will, their resistance breaks his wall.

And then there are the other interns from the Brand detective agency, the wealthy Doro Iselin from Basel Daig, who wants to shadow her husband, FCB fan Milan (Dardan Sadik), who always has to act as a punching bag for others, the German Henning Eckberg. (Martin Butzke), who would like to be Sherlock Holmes, and Roger Hasenfratz (dumb name, but Martin Rappold is great), who targets women like Doro.

Agotha’s battle for her mother is the common thread of this season and in all its ramifications it is fast, brutal and heartbreaking, flanked by the organic growing together of the whole team. The individual cases, which are resolved episode by episode, occasionally slide into the caricature-like (keyword art scene, keyword influencer), but the cast is always so sharp that one likes to watch them.

Meryl Marty hopes that the terribly sad time without Agotha ​​will soon be over and they will meet again, she has not yet managed to say goodbye to Agotha ​​and let her go. But to do this, “The Shadows” must start next Sunday. And if audiences love the series as much as the ensemble behind it, SRF should commit to the second season. Of which there is really no doubt. The cliffhanger at the end of the first season is way too nasty for a one-off guest appearance.

The six episodes of “Die Beschatter” can be seen on the following dates at 8:05 p.m. on SRF 1:
Episode 1 & 2: Sun, 30.10.
Episode 3: Tuesday, November 1.
Episode 4: Tuesday, November 8.
Episode 5: Tues, 15.11.
Episode 6, Thursday 17 November.