Unbroken: Female Detectives and Maternity
© ZDF Studios
Alex Enders (Aylin Tezel) is a heavily pregnant German Chief Inspector who takes maternity leave, reluctantly, in the German ZDF television series, Unbroken. Pregnancy is not her thing. She is questioning whether she made the right choice to stay pregnant. Alex does well in her all-male department and looks lost when she goes shopping for baby socks in a grocery store. She makes her purchase, loads up her car, and is promptly kidnapped.
Fast forward a week later and she appears at a random house bloody and bedraggled, clearly not pregnant and without her little bundle of joy. Thus begins the six-episode roller coaster ride we must go through with Alex. What happened? Did someone kidnap her or did she make the story up? Is the baby dead or alive? If the baby is alive, who has her and why? Or, is the baby dead at the hands of her mother who was reluctant to have her in the first place?
As we progress in each episode, Alex becomes increasingly confused, desperate, and angry. She lives in a permanent state of paranoia. There is nobody she feels she can trust. Going on this psychologically tumultuous journey with her is enough to make you feel you have a brood of children missing and it is your fault. What is really at stake in this show is Alex’s ambivalence toward motherhood. It is clear she isn’t embracing pregnancy and the further the narrative flows, the more Alex is held responsible for her missing child. She is in an impossible situation.
Even more trauma in Alex’s life is revealed through the relationship with her father, who is suffering from dementia. While in the early episodes, he seems like he is still emotionally there for her, he suddenly turns and tells her that she ruined everything by being born. Not something any child wants to hear but through the unfiltered mouthpiece of a dementia-ridden father, it seems even more cruel as we all know that a lot of times, the truth about the past is revealed when older relatives forget all the lies they’ve held so close for so long.
One of the most disturbing elements of this series is the lack of empathy from the male characters. The male detectives stop investigating and decide that the baby is either dead or missing. Without any new leads, they have no energy to further investigate. The female psychologist initially seems supportive, but later she begins to question Alex and undermine her to her colleagues. It is Alex’s frantic, hormone-driven investigation that is unhinged due to the lack of understanding in her workplace.
This series is an anxiety-inducing e-ticket ride that does not let you rest until the very end. It’s worth the watch and causes the viewer to question what makes a good mother.
You can watch Unbroken in the US on PBS Masterpiece through Walter Presents if you have a subscription.