General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Defeated

The Defeated is the international title of Shadowplay (German broadcast title Schatten der Mörder – Shadowplay), an eight-part historical thriller television series set in Berlin in the summer of 1946, in the first year after the Second World War. It was created, written, and co-directed by the Swedish showrunner Måns Mårlind, known for The Bridge, working with his regular directing partner Björn Stein, and it stars Taylor Kitsch, Nina Hoss, Logan Marshall-Green, and Michael C. Hall.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title / titles	Shadowplay; broadcast on ZDF as Schatten der Mörder – Shadowplay; released on Netflix as The Defeated¹
Format	Eight-part thriller, roughly 60 minutes per episode, genre history, mystery and thriller, TV-MA¹^•³
Creators	Created and written by Måns Mårlind; directed by Mårlind and Björn Stein¹
Lead cast	Taylor Kitsch (Max McLaughlin), Nina Hoss (Elsie Garten), Logan Marshall-Green (Moritz McLaughlin), Michael C. Hall (Tom Franklin), Sebastian Koch (Gladow)³
Broadcast dates	ZDF premiere October 30, 2020; Netflix release August 18, 2021³^•⁴
Production	Tandem Productions and BRON Studios co-production with ZDF; filmed entirely in the Czech Republic over 90 shooting days, April to September 2019¹
Reception	Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 74% from 3 reviews; The Telegraph 80/100 and Decider 60/100 on Metacritic³^•⁵

Spoilers

Premise

The series follows Max McLaughlin (Taylor Kitsch), a New York police officer who arrives in Berlin in 1946 with the assignment of building a new civilian police force in the American occupation sector, to American standards.³^•⁶ The Goethe-Institut's account places his arrival in July 1946 and describes him as a Brooklyn officer who signs up voluntarily for duty, deliberately heading into what it calls the realm of shadows.²

Berlin in the series is a ruined, lawless city divided among the four occupying powers, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The Goethe-Institut describes the setting as "Berlin in the year zero," a time when food was the first priority and morality took a back seat, and cites the series' own figures of 3,000 murders and 200,000 rapes in the city since the war's end.² Max's superior, US Vice-Consul Tom Franklin (Michael C. Hall), sums up the city as "one big rotten cake, four slices."²

Two storylines drive the plot. In the first, Max and his German colleague Elsie Garten (Nina Hoss), a former university lecturer turned policewoman, investigate violent crime and pursue the "Engelmacher" (angel maker), Dr. Gladow (Sebastian Koch), a back-street abortionist who exploits desperate women, performing abortions and other services in return for assaults, espionage, prostitution, and murder; the Dutch review site VPRO calls him the Capone of post-war Berlin.²^•⁷ In the second, Max searches for his older brother Moritz (Logan Marshall-Green), listed as missing after serving as a US Army infantryman, who has resurfaced in Berlin waging a private, murderous crusade against Nazis in hiding and leaving disfigured corpses behind him.²^•⁴ The brothers' names invoke Max and Moritz, Wilhelm Busch's 1865 picture story about two prank-pulling boys, and the ZDF press materials state that the series was inspired by that children's book.⁸

Production

The series was a German-Canadian co-production by Tandem Productions and BRON Studios in cooperation with ZDF, with Canal+ also among the co-production partners named in German coverage.¹^•⁶ It was shot entirely in the Czech Republic under the direction of the production company Film United, beginning in Prague and its surroundings at the end of April 2019. The foreign producers spent a total of CZK 635 million (about USD 29.2 million) across pre-production, the 90 shooting days between April and September 2019, and post-production, and used about 1,600 extras. The production even reused part of the set built by the BBC for the war series World on Fire, and the set decorator was Nora Sopkova, nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for her work on Jojo Rabbit.¹ The Swedish trade press reported a budget of 300 million Swedish kronor.⁹ Herbert Grönemeyer recorded two new versions of Goethe's poem "Heideröslein" for the soundtrack.²

Release

ZDF premiered the series in Germany on October 30, 2020, under the title Schatten der Mörder – Shadowplay.³^•⁸ It reached Netflix internationally under the title The Defeated, with the United States debut on August 18, 2021, when Netflix released all eight episodes.¹^•⁴

Reception

Professional reception was mixed but leaned positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a Tomatometer of 74% from three critic reviews, with an audience Popcornmeter based on more than 50 ratings.³ On Metacritic, Ed Power of The Telegraph scored it 80, writing that the unrelenting gloom would suit fans of Scandi noir and that the series "serves up a new twist on the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War," while Joel Keller of Decider scored it 60, saying Taylor Kitsch's presence made the show something that "could either get really good or go south in a hurry."⁵ Common Sense Media gave it 4 out of 5, calling it a dark, slow-burn series.³

German-language critics were harsher. The German edition of GQ criticized the eight-part series for what it called frivolous handling of historical guilt complexes, the Berliner Zeitung called it a "bizarre horror story," and the FAZ found it hard to get a clear picture of the fairground of post-war attractions it was trying to create. Die Welt, by contrast, compared it to The Third Man and praised it as a blend of American genre film, Scandinavian crime story, and German historical television, while Stern ran the headline "Brutal Berlin – this ZDF series will be competition for Tarantino."² The Cicero critic Ingo Way judged the screenplay formulaic, writing that it seemed written by an algorithm.¹⁰ Audience reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes praised the acting and period design but flagged anachronisms, including the hero's two-handed pistol grip and an automatic pistol at a time when New York police carried revolvers.³

Context

The series occupies a period rarely dramatized on screen, the year after the German surrender, before the front lines of the Cold War hardened. VPRO's review notes that in the post-war chaos the seeds of the Cold War are being planted, with a Russian character telling Max that the war is not over but has entered a new phase.⁷ Mårlind told the German trade magazine Blickpunkt: Film that this "incredibly exciting and very extreme time" could not "be more fertile ground for storytellers," and said he had been told the material was too dark and depressing for entertaining television but packaged it as a universal drama about two very different brothers who become adversaries.² German fan sites were already speculating about a second season that Mårlind was reported to be writing.²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Historical and period drama

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?