Recap: ‘Where’s Wanda?’ Episode 1 Kicks Off A Funny, Intriguing Small-Town Mystery

There’s a delicate balance to Where’s Wanda?, Apple TV+’s small-town German mystery series about a missing 17-year-old girl. Episode 1, “The Klatts”, is hilarious but deeply felt in places. The leads are very likable, their plight is relatable, and despite the complete absence of any real suspects (yet!), there’s still a sense of energy about the whole thing that is surprising.

Mileage may vary, of course, since some zany light slapstick may put some people off, especially since it’s sharing space with quite serious drama. For the most part, though, the show gets to have its cake and eat it. At least for now.

Meet the Klatts

The premiere of Where’s Wanda? has a neat opening sequence. The Klatts, Dedo and Carlotta, arrive at a neighbor’s home under the guise of fitting a new smoke alarm. Inside it, they hide a hidden camera and a microphone. Why? Because their daughter, Wanda, is missing, and they believe that someone local might know what happened to her.

This is all communicated in dialogue or implied through what we see. It’s a bit farcical — the household dog tries to steal the camera at one point — but there’s a glimmer of real emotion on the face of Heike Makatsch, who plays Carlotta, when Wanda is brought up. The camera is connected to an enormous surveillance network monitored by the Klatts’ son, Ole, in the command center basement of their home.

In just five minutes, we know exactly who’s who and what’s what.

Day 0: Nuppelwocken Night

The cold open described above takes place on Day 84, a good while after Wanda’s disappearance, but Episode 1 quickly wheels back to Day 0. The small-town setting of the show is Sundersheim, a normal place with normal families and a normal local legend in which a horny beast called the Nuppelwocken, one night a year, creeps into town to steal a fair maiden, either to eat or marry — it’s a little unclear.

Nuppelwocken Night is a big deal in Sundersheim. It’s like Halloween — everyone gets dressed up and drunk. There’s a big parade and a man in a tight costume — unnecessarily tight, according to the narration — pretends to steal a child. It’s one of those quaint local customs that everyone is so used to that nobody realizes how nuts it is. But it holds extra significance for the Klatts since it’s their fair maiden who disappears.

This early sequence is about giving us a sense of the family dynamic. Dedo and Carlotta are mostly happy. Ole is deaf and often takes out his hearing aids when the rest of the family bicker. Most of the bickering revolves around Wanda because she’s a 17-year-old rebellious teenager who believes she’s an adult. She leaves the house on Day 0 dressed as a “strong female lead” for Nuppelwocken Night, and 57 minutes later she’s gone, her red cape flapping in the woods, no longer attached to her.

Day 5 – Day 68: Things Get Weird

Fast-forward five days, and the Klatts are sitting at a press conference fielding insensitive questions from journalists. Even Wanda knows we don’t need to sit through the bleak stuff, so we fast-forward again, to Day 30, then to Day 50. Missing posters go up, candlelight vigils are held, and concerned neighbors turn up with sympathetic lasagna. What was bickering on Day 0 becomes full-blown arguments by Days 50-67.

It’s on Day 68 that things, according to Wanda herself, get weird. The Klatts appear on a sensationalized TV news show that reenacts the morning of the disappearance with over-the-top actors and seats the real Dedo and Carlotta — the former wearing an egregious amount of foundation and sitting on a chair that keeps comically lowering — opposite Chief Inspector Michelle Rauch. Wanda’s narration describes this whole thing as “weird”, but it seems pretty normal to me. Carlotta goes ballistic at the implication that Wanda might have run away, at the stupid questions, at the local gossiping, at the urging for her to show more emotion and be more theatrical for the sake of TV ratings. This is a woman whose daughter is missing. There’s nothing weird about wanting her found.

Episode 1 is really good at sneaking humor into these moments of earnest sentiment, somehow without distracting from the point. Carlotta’s outburst is deeply felt, but the final shot of Dedo looking like an Oompa-Loompa as his chair slips down again got a big laugh from me. But there are no gags that night when Carlotta and Dedo lay in bed and wonder whether Wanda might really be dead. The balance is delicate, but it’s handled well.

Where’s Wanda? | Image via Apple TV+

Day 69: The First Lead

The morning after the TV appearance, a promising lead emerges. Wanda’s “Strong Female Lead” t-shirt is discovered, verifiably hers thanks to pomegranate juice stains on the sleeve, having been dumped into a thrift store donation bin in Sundersheim sometime within the last 30 days. Rauch cautions against jumping to conclusions, but Dedo and Carlotta want to search all of the houses in the vicinity, not especially concerned about the idea of probable cause.

While in the station, Dedo spots a file on the desk belonging to Dominik Bartels, a person of interest in the case. He memorizes his address and, after a bit of back and forth in which Dedo and Carlotta convince themselves that it’s totally the right thing to do, they decide to cruise past and take a look themselves.

A passing glance quickly turns into breaking and entering, as Carlotta sneaks into Bartels’s basement and stumbles upon his — presumably secret — menagerie of exotic animals. In a panic she upends several of the shelves, freeing a snake from its captivity, and as Dedo attempts to hoist her out, she’s bitten on the leg by the reptile. On the off-chance that it’s venomous and the hospital needs to see it, they race to the hospital with Dedo holding the snake out of the window, revealed in a smash cut that, again, got a big laugh from me.

Inspector Rauch is furious with the Klatts, but since at least half of Bartels’ snake collection was illegally owned, he’s in no position to press charges. But she warns Dedo and Carlotta that if they interfere with her investigation again, there will be consequences.

They will, however, keep interfering in the investigation. That night, Dedo draws up a huge map of Sundersheim, marks the location of the Second Chance donation bin, and draws a big circle around it. With the next day being the seventieth, that gives them thirty days until the ill-fated Day 100, when Wanda’s chances of being found alive drop to below 10%. Until then, they’re going to do everything they can to find her.

Where’s Wanda? Episode 1 ends on an ominous note, though, with Wanda’s narration assuring us that her parents doing whatever it takes will change them forever — apparently, not everyone will make it out alive. We catch a glimpse of Wanda’s cape in the woods again, and a camouflaged hunter emerges from the background, snarling like some kind of beast.

Read More: Where’s Wanda? Episode 2 Recap