Summary
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) Season 4 can never quite escape the feeling of being unnecessary, but it’s nonetheless funny and builds to what will hopefully be a satisfying conclusion.
Let me start by saying that How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) didn’t need to return for Season 4. The ending of Season 3 was pretty conclusive and capped off an interrogation of friendship that seemed to have run its course. Sure, it left some doors open, but it didn’t scream out for a sequel, and this final outing never quite escapes the feeling that it’s a bit unnecessary. On balance, it’s probably the weakest of the four, but not by enough of a margin that I wouldn’t recommend it. This is, after all, a series that just seems to work on the strength of its humour and characters. And that stuff’s untouched.
The inciting event this time around is Moritz (Maximilian Mundt) being released from prison after four years inside, thanks to the events of Season 3, and realizing, to his horror, that his friends and the world have moved on without him. Lenny (Danilo Kamperidis) is cancer-free and a new father with Kira (Lena Urzendowsky), which is good, but he’s also living his best life as an employee of the now uber-successful Daniel (Damian Hardung), which, as far as Moritz is concerned, is not good at all.
Dan’s now a minor celebrity after having unprecedented success with BonusLife, the silly idea for a health supplement aimed at gamers he had in a previous season (and which Moritz said was stupid). The company has evolved into a Google-style modern workplace with a gamified employment structure and, if Daniel is to be believed, a bank vault full of spoils. Moritz can’t put up with this, especially after he’s offered a conciliatory 2% share to come on board.
In a plan halfway between a revenge mission and a misguided attempt to prove his friends are nothing without him, Moritz turns to a prison friend, Ersan, to set up what on the face of it seems to be a legitimate business but quickly evolves into another criminal scheme. Before long, Moritz has once again gotten himself and his pals into serious, possibly deadly trouble, all to prove a point.
A still from How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) Season 4 | Image via Netflix
This is perhaps where How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) comes undone in Season 4. This plot feels slightly petty, and Moritz going so far out of his way to undermine his friends positions him as a kind of villain. It’s an outgrowth of his characterization in previous seasons — his narration even explains outright at one point that he has difficulty with regular human emotions — but it still feels a little ridiculous how easily he falls into a scheme that is certain to backfire.
But the essence of the show remains intact. It’s still very funny, and this season’s villain, in particular, got some real laughs out of me. Ersan is an interesting addition to the cast and feels right at home, bucking the archetype of a dodgy prison friend by being fairly well-intentioned himself, just similarly out of his depth. Moritz is even a corrupting influence on him, pushing him to further acts of banditry all through a pathological need to be recognized as some kind of master criminal instead of a nerd whose efforts to run a drugs business landed him in prison.
Sticking with the same cast has helped this show immeasurably, since we’ve come to really like these characters at this point, even Daniel. It’s nice to see them get their swansong, even though they technically already had one at the end of Season 3. Thanks to an ending that finally focuses on the emotion that Moritz so openly struggles with, the final season manages to make the central trio tighter than ever, even while pushing them further apart in several other ways. Supporting characters like Kira and Lisa (Lena Klenke) get their moments, too.
It didn’t need to happen — of that there can be no doubt. But a part of me is glad that it did, even if another part is relieved it’s officially ending before being needlessly run into the ground like Elite or any of Netflix’s other surprising international hits. I’ve made this point before, but while it may not be perfect, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) will nonetheless go down as a well-liked show that probably wouldn’t exist in any TV climate other than this one. That should be applauded, if nothing else.
