Aahana Swrup
Season 2 of ‘Crooks’ drags Charly and Joseph back into the thick of it as the stolen 18th-century gold coin makes its way back into their lives with little warning. The Vienna government is eager to have the coin back in its possession. Thus, the head investigator on the case, Henning, uses Charly’s sordid past against him to blackmail him into retrieving the item. Unfortunately for him, around the same time, Joseph, who has moved to Bangkok, Thailand, runs into some local trouble and loses the valuable gold token. Thus, the two friends have to put their lives back on the line in search of the troublesome piece of treasure. Meanwhile, crime boss Arkadij deals with the near-fatal repercussions of his own pursuit after the dreaded coin. Still, even as he confronts the tangible reality of his doom, his desire for the minted gold doesn’t vanish, creating yet another boulder in Charly’s path. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Crooks Season 2 Recap
After Nina manages to get her hands on the Coin, she schedules a meeting with Arkadij with the covert purpose of carrying out his assassination. Yet, she ends up losing her own life in the process. However, her bullet also manages to lodge itself in the crime boss’ skull, leaving him alive but only on borrowed time. In the aftermath, her partner, Joseph, who was also her getaway driver on the mission, is left behind with the Coin that seems to bring chaos with it everywhere it goes. Two years later, the latter has moved away to Bangkok, eager to evade all the enemies he has made back at home. On the other hand, Charly remains in Vienna, trying to have a functioning relationship with Samira and her son, Jonas.
Nonetheless, his wife quickly gets tired of constantly looking over her shoulder due to Charly’s wild past. As a result, Samira demands some space from him while she and Jonas leave the town shortly. Almost immediately afterward, Charly finds himself abducted and brought in front of Henning, who is now apparently working for the government on a special assignment. The authorities are sick of the scandal surrounding the theft of the precious gold Coin and are desperate to have it back. Thus, Henning threatens to frame Charly and Samira for the Al-Walid murders unless he can get the Coin back to him soon. Backed into a corner, the thief has no choice but to reach out to Joseph in hopes of reclaiming the stolen gold.
As a result, Charly finds himself on the next flight out to Bangkok. However, an unpleasant mess awaits him in the Thai city. On the same day that he lands in the city, the Coin gets stolen from Joseph’s person after a local crime lord, Rees, storms his place of work regarding his coworker’s gambling debt. As a result, the two decide to carry out a heist in the criminal’s high-security lair. Yet, the mission soon goes south, and the duo realizes that they’ve been duped by Joseph’s coworker, Muckerl, who is the real Coin thief. Nonetheless, their attempted heist puts them on Rees’ radar, which inevitably lands them in the middle of an inter-city rivalry between the tourist crime boss and the local syndicate. By then, many things in Vienna as well.
Rio, whose father’s death has driven him to align himself with Weidinger, seeks out the means to pay off his debt by targeting Charly and Joseph. Thus, he kidnaps Samira and demands an exchange for the Coin. Simultaneously, Arkadij’s bodyguard, Sergie, learns about the Coin’s resurfacing in Bangkok and tries to retrieve it. The crime boss is preparing for a dangerous operation to extract Nina’s bullet from his body. However, even when he’s courting death, his estranged daughter, Katya, refuses to be a part of his life. Yet, she’s roped into the brewing chaos when Bargrat, her father’s colleague, offers her the deal of a lifetime in exchange for a meeting with Arkadij.
Bargrat wants the latter to step down from the Brotherhood in the face of multiple international warrants and is prepared to eliminate him entirely to make that possible. However, the father sees through his daughter’s attempts to see him again. Fortunately for her, around the same time, Rio offers to sell the Coin to her, confident that he’ll be able to have it under his possession. As such, she plans on using it as an incentive to trap her father. Thus, by the time Charly and Joseph return to Berlin, there are a number of people on their tail with their eyes on the same prize: the stolen 18th-century Coin.
Crooks Season 2 Ending: Where is the Coin?
The Coin seems to have a unique way of causing trouble wherever it goes. Its effects on people are so potent and instantaneous that Joseph believes it to be a cursed harbinger of violence and chaos. In Bangkok alone, it causes many deaths as it continuously changes hands between opportunistic allies, crime syndicates, and others. In the end, it returns with Charly and Joseph to Berlin, where multiple people are already anticipating its arrival. However, almost all of them, save for Henning, covet the item for one sole goal: Arkadij. The crime boss has long exhibited a reckless desire to have the Coin in his possession. This is because his father owned the Coin and had promised it to him right before his shady business dealings got him assassinated. Therefore, as Arkadij faces the possibility of death with his dangerous medical operation, he wants the Coin with him as a token of familial love.
Katya knows how special the Coin is to her father. Therefore, when her own attempts at cornering Arkadij as a pig for slaughter fail, she decides to use it as bait to lure him out. The reason she’s adamant about this after vehemently refusing to be with her father during his operation is that Bargrat makes her a lucrative deal. She has always wanted to blaze her own path forward, away from her criminal father. Bargrat, her father’s old ally, is desperate to wipe Arkadij off the game board to up his own profits in the Brotherhood. As such, he’s willing to heavily compensate Katya if she can manage to get him an audience with her father. Lastly, there’s Rio, who is the only one with a different motive. Like the authorities that Henning works for, the disenfranchised heir believes the Coin has real, genuine value.
In season 1, Rio comes close to losing almost everything because of the Coin. Therefore, he holds the item in high esteem, still stuck in a world where it’s highly profitable. However, most everyone else, including Weidinger, knows that since the government is on such a hawk-eyed hunt for it, it would be nearly impossible to sell the stolen artifact for a profit. Thus, Arkadij, who has sentimental value attached to the Coin, is the only prospective buyer for the piece. Therefore, when Bargrat finds a way to get the crime boss alone without the Coin, it effectively becomes worthless. Thus, in the end, Rio finds himself in possession of the treasure with no one around who wants to steal it from him. Yet, the Coin’s journey doesn’t end here. Rio’s luck might have dried out in Berlin, but he’s never one to give up without a fight. Consequently, at the end of the season, he’s on his way to Rio, Brazil, with a new disguise and the Coin of Chaos.
Does Arkadij Survive? Does He Make Amends With Katya?
By the end of season 2, the power dynamic rapidly shifts as leverage continues to change hands. Arkadij has a target on his back from the start, and his undying desire for the Coin makes it easy for Bargrat to lure him out. However, the crime boss flips the script by abducting Charly and using him to trade the Coin directly from the source, i.e., Joseph. By then, the latter has already lost possession of the item, which has now entered the manic ownership of Rio, who kills Weidinger and his gang for the coveted treasure. However, the Coin was lost as part of a deal, from which Joseph gained Samira. Fortunately for him, she has the right ace up her sleeve that could turn the tide in their favor: Katya.
Thus, in the end, Arkadij ends up making an exchange for his daughter with Charly. In doing so, he also manages to work through his childhood issues revolving around his father and the Coin, which had become a symbol of familial love for him. Therefore, it’s no longer a valuable item to him. Yet, he’s still vulnerable, particularly to Bargrat, who seems hellbent on doing whatever it takes to wipe out his enemy. Therefore, Arkadij decides to strike a deal with Charly and his friends. He offers them security and a way to make some easy cash. In exchange, all he asks is for them to build a trap for Bargrat and ensure he walks through it. As such, when Charly approaches Bargrat after his confrontation with Arkadij, he is already working for the other man.
Charly tells Bargrat that he knows the secret underground location where Arkadij is undergoing his life-saving operation. Consequently, he agrees to take the Brotherhood member and his men to the location in exchange for 2 million dollars. While Samira is left behind as collateral, he and Joseph guide Bargrat to Arkadij’s lair. Yet, unbeknownst to the ambitious traitor, the duo fakes a shootout, announcing Arkadij dead. Thus, when he approaches the crime boss to double-check his demise, the latter catches him by surprise and shoots him dead. Ultimately, the only thing left that is threatening the criminal’s life is the bullet lodged inside his body. Although we never get to learn the result of the dangerous operation, we do see how this whirlwind adventure inadvertently brings Katya close to her father for better or for worse.
Does Charly Survive? Does He Get Back Together With Samira?
Charly faces many near-deaths throughout the season at the hands of different enemies. In Bangkok, he is torn between two syndicates, one of which agrees to ally with him while the other wants him dead. Fortunately, he manages to make his way out of Thailand with his life intact. Yet, back home, multiple other threats await him. In the end, Arkadij proves to be a particularly adamant nemesis as he holds him hostage and only keeps him alive for the possibility of making an exchange. Ultimately, that’s exactly what saves his life. When Arkadij threatens him with a gun to his head, Samira uses her quick thinking to use Katya as a bargaining chip against Arkadij, thus saving her husband’s life. Throughout season 2, Samira and Charly’s relationship remains taut.
The former is worried about the danger that her husband seems to effortlessly bring everywhere with him. She wants a safe and normal life for her and her son, Jonas. However, as her hiking trip with Jens quickly reveals, normal isn’t quite the right fit for her and her son. After the trip, she continues to move in a similar fashion to her husband, standing up to criminals, making deals, and going on reckless missions, all just to save those whom she loves. This offers her a unique perspective on Charly’s life, which she had previously failed to consider. Furthermore, it also adds a number of reasons why her own actions make it impossible for her family to be safe. Thus, in the end, she chooses to be on the run with Charly, whom she never stopped loving. In the end, the pair of spouses and their kid, Jonas, decide to run away from Berlin. Although they have Arkadij’s protection for now, his precarious condition leaves their future ambiguous. As such, an escape proves to be their best bet.
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