Crime scene: chocolate bars
This is what makes the investigators from the Swiss team tick
The new Swiss team of investigators: Commissioner Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) and her colleague Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler)
© ARD Degeto / SRF / Sava Hlavacek
For the second time, the new Swiss "Tatort" team goes on the hunt for criminals in "Schoggilänke". But who are the investigators Grandjean and Ott?
On October 18, 2020, the Swiss "Tatort" team started a new era. For the first time, the makers showed a film with the investigators Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler, 34) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher, 42) – and were initially able to convince the critics. Your second case "Schoggilänke", however, can only keep up with the good start to a limited extent. This is partly due to the not very convincing case, but also to the fact that the two characters are not really developed or explained. What makes the investigators and actresses tick?
Carol Schuler: Who is Tessa Ott?
Tessa Ott is a case analyst and the new member of the Zurich Cantonal Police. She comes from a wealthy and influential family from the Zürichberg. But it broke away very early on from this world in which money and power rule. Because she has an irrepressible desire for freedom, a rebellious character and also a great sense of justice. She questions her life and the decadence in which she grew up.
She studied psychology and sociology and discovered her talent for profiling during an internship. So she ends up with the police via detours, because she believes that she can really change something there. But she constantly struggles with the decision to be a policewoman, as that is difficult to reconcile with her past squatters. She also suspects that her family may have something to do with her job as a homicide investigator.
Anna Pieri Zuercher: Who is Isabelle Grandjean?
Isabelle Grandjean comes from La Chaux-de-Fonds. Her mother tongue is French. That's why she has that charming French accent. In addition to the police school, she is completing a distance learning course in law. She learned to be quick, strong, ready, and smart. Although she was the best in her studies, she was also very lonely.
With her studies, experience as a police officer and a recommendation from her superior in her pocket, Isabelle applied to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2000, where Carla del Ponte was just about to put her team together as the new chief prosecutor. Even if Isabelle's belief in a just world was shaken in The Hague, she still cannot stand it unless the same principle applies to everyone, namely that everyone is equal before the law. Her daily struggle for justice is her credo, because she actually wants to save the world.
Are the two actors so different in their private lives too?
In their roles, the two don't seem to be really green. Coexistence is shaped by more arguments than harmony. But is this also true in private life? Not at all: Schuler and Zuercher are even friends. "We met at the casting for the first time," reports Schuler of "Bild am Sonntag", "and it was love at first sight." Zuercher can only return the compliment: "She always manages to make everyone laugh very quickly."