In the second season of Kleo, the titular character competes against several parties and faces danger to find the red suitcase. The new season is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
The second season begins with the red suitcase, which contains the Reagan-Honecker pact, being stolen from the Americans by a spy named Kimberly.
Following the theft, Kleo’s mother visits her unexpectedly and explains that she had to push her away because she was being threatened.
Her mother is going into hiding. Before leaving, she indicates that she cannot answer all of Kleo’s questions because Kleo’s house is bugged, which turns out to be true.
She also leaves Kleo a secret instruction to destroy the red suitcase, prompting Kleo to search for it. It is believed that Kleo is the only one who can retrieve the suitcase.
The contents of the suitcase could significantly impact the reunification of Germany. This is why both the CIA and the Stasi are after it.
The CIA kills Min Sun and asks Sven to spy on Kleo, but he refuses, even when he is offered money and the opportunity to become a CIA agent.
Instead, Sven tries to earn Kleo’s forgiveness and work with her, but Kleo, still angry with him for betraying her, refuses every time.
It is later revealed that Kleo’s apartment was bugged by a KGB agent, Nikolai Zhukov, who brings her a necklace from her childhood and warns her to stop looking for the suitcase.
Nikolai opposes the reunification and has gone rogue. When the KGB chief orders his execution, Nikolai travels to Moscow, kills the chief, and takes over the KGB.
With Nikolai in power, his faction begins killing supporters of Gorbachev’s perestroika and those in favor of German reunification.
Kleo investigates with some help from Sven and finds out that the suitcase is in Belgrade with an agent codenamed Bear. She then travels to Belgrade.
Sven follows her, determined to help despite her refusal to share her plans. In Belgrade, Sven meets Kimberly and sleeps with her, unaware that she is an agent.
Sven finds out that Kimberly is Agent Bear when he sees the red suitcase in her room, but the pact is missing from the suitcase. He informs Kleo, who interrogates Kimberly.
Sven and Kleo learn about Operation Ludsch, a plan by the Stasi and KGB to establish the Soviet Republic of Germany by joining the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR and making them part of the USSR.
Kleo realizes that Sven has been helpful and that his influence on her prevents unnecessary killings, so she finally agrees to team up with him.
The two of them discover that Operation Ludsch was Otto’s plan. Many agents, including Nikolai, Aunt Margot, and Uwe, are working towards its success.
Meanwhile, Thilo learns that Ciana, the woman he loves, is working for the CIA and spying on Kleo. Later, she apologizes to him, and he forgives her.
Thilo is not the only one who faces problems in his love life. Kleo distances herself from Holger, unwilling to be vulnerable, while Sven fails to confess his love for her.
Sven is then kidnapped by Uwe, and CIA agent Rose Carmichael helps Kleo rescue him. Despite her help, Kleo refuses to work for the CIA; she does not want to be on either side.
Rose intends to keep an eye on Kleo, convinced that she will lead them to the red suitcase due to her connection with Nikolai.
Since meeting Nikolai, Kleo starts recalling her forgotten childhood, eventually remembering that she witnessed her father, Fabian, getting killed by Nikolai.
As it was a traumatic event, she had blocked it from her memory. She realizes that her mother had lied to her about her father’s death, claiming that it was a car accident.
Kleo wants to confront her mother and goes to question Aunt Margot about her mother’s whereabouts but finds Aunt Margot and her husband dead, killed by Uwe in a fit of anger.
At Aunt Margot’s house, Kleo and Sven meet Jutta, who is part of Ludsch, and Sven figures out that Jutta is a CIA informant. Jutta is then forced to reveal Kleo’s mother’s location.
After Kleo and Sven leave, Uwe kills Jutta and falsely blames Aunt Margot and her husband’s deaths on Kleo when Nikolai calls, leading Nikolai to take drastic measures against Kleo.
Ending explained:
Kleo’s forgotten past
Kleo meets her mother and confronts her about her father’s death. Her mother then informs her that Otto and Nikolai together planned Ludsch.
Due to their partnership, Otto covered up Fabian’s death. Kleo’s mother wanted to protect Kleo, so she kept the truth about his death from her.
Her mother also reveals that Fabian was not Kleo’s father; Nikolai is Kleo’s biological father. They were a family before she left Nikolai, which Kleo has completely forgotten.
The reason everyone believes that Kleo is the only one who can get the pact is that she is Nikolai’s daughter. However, Nikolai has no qualms about hurting his daughter for the sake of his plans.
He orders a missile strike on Kleo’s mother’s trailer, knowing that Kleo and Sven are with her. While the two of them survive, Kleo’s mother does not.
An eventful arrival in Moscow
Ramona finds the pact, which everyone has been looking for, and brings it to Nikolai. In return, she wants permission to kill Kleo.
Nikolai agrees to let Ramona kill Kleo, who comes to Moscow to steal the pact from her father. There, she meets her grandmother, Akulina.
Akulina and Nikolai both give Kleo one last warning not to go against Nikolai, but Kleo makes it clear that she intends to kill her father and get the pact.
With a little help from her old friend Natasha, Kleo breaks into the KGB headquarters, where she is captured by Ramona. However, Ramona does not want to kill Kleo.
Ramona is no longer willing to take orders from anyone, so she frees Kleo, which leads to Uwe, who has come to Moscow to meet Nikolai, killing Ramona.
The ensuing fight between Kleo and Uwe sees Kleo shooting Uwe dead. It is later revealed that Uwe survived yet again.
Father versus daughter
While Kleo fails to find the pact in Nikolai’s office, she figures out that Nikolai has hidden it in the Monument to the Conquerors of Space.
Kleo and Sven successfully find and steal the pact. They are then intercepted by Rose, who promises to give them safe passage to Germany in exchange for the pact.
However, Kleo refuses, even when Rose offers her some crucial information about her life. Nikolai also arrives there and kills Rose.
Kleo does not want her father to get the pact, but she has no way of escaping with it, so she follows her mother’s instruction to destroy it and sets fire to it.
Enraged, Nikolai shoots Kleo, but Sven takes the bullet for her. The bullet does not kill Sven, as it hits a medal he has been wearing.
However, Kleo, believing that Sven is dead, kills her father. When she realizes that Sven is alive, the two of them share a kiss and decide to continue working together.
Kleo reveals that the papers she burned were not the pact; she had hidden the real pact, which she intends to use to change the world with Sven.
What Kleo does not know is that she has a twin brother, an astronaut who has been in space all this time. Upon learning that his father was killed by his sister, he decides to return to Earth.
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