What to say about Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen? This is one of the other episodes of season 1 that I would rewatch along with Lizard Soldiers of the Third Reich, and for good reason. It has all the wackiness and laughs of the first 2 episodes. So after the subdued humor of the last two episodes, Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen is quite the breath of fresh air, and I’ll explain why.

The Episode Summary

The episode starts with a group of Nazis, led by Heinrich Himmler. They take over “The Palomino”, Switzerland’s best brothel, and replace all the in house prostitutes with German bombshells. Danger 5 is then given their mission for the week: connect with British Field Marshall Jenkins, find out why allied soldiers all over are spontaneously going Kraut (including Jenkin’s entire battalion), and of course, kill Hitler.

The gang then connects with Jenkins, who’s riding on a train from Switzerland. On the train, the group splits up. Jackson and Ilsa go to get some drinks, while the other three stay behind with Jenkins. Unbeknownst to them, Himmler is also on the train, transporting some of the former Palomino workers. Per usual, things start going wrong once the group splits up. Jenkins turns into a Nazi and is killed by Pierre before they can find out what happened exactly happened. All they learn from Jenkins is that he’s coming from the Palomino. Meanwhile, Jackson and Ilsa are taken hostage by Himmler.

The trio (accompanied by Gwendolyn, one of Himmler’s hostages) goes undercover at the Palomino to figure out what’s going on. At the same time, Jackson and Ilsa are taken to a facility to be tortured and turned into Nazis under the direction of Hitler. Around this time both groups figure out what the scheme is. Hitler is performing a Pagan ritual, which turns willing volunteers into carriers of a Nazi STI. Namely, the STI causes everyone who sleeps with a carrier to turn into a Nazi. Unsurprisingly, all of this is based in the Palomino. After many more shenanigans involving Ilsa turning into a Nazi, a turf war between the Nazis and a gang of Swiss pimps, the two groups converge on Hitler’s ritual area and end the scheme while once again failing to kill Hitler.

My Thoughts

So like I said in the intro, Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen was always one of my favorite episodes of Danger 5. The reasons for this a simple. There’s the goofy humor, the fun characteristics, and the beautiful women. For this review, I will focus on the humor and characterization. That way the beautiful women fit into this review more easily. So what, exactly, makes this episode so humorous? Well for one, Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen is packed with more humor than both Kill-Men of the Rising Sun and Hitler’s Golden Murder Palace.

For some non-character based humor, some aspects help the episode. First, it has a premise that isn’t as divisive as Kill-Men of the Rising Sun. Second, it’s more out there than Hitler’s Golden Murder Palace. I mean, what sounds more out there, Nazi hooker sex magic or casino infiltration? Look at the Nazification as an example of how out there this premise is. When an Allied soldier (and later Ilsa) transforms into a Nazi, it’s played like a werewolf-esque transformation. There’s plenty of groaning and moaning. Everyone starts speaking German. Their hair turns blonde. A swastika armband spontaneously appears on their arms. Lastly, they all get a cartoonishly monstrous disposition. In other words, the transformation is played for all the glorious hamminess it’s worth.

One other thing I want to mention, we also get a return of the miniatures in action. I mean, we’ve had miniatures in the last two episodes. In this episode though, we get the hilarious ex-filtration of Himmler from the train, in which a model helicopter swoops down and picks up the toy train car. It’s a dumb visual, but one I always laugh at.

So sure, there are lots of smaller jokes peppered throughout Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen. What drives the humor for me is the characters themselves. Everyone, even some of the episode only side characters like Gwendolyn, get humorous things to do or get stuck in very humorous situations. The only exception is Claire, but she makes up for it by once again by being in the one getting shit done.

Let’s look at Jackson and Ilsa. How they respond to the Nazi hookers in their cells not only provides humor but also tells you about their characters. I mean, how can you not laugh about how Jackson ends up fighting for his life against his hooker while Ilsa immediately hops on her hooker? It’s comedy gold that highlights how they react to the world around them. For a smaller comedic moment with Ilsa, I love how they pepper in German with her Russian. It goes to show how they utilize multiple languages in this show and create humor from it. 

Out of all the characters in this episode though, the real star is Pierre. Working with Gwendolyn (they both fall in love with each other at first sight), they infiltrate the Palomino as the blonde Nazi hookers and connect on a personal level. On the surface, it’s very amusing to see Pierre in a corset and wig without even shaving his mustache. Below that though is probably the most heartfelt character story of the first season. I mean, you can almost feel the chemistry between them. When Gwendolyn is shot in the end, causing the scheme to collapse because of her blood, you feel for both characters. It also creates the most heartfelt of the “perfect cocktails” we’ve gotten so far, especially after the tepid ones we got in the last two episodes.

I should also give a mention to the villains of the episode. Himmler is there, but honestly, he doesn’t do all that much other than run the Palomino. I mean, he does capture Ilsa and Jackson without much difficulty, but it feels like a rehash of better villains we’ve seen so far, namely Mengele. Also, I can see people having issues with the show portraying Himmler as gay. It can easily be interpreted as the show making him evil because he’s gay, which plays into old stereotypes.

Hitler, on the other hand, is in strong form this episode. Like in Hitler’s Golden Murder Palace, while he doesn’t exactly run the particulars of the scheme, he does play a larger role in facilitating it. In this case, running the ritual that turns people into carriers for the Nazi STI. There are also some solid laughs based on him. For example, I always laugh when he gives Ilsa a vial of orange drink, claiming it was the STI antidote. In all, while Himmler is probably the weak link of the episode, it’s a solid episode for the Fuhrer.

In Conclusion

So to recap, Fresh Meat for Hitler’s Sex Kitchen combines the humor of I Danced for Hitler! with the strong character work of Hitler’s Golden Murder Palace to create one of the strongest episodes so far. Despite a middling villain with some problematic aspects, this is an episode that revels in smaller, character-based stakes and ridiculousness, and is all the better for it. So before I watch the final episode of season one, I’m going to relax with the perfect “Swiss Kiss”, and I hope you do too.

My Recommendation: Recommend