Two people are preparing for an evening, but finally it ends in an elevator.

After the dashing Bavarian Lena Mayerhofer catches her future husband having a fling with her bridesmaid, she flees to Berlin to take over her Aunt Käthe's long-established bakery. Her gay friend Donald is there to give her advice and support.

An overwhelmed young mother, her hard-working boyfriend and her lonely sister are trapped in their daily routine and social conventions, until one of them breaks out of her role and turns everything upside down.

The quiet place in the gallery of the church in Iffeldorf, where Lena Fauch occasionally found refuge and listened to the organist practise, is a place she will not see again for a long time. She accepts the offer from Detective Superintendent Kuda and becomes a police chaplain in Munich. Her first assignment confronts her with the criminal investigator Gregor Hoffmann. Hoffmann, who was assaulted during an arrest, is supposed to work through his misconduct with Lena Fauch. Hoffmann is unapproachable and rude. The encounters with him are provocative and disturbing. Chief Inspector Christian Fenn behaves quite differently. He is a self-confessed Christian and is delighted to have Lena as support in what he calls the "fight against Sodom and Gomorrah". Fenn is firmly convinced that he is one of the good guys.

The No. 1 topic is sex - at least in the group of four women who talk about men, affairs and that one thing in the evening.

Divorced and single bailiff Carla Schön has many problems with her pubescent daughter Eva. However, she cannot use these problems because she has to work in her everyday life. Even in her hobby, orchestral playing, she is absolutely tense. But then she meets the musician Andi Jannings and falls in love with him. He is a dry alcoholic and is in constant dispute with his ex-wife. To make matters worse, he is also a caretaker at Eva's school. Torn between her new love and daughter, Carla soon finds that her next job has to do with Andi. He has money problems and, accordingly, has not made any maintenance payments to his ex-wife.

The happily married judge Susanne has been carrying a secret with her for many years. As a 17-year-old, she released her baby for adoption. But a letter now confronts them with the past: Paolo, the Italian father of her girl, has died and has inherited his house in Tuscany to the unknown daughter. Despite better knowledge, Susanne sets out in search of her lost daughter - endangering the happiness of two families.

Dominik Graf relocates the story of the same name by Henry James from the 19th century to the year 2001.