Lili & Marleen

- Season 4

(1997)

Lili returns as a liaison officer for the Americans, and offers Jef and Ida a job as stage hands for a tour of Germany. Jef immediately thinks he's about to co-star with Bob Hope and loses all perspective.

Stavros, Ida and Jef find a box full of old (but spoiled) wine in some junk Rik has bought. After reading in the news paper that a bottle of 1896 has been sold for 75.000 Francs in Paris, they decide to "market" their bottles too. One of them lands with Rik, who offers to drink it with one of his best customers.

Jef and Ida are rehearsing a comedy about Adam and Eve. Mother Liza is about to go to Paris for a few days with Renaat. Pierre is unhappy about being a police man, and wants to take over the café of his mother. He's hoping that she will leave the café to him when, or if, she marries Renaat. Nieke has her sights also set on the café. Pierre uses the absence of Liza to "modernize" the café, with a jukebox, and by firing Jef and Ida. When Liza returns she has a few choice things to say to Pierre.

Uncle Frans has a new scheme : fixed boxing matches. Rik is a willing partner, but at the final match, his "star" has disappeared with Nieke and her girlfriend. Jef is drafted as "The Masked Boxer". Marleen has a miscarriage.

Liza has gotten a ring with a sapphire from her suitor, Renaat. Unfortunately she has lost the sapphire from the ring, just now that Renaat has invited her for an important dinner party. Unbeknownst to her, Rik has found the stone, but forgets to mention it. Jef is devouring half a pheasant when his teeth hit something hard. Ida immediately thinks of the sapphire, and goes to extreme lengths to purge Jef. The relationship between Marleen and Pierre sours further after her miscarriage.

Rik has bought furniture from a deceased painter. Most of it isn't worth anything - including the paintings. Pierre is building a new kennel for Jefke (Jefs dog), and Stavros gives them one of the worthless paintings as a roof for the kennel. Five minutes later Rik finds out that the one painting is worth over 10.000 Francs, but how is he to get his painting back ?

Jef gets the opportunity of a lifetime, when he's offered the part of Cyrano de Bergerac. Mother Liza ends her romance with Renaat.

Rik has gotten his hands on a shipment of rice. He has Stavros, Jef and Ida working (unpaid) overtime to package all the rice for his client. He even presents them with a "worker's set of rules" - from 1850. SIck and tired of being treated this way, they decide to go into business for themselves, with the sole purpose of ruining Rik. Nieke has returned (again). She's fled Brussels, because she is being accused by her boss of having stolen money. She will finance Stavros and the others. She has to flee Antwerp as well, before she can hand the money over to Stavros. ...

Marleen has arranged for Jef and Ida to play a puppet show about "The Three Musketeers" for the local orphanage, and Rik even allows them to play in his warehouse.

Marleen finds a communist newspaper in Pierre's knapsack. He's thinking of going to a meeting. SHe throws the paper in the bin, only to be found by Stavros. He, Jef and Ida, once again, are having trouble with Rik. They decide to found their own communist block and take over Rik's business. For Pierre the meeting however, is just a lie. He's meeting in secret with Lili, who, apparently, is the only one he can really talk to.

Nieke is acting up again. She wants to divorce Stavros, to marry Uncle Frans, and take little Rikki away from Rik. Stavros and Rik concoct a plan to have Nieke and Frans caught as adulterers. But Nieke has bribed Jef to be her informer. With ice cream.

Marleen finds a newborn in front of the café. Pierre is in the hospital, after having been in a bar fight. Marleen leaves Stavros and Jef in charge of the baby.

Rik is convinced he's going to die. His prostate is acting up, and that's a sure sign the end is near. Desperately wanting to be remembered as a good man, he gives away all his possessions to Jef and Ida, Liza, Stavros, Pierre and Marleen and Rikki. Nieke gets virtually nothing. When an old friend of Pierre, Robert, tries to sell Rik a life insurance policy, he sees another opportunity to make some extra money when he dies. With such a contract comes the obligatory medical screening. The results are such that Rik reverses to style : he's only got a "cold on his ...