(Credits: Netflix)

If you are a true Money Heist fan, you have probably had this moment. You are rewatching a scene with Berlin and suddenly think, “Was he always planning to die?” It is a question that lingers. Berlin, the flashy, arrogant, cold-blooded second-in-command, has always been hard to pin down. He commands attention like a theatre actor in the wrong show. He is cruel, brilliant, strangely noble, and completely unpredictable. And yet, in the chaos of red jumpsuits and clashing egos, he feels like the only one who understands the weight of what they are doing.

But maybe that is not just charisma. Maybe Berlin knew something everyone else did not. Or rather, something he could not ignore. The one detail that changes everything? He was dying.

Berlin had Helmer’s Myopathy. A rare, degenerative disease. The show tells us this early on, almost like a footnote. It is not dramatised. It is not treated like a tragic twist. But once you know, it redefines everything. His recklessness. His detachment. His obsession with style, control, and perfect timing. Berlin was not just living on borrowed time. He was staging his ending.

When you go back and rewatch Money Heist, this detail shifts the entire tone. His strange speeches. The way he treats the heist is not as a crime, but as a grand performance. He was not trying to survive it. He was trying to leave something behind. Something unforgettable.

That is why his final stand hits so hard. Berlin knew he would not leave the Mint alive. He chose to stay back and hold the line. But he did not just die for the others. He made a statement. That he could go out on his own terms. That his exit would be remembered. The Professor’s plan would succeed because Berlin refused to let it fail.

This is what makes Berlin so difficult to define. He is cruel, yes. He is manipulative. He makes decisions that hurt people, and he shows little remorse. But underneath the surface, there is always intention. There is precision. There is a man who knows his days are numbered and who refuses to waste them pretending to be something he is not.

Even his strangest moments begin to feel deliberate. His obsession with elegance. His need for ritual. The way he stares down danger like he has already made peace with it. He is not fearless. He is finished. And that makes him dangerous in a way that no one else in the show ever quite matches.

Perhaps that is why Money Heist fans love him. Not despite his flaws, but because of them. Because he was dying and still walked into every room like he owned it. Because he knew he would not live long enough to see the end of the story. So he made sure he would be a part of it forever.

Berlin was not a hero. He was not a martyr. He was a man with nothing left to lose and everything to prove. And he proved it. Scene by scene. Step by step. Right until the end.