The Roaring Twenties didn’t only roar in Jay Gatsby’s New York. In the gap between world wars, Berlin of the Weimar Republic epitomized the excess, uncertainty, artistic exploration, and sexual experimentation of the era. This was the Berlin of Fritz Lang and Bauhaus, and also the Berlin of political turbulence where democrats, communists, and the rising far-right nationalists clashed over the future of Europe. Babylon Berlin, a fantastic new drama streaming on Netflix, lavishly recreates the period in all its jazzy and chaotic glory while underscoring the unrest and violent nationalism that would soon cause its destruction.

Set in 1929 before the crash, Babylon Berlin centers on Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), a police inspector who self-medicates his PTSD from the war with morphine, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), a lower class typist and occasional prostitute who dreams of becoming the first female detective. Rath and Ritter get caught up in a complex noir plot involving murders, a decadent flapper club, and an underground pornography ring. It’s somewhere between The Great Gatsby and The Big Sleep. Elsewhere, renegade Russian Trotskyists hijack a train and shout “Long live the Fourth International! Down with Stalin!” while Rath’s corrupt partner, Bruno Wolter, covorts with a the nationalist Black Reichswehr who plan to rebuild the German army and overthrow the Weimar Republic. A secret Russian countess who gives a dazzling gender-bending cabaret performance is also involved.

The plot gets dense quickly, and at times is hard to follow, but it almost doesn’t matter because the show just looks amazing. Babylon Berlin is the most expensive non-English language TV show ever made, and it shows. It recreates the buildings, vehicles, and clothing of the era as meticulously as those in Mad Men or The Crown. There are gorgeous shots of restaurants where octopuses are stored in frozen Jenga blocks and flappers playing the Theremin that had just been invented the year before. There is a historically accurate train (loaned from the Bavarian Railway Museum) loaded with gold bricks and hideouts where Trotskyists crank out propaganda on printing presses.

Berlin in 1929 was a time when it seemed like anything could happen, and we all know the tragedy that did. Babylon Berlin may be a historical drama, but it is a deliberately timely one. In the Western World, illiberal democracy and far-right nationalism are again on the rise. In 2017, the far right Alternative for Germany became the third largest political party. Series co-creator Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) has said they were interested in this time period “because the fragility of democracy has been put to the test quite profoundly in recent years.” While Babylon Berlin is not directly about Hitler—he’s a minor note on the show, rising to power a few years later—it gives a warning about how the far-right can chip away at democracy in uncertain times.