Der Ranger - Paradies Heimat: Entscheidungen (2020)

Jonas and Rike own a piece of untouched woodland that is not part of the national park. Jonas wants to leave it as it is and incorporate it into the park as a wilderness zone. Rike would be glad to get the money from a sale, since business at the sawmill is going badly. Karl Nollau has a new treehouse hotel project that he would like to develop in the woods. He is also trying to rekindle his relationship with Monika, partly in the hope that she will influence her son. Jonas and Emilia find hair in the woods from a fox that may have rabies, following reports of sightings. A laboratory test confirms their suspicion. They also find a dog roaming the woods. At least the dog is healthy, as a vet’s examination confirms. Shortly afterward, however, it runs off again while Emilia and Christoph are distracted. Rike has an accident while felling trees, injures her knee, and is now unable to work at the sawmill. The bank turns down an application for a loan secured against the woodland, partly because Karl Nollau had a hand in it. Torsten Schrader, with his daughter Maxi, and Anna Groß, with her son Robin, are taking a vacation together for the first time. Maxi and Robin want to take a photo on a rock. Robin directs her farther and farther back until she slips, falls some way down, and injures her hand. Jonas is able to rescue her, but afterward Robin tells him that Maxi wanted to take a selfie and fell on her own. Maxi then signs up with Jonas as a junior ranger, and, under pressure from his mother, Robin has to join in too. Lukas Waldeck is also there and sees Robin antagonize Maxi again at camp because she told him that Torsten and Anna are planning to get married. Maxi runs off, triggering a major search. Since she had petted a fox earlier with her injured hand, Lukas fears she may have contracted rabies. Jonas mobilizes everyone available to search, but suspects that Maxi may not want to be found at all. Only after Lukas gives him a tip the next morning about where she might be does Jonas find her, quite quickly with the help of the stray dog. Her hand wound has become infected, and she is utterly exhausted. After she tells Jonas why she ran away, she faints and has to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Shortly afterward, Anna finds Maxi’s old phone with Robin, who had taken it from her. The two adults only now realize that, because they were so caught up in being in love, they had not noticed what was going on with their children. Eventually, they all talk things through, and Robin admits that he did everything because he wanted his father to come back. Jonas goes to Karl Nollau and offers him the woodland for his project, on the condition that Nollau transfer the house and the sawmill to them and give Rike the contract for the treehouse hotel. Nollau thinks it is a bad deal, but when Jonas tells him that otherwise Rike will have to sell the sawmill, he finally agrees. Jonas tells Emilia that he loves her and asks her to stay.