There are certainly times when we watch a show and it reminds us of a previous show. But it’s rare when we watch a show and say, “This is basically the same plot as xxx.” Without a doubt that is the feeling we had when we watched a new Spanish series on Hulu.
PAST LIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: Waves crash on the shore in the middle of the night. “Mallorca, 1998.” People are partying, then we hear a distant scream. A young woman lies lifeless on the sidewalk; Her body is slowly dragged away.
The essence: “Alicante, 2022.” Rita Montero (Elena Anaya) and her girlfriend Angela (Nansi Nsue) arrive in town so Rita can prepare her parents’ house to sell. Her mother recently died, but Rita, who lives in London and is a highly respected film director, did not attend her funeral. Her relationship with her mother was not very good, since her mother did not completely get over Rita coming out as gay.
In another part of the city, during an annual festival, a group of old friends gather. Teresa (Belén Cuesta), Sole (Marta Etura), Carmen (Ana Rayo) and Lena (Lorena López) have known each other since they were little and were good friends in high school. Another friend, Candela (Itziar Atienza) is not there because she can’t handle all of them in a group. One of them thinks he sees Rita in the crowd and recognizes her even though they haven’t seen her in 25 years. Carmen’s husband, Manolo (Jorge Usón), used to go out with Rita back in the day, when she was unsure of her sexual identity.
Being at her mother’s house is quite traumatic for Rita, and she refuses to feel homesick when Angela finds a class photo with everyone present or other old objects. Rita remembers her 18th birthday party, when she (Isa Montalbán) still had plans to go to law school, but her friends chipped in and bought her a camcorder, knowing that she really wants to be a filmmaker. Another girl, Mati Ríos (Laura Wedel) appears with a gift, but the other girls do nothing but insult her, especially Candela (Marina Orta plays).
Meanwhile, police detective Paula Ríos (Irene Escolar), Mati’s younger sister, receives an email notification that human remains have been found in Mallorca. She immediately heads from Alicante to the tourist city; The remains have been found in an oceanic cave whose water level had increased. The times she has gone before, the remains found have not been Mati’s, but the possessions found with the remains, including a diary, are definitely her sister’s. When he returns to town, he has to tell his mother, who all these years was still hoping that Mati had run off with an older Frenchman, like people thought had happened when Mati, Rita and their friends went there. journey. to the island.
Rita reluctantly agrees to have dinner with Gloria and Manolo when she and Angela enter their real estate agency to put Rita’s mother’s house on the market. Of course, the whole group ends up being there, even the sarcastic Candela, which sparks memories of when they were 18 and Candela kissed her; When Rita kissed her back, she finally acknowledged that she was gay.
As they meet in the living room, Angela surprises Rita with the videos she recorded when she was 18 years old. Rita, and everyone else, are saddened when Mati appears on the screen, and that’s when Paula comes in to tell everyone that Mati’s remains were found.
That night, Rita suffers a panic attack, because the news about Mati triggers a pact she made with her friends in Mallorca 25 years ago, including a blood oath.
What shows will it remind you of? Past lies (Original title: The Long Shadows) Is essential yellow jackets but with more beautiful locations.
Our opinion: Past lies It’s very similar yellow jackets that we almost want to pull up our review of season 1 of that show, change the characters’ names, and call it a day. But we won’t do that because, well, you just don’t do that. But the plots are eerily similar, even if the pact that was created in Past lies It was during a sunny vacation on a Mediterranean island rather than while trying to survive in the Canadian forest.
Let’s dig a little deeper into that difference. Rita is the person this story revolves around, and in 1998 she was dealing with many issues, including her sexual identity. She is also dealing with many of the same issues that teenagers face, such as the idea of you following your own path or pursuing studies that your parents want you to pursue. There is certainly something about what happened during that trip to Mallorca that prompted Rita to go to London and never return. She may have intended to go to London and back, but something about what she happened to Mati and the pact between her friends kept her away.
It will be interesting to see the story move back and forth in time, especially when it explains how Mati ended up being removed from a group she was obviously close with a few months before her death. As Teresa tells her husband Adrián (Fran Nortes), Mati “was a little… complicated.” We want to see how complicated she was.
As Paula investigates her sister’s death, it will also be interesting to see if Rita or the others in the group help or hinder her. However, what we would like to see is the same balance between past and present that we saw during the first season of yellow jacketswhich should give us a clue about the history of this group of friends.
Sex and skin: Nothing more than kissing.
Parting Shot: Rita thinks about her and her friends standing on the beach 25 years earlier, passing around a knife so she could cut her hands for that blood oath.
Sleeping star: It’s a good place to mention the actors who play the rest of the younger version of the group of friends: Teresa (Lucía Caraballo), Sole (Andrea López), Carmen (Ana de Alva) and Lena (Miriam Rubio).
Most pilot line: The scene in which Paula approaches the group, all conveniently gathered together so she can tell them about Mati, was predictable and too easy. They then pause the video to freeze on a close-up of Mati’s face to make things even more obvious.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. While there is nothing inherently wrong with Past liesThere is nothing in this that tells us that it has not already been done in the recent past.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
