(May Contain Spoilers)
This series for me was long anticipated since it’s release on Netflix, when I saw the trailer, I thought wow this looks like a great British drama. I have watched it and now don’t think that so much, I mean there are British people in it, but it’s like if British people tried to do a telenovela, but that might be do to with Spanish producer, writer and creator Alex Pina. I thought the characters were great and their stories intwined in the most complex way, but sometimes this was a little far-fetched. I initially come away from the series thinking 4 Jewels, but then thinking and talking about it I marked it down, because of the out-of-character decisions made at the end.
Right at the very start we met Zoe Walker (Laura Haddock) who appears to be talking straight to her phone as if she were confessing and in a mental institution, however this is later not the case. Additionally, right at the beginning we see the mummified remains of Axel Walker’s (Tom Rhys Harries) body, Zoe’s brother who apparently disappeared off to India 20 years ago, but is found in Almeria, Spain. Flashbacks reveal Zoe and Axels relationship to be a close one and that Axel left for Ibiza to pursue a DJ career with three of his friends.
Once Zoe hears about the body being found she travels to Almeria with her husband Mike (Barry Ward), but Zoe decides to stay out in Spain to solve her brothers murder (its worth noting she is a librarian and NOT a police person). Zoe meets Axels old friends (and hers from growing up in Manchester), although they have aged 40 years and asks them questions about her brothers disappearance. We then met the Calafat family who are one of the richest families on the island and who Axel was involved with, sleeping with the mother, Conchita (Belen Lopez), and young sister, Kika (Marta Milans). Boxer (Nuno Lopes) is the family head of security and teams up with Zoe to help figure out who murdered her brother and has an affair with Zoe, much to Mike’s dismay.
Throughout this series tales of deceit, betrayal and anger come to the forefront as Zoe gets to know more about her brother, his friends, and the lives they lived in Ibiza. It is safe to say that Zoe does find out who the murder is AND I will not spoil that, because I love a good murder mystery, however I will say that how the series finishes for Zoe is out of character. Zoe kidnaps someone to get them to confess to killing her brother and is prepared to kill them, but when she finds out who REALLY killed her brother she just walks away and goes has a dip in the sea?! That is such a crazy way to end the series for that character and although I do think series are good when they don’t always give the audience what they want because that would be predictable, but at the same time if you spend 10 episodes building up a character and then they do something completely out of their character then why bother!
I really enjoyed this series and thought that the casting was tremendous, especially the young versions of each character as the lined up so well with the adults, which was great to see. I did really enjoy Kika’s character. At first, I thought that Laura Haddock was hamming up the Manchester accent and then throughout the series it died off a lot, so I think the consistency with that could have been better. I enjoyed the Calafat family and felt that they could have had their own spin off series, there were a lot of stereotypes, the daughter that isn’t good enough, the son trying to get his dad to be proud of him, the trophy wife who sleeps around! Like I said earlier, however, I think the finale and ending sequence showed a few out-of-character moments for a few of the cast and I think that is what brought it down, because I just kept thinking, why would they do that, that’s not like them? A dramatic, twisted series with moments of laughter and raunchiness.
Stream now on Netflix.
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