What is the plot?

Raquel agrees to work at the school in the village where her husband grew up and where his family has a restaurant. She is excited to return to teaching, but will have an ugly reception from some students. Raquel discovers that she is replacing a teacher named Viruca who allegedly committed suicide. Soon, she will receive notes asking her when she will take her own life. Raquel will begin to investigate on her own what happened to Viruca. At the same time, the story tells us about flashbacks, Viruca's relationship with the students, with her husband, and with powerful people in the village. The mysteries and secrets will be revealed, until we can discover what really happened to Viruca. Will Raquel be able to save herself from the same fate?

This has been an excellent year for television productions in Spain. There are several mini-series premiering this year, with a high quality of production and that deserve to be seen by a wide audience. I was looking forward to seeing this new mini-series, and I am also watching another one, broadcast on HBO, called 30 Coins. Because I want to make a post with the highlights of this year's Spanish mini-series.

The trailer convinced me, I wanted to see this story set in the area of Galicia, with its beautiful villages and landscapes, as well as the peculiar Galician accent, just like in the mini-series Fariña. But after watching its eight episodes, I feel that there are small details of the story that I didn't like.

But first I will highlight the positive aspects: one of them is the way in which we are told in parallel, the life of Raquel , with her arrival to the village and willing to do a great job as a teacher, the encounter with hostile students and the mystery of the death of the previous literature teacher. At the same time, and making an excellent montage, Viruca's life is inserted, the relationship she had with some powerful characters of the town, the conflicts with Iago, one of her students and how she was a woman who hid many secrets.

Raquel will have problems with Iago, Roi and Nerea, three students in whom Viruca had a strong influence. Roi is gay and in love with Iago, who was Nerea's boyfriend, but the teacher will discover that Iago apparently fell in love and had an obsession with Viruca. Roi will begin to suffer the harassment of students who manage to hack into her computer and obtain a compromising video that will affect her marriage.

This will make Raquel keep trying to find out what happened to Viruca, receiving help from Mauro, Viruca's ex-husband who seems very hurt, and assures that he did not commit suicide, that everything in town is hiding the truth.

The mini-series deals with the elements of mystery about a death in a small town, where everyone knows each other, and seems to be hiding something. That's why everyone is suspicious. From the students, to the ex-husband, to the other teachers, to the people related to Viruca. Any of them could have killed her, and we, will be discovering the truth, at the same time as the character of Rachel.

There are surprising twists in each episode, pointing to some suspicion, even, there is a great revelation, which makes us suspect someone very close to Raquel. Who will feel that his life is falling apart, with a marriage relationship in crisis, where she was unfaithful and he forgave her, but her husband is addicted to cocaine and has neglected writing, and now he feels like staying in the city to expand and work in the family restaurant.

In addition, Rachel's character will have to deal with the trauma of having lost her mother long ago, a fact she seems not to have overcome yet. The hopes of teaching in that town, of forgetting the loss of her mother, instead, make her life a living hell.

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I saw all eight episodes in a row, the story is entertaining, but now I will tell you some negative factors, which I did not manage to like and that is why I put this mini-series far below other Spanish productions in these years, such as Antidisturbios, veneno y Patria, which are three extraordinary mini-series.

The worst thing in history is the final resolution of the mystery, which I don't find so shocking. I expected something better, but in reality, when we discovered the motive for Viruca's murder, I found all the mystery and intrigue conveyed by the students unnecessary. I even see a lot of incoherence in that great secret.

It was a bit disappointing how Rachel fell into the trap in the last episode, with a character she distrusted. I'm sorry about that. It's just that I find it hard to believe that scene. And the way she is saved, it seemed worse to me, with the miraculous appearance of two characters that during all the episodes we had seen them working 24 hours a day in the town's bar.

Raquel's relationship with the students, during the classes, can only be summarized by interacting with 3 students. Iago, Nerea and Roi are the only student characters that speak in class, the others are not at all just filler characters, to make them gesticulate or laugh, but we never got to know them. Ah! but they are all beautiful people, there are no ugly, fat, weird students, etc. This takes away from the credibility of the story.

The creator of the series is Carlos Montero, who adapts his own novel, which was published in 2016. I have read some articles on the internet where they reflect the changes the author has made by adapting the book to the mini-series format. Several of them are important changes and I don't understand why he decided to make them. One of them was to add an encounter between Raquel and Viruca in a hospital room, which never happens in the novel. No wonder that scene seemed too forced in the story.

Carlos Montero has written another novel, Los Tatuajes no se borran con láser (The Tattoos are not erased by laser), which is also a hit on Spanish television. In 2008 it was a great success. With the creation of the series Physics and Chemistry, which had seven seasons, set in a high school, he told the stories and the teachers and teenage students. The series was a success in Spain.

In 2018, he created another series about teenagers and a school, but this time for Netflix, achieving an international reach and the series, called Elite, has been a great success within the streaming platform and several of the actors of this youth drama have become celebrities in Spain and well known in other Hispanic countries.

Carlos Montero is 47 years old, but writing stories with teenagers seems to be his strong point. That's why the story of The mess he leaves behind also takes place in a school, with beautiful teenage characters and a mysterious crime in the middle of it all.

The performances of the two lead actresses are the best in the series. For those important characters they made an effective choice of actresses.

Inma Cuesta plays Raquel, the new teacher who comes to town to replace Viruca. She is an extraordinary Spanish actress who, although it is not her best work, managed to convince me as that woman who is going through the marital tedium and assumes the investigation of Viruca's death as a personal challenge, so as not to be dominated by her students. The forty-year-old actress has several films in her career that I recommend seeing: The Bride, The Sleeping Voice and Three More Weddings. I also recommend seeing the unique season of the series Arde Madrid.

The other actress, is the beautiful Barbara Lennie, playing Viruca. The daring literature teacher, who hides some secrets, and whose dangerous relationships will lead her to a fatal end. Barbara Lennie is a Spanish actress that I adore, that woman I fell in love with when I saw her in the movie Chica Mágica, for which she won a Goya award for best actress. Just because of the presence of this actress, I don't mind that I didn't like some parts of the plot, seeing her is a great pleasure for me.

The actor Aaron Piper plays Iago, Viruca's young student, who falls in love with her, but hides a terrible secret. He is one of our main suspects and will have a lot to do with Viruca's death. The actor has already worked with the creator of the mini-series, because he starred in the first three seasons of the series Elite. I found the actor irritating in several scenes, but maybe it's because Iago's character needs to be like that.

Among the other actors, there is Roberto Enriquez playing Viruca's husband, Mauro. Roque Ruiz playing Roi, Iago's friend and lover. Isabel Garrido playing Nerea, Iago's girlfriend and another possible suspect in Viruca's death. Tamar Novas playing Germán, Raquel's husband and drug addict. And Alfonso Agra plays Tomás, Iago's father, with whom Viruca is having an affair.

Trailer

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