Sometimes it’s preferable if a historic drama is completely fictionalized, so the historical story can be told, but without the story’s writers needing to be beholden to the real people involved. That’s the case with a new Netflix series from Mexico, based on a classic 1977 novel.
Opening Shot: “June 19, 1960. Cañada Honda, Mezcala.” A siren wails as police cars drive down a road on the side of a ravine.
The Gist: The police were called by a field worker, who found the body of a young woman dumped down the ravine on the side of the road.
Fast forward about three-and-a-half years. Serafina Baladro (Paulina Gaitan) is in a car with a military officer, Capitán Bedoya (Joaquín Cosio) and two other soldiers, all in plain clothes. They pull up in a small town looking for a bakery. In the second one they go to, Serafina recognizes the man behind the counter, Simón Corona (Alfonso Herrera). She then proceeds to bring in the men and they all start shooting. Simón and his assistant duck behind the counter; despite setting the shop on fire, both Simón and his assistant only suffer minor injuries.
Both Simón and Serafina, who is caught and is cooling her heels in jail, tell the police about why the incident happened; they have been together on and off for over a decade.
But they both start their story back in June, 1960, when Serafina and Simón got together for the third and final time. They run into each other in the city of Pajares, and they don’t leave until the next morning; she slaps him at first, then pulls him in for a kiss. They have sex in an hourly motel, get some dinner, try to break away from each other, but have more sex. He drives her back home to the brothel/bar she owns with her sister Arcángela (Arcelia Ramírez), who approaches him to help them get rid of the body of a girl who was violently killed by a customer the night before.
After Simón tells the police detective about that incident, he’s thrown in jail and facing a six-year sentence. Both Simón and Serafina continue their story; they met for the first time in 1952, when he walked into the bar/brothel that Serafina owns with her sister Arcángela. They had an immediate spark. But their relationship has always been up and down, and when he threatened to leave, she used her military contacts to have him thrown in jail and beaten. She hid that from him until they were in Veracruz during their last time together, a period where they seemed to be more in love with each other than ever. But when she told him the truth about that time period, he literally left her on the street.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Dead Girls has an epic scope reminiscent of One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
Our Take: The Dead Girls is based on Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s 1977 novel of the same name, and it’s a fictionalization of how two women who ran a brothel became known as notorious killers, thanks to the mysterious deaths of a number of prostitutes who worked for them. In real life, the women were named María del Jesús and Delfina González Valenzuela, but Ibargüengoitia fictionalized them as the Baldaros, and that continues in the series. In both the cases of the book and the series, it’s an interesting way to tell the story but make up completely fictional details about the women’s lives.
After the first episode, though, you’d barely know that Serafina and Arcángela were going to turn into such feared figures. It essentially tells the story of the fiery relationship between Serafina and Simón and gives indications of just who she can turn to in order to exact revenge.
That story, though it’s a bit ploddingly told, is also filled with lighter moments, such as the couple’s inability to keep their hands off each other, very explicitly shown in a number of scenes. We’re also not sure of just how far the sisters have gotten in their killing spree by the time Serafina finds Simón three-and-a-half years after he left her for the final time, and what that has to do with the sisters’ involvement in the deaths of their employees.
But we’re willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt, given its performances, its somewhat dark sense of humor, and mostly stunning visuals.
Sex and Skin: Lots of nakedness and simulated sex, and no one is under the covers for any of it.
Parting Shot: Serafina tells Arcángela that she wants to kill Simón , which is when she is introduced to Capitán Bedoya.
Sleeper Star: Joaquín Cosio’s character Bedoya is pretty slimy, and we’re not sure why he seems so loyal to the sisters — perhaps they provide him with their “product” on the house.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I felt that Serafina still loved me. Otherwise, why would she slap me?” Simón tells the detective.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Dead Girls moves a little slowly, but the performances and subject matter are definitely interesting enough to keep us watching.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.