It’s not often when you can describe the premise of a show in one short phrase. But that’s definitely the case with a new three-episode limited series thriller from Spain. What is that phrase? Read on and find out.
Opening Shot: Splatters of blood are seen on sheet music. A bloody pair of scissors are nearby. A woman cleans blood off piano keys. Then we see her dragging a covered body through her house, and opens a chest freezer, hoping to hide the body there.
The Gist: Isabel (Kiti Manver) is close to her 16 year-old granddaughter Veronica (Nadia Vilaplana); we see Veronica helping her grandmother put contacts into her new phone, then Isabel gives Veronica a pair of green teardrop earrings she liked so much, she got a pair for herself.
Veronica meets her friend Marta (Zoe Arnao) at a festival in town; we next see them later that night, getting into the car of Jonas (Iván Prados), whom Veronica seems to know well. He’s the last known person to see them, though, as both girls end up not coming home the next day.
Veronica’s father Antonio (Hovik Keuchkerian), the owner of a popular restaurant, already seems to have suspicions, especially regarding Marta’s father Rafael (Alvaro Morte), a local crime boss. As the search for the girls presses on, Isabel rightly gets more concerned. Marta’s body is eventually found in the water off shore, but Veronica is still missing.
Two years later, the police are winding down the search and investigation, given how little evidence they have that Jonas or any of the last people the girls saw were involved. Isabel is angry that the chief investigator, Zaera (Joan Sole), is moving on, and she is intent on finding out what happened to her granddaughter.
To that end, she goes to talk to Rafael, thinking that he knows something the police don’t, given that he could have used his particular skills to extract information. She then goes to Jonas, who has been living on a boat since his arrest and release, and finds out that he dropped the girls off near a wooded park to meet someone. Oh, Veronica also put on the earrings Irene gave her.
Then she gives a piano lesson to a college student named Beltran (Carlos Scholz), and finds out he knows more than he ever let on before. But the info he gives unleashes violence in her that she was never capable of before.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Whenever we talk about a show that involves a character getting revenge, we always compare it to the old ABC series Revenge. Other shows about revenge? Mercy For None and Echoes Of The Past.
Our Take: The premise of Two Graves can be summarized by the phrase “murderous grandmother seeks revenge.” After watching the first episode, it doesn’t seem like the plot is going to get more complex than that, especially because the series is only three episodes.
It makes us wonder, though: Why is this an almost two-and-a-half hour series instead of a 100-minute movie? Given the performance of Manver as Isabel, we would have been perfectly happy spending 100 minutes watching her investigate on her own and indiscriminately kill people she thought might have been involved in Veronica’s disappearance. But over three episodes? Where is this plot going to go other than seeing Isabel go all Liam Neeson on various people who seemed to be able to hide what they knew from local law enforcement?
The only real plot point that we are looking forward to seeing is Isabel reluctantly teaming with Rafael; she knows he has resources and methods that can extract information from people. He also seems to be less than forthcoming, even though his daughter Marta was killed by the same person that killed Veronica. It’ll be interesting to see if Isabel can get him to reveal info that gives her some sort of closure.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Isabel looks on in shock after she realizes Beltran is can no longer help her get to the bottom of what happened to Victoria, and it’s her doing.
Sleeper Star: Hovik Keuchkerian’s character Antonio, Isabel’s son-in-law, knows more than he’s letting on, and it’s strange how ready he is to move on even though Veronica hasn’t been found.
Most Pilot-y Line: Isabel puts together a note saying “I know about Veronica and Marta” using clipped letters from the newspaper. Zaera immediately knows she made it because she’s the only one who bought the type of paper the note is on and, well, no one under a certain advanced age would even know where to get a newspaper.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We wish Two Graves was a bit shorter, but we like how intense Manver is as Isabel, and the plot of the series isn’t exactly going to make your brain hurt with a lot of twists and turns.
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.