The same year that Amazon Prime has hit the big time with Fallout, the platform Jeff Bezos has surprised us with a comedy on a somewhat delicate topic for laughter such as apocalypseseasoned with patriotic touches. “In the end” is the story of the trigger of an end of the world that did not come. On this occasion, the origin of armageddon is not a nuclear missile or a deadly virus. As in Melancholiathe movie Lars von Triera planet is heading on a collision course towards Earth, threatening to wipe out all life on Earth. However, at the last moment something has diverted its trajectory. But don’t let anyone think that this is a spoiler. The salvation of the world is not the outcome of the series or the season, but rather it is precisely the moment of its start. A shocked humanity has to face the fact that they must move on with their lives.
Although the world has survived, the months that have passed while the population waited for the end have had devastating effectsafter which the world has literally gone to shit. Everything was an every man for himself, where some gave themselves over to wild hedonism and leaving the crazy life and others chose to continue with their routines and their usual lives as if nothing was happening. As we said, the series starts the day after. When the world discovers that it has been saved and each other must face the consequences of what they did during times of crisis.
Thomas (Jose Manuel Poga) wakes up somewhere Andalusia after his last great orgyone of those in which the law of “What happens in the apocalypse, stays in the apocalypse” prevails. Waking up is like a bad hangover in which flashes of what he did during the rampage come to mind and in which the main thing is that, instead of facing the end, he chose to leave to experience the last big party, leaving his wife and son abandoned. teenage daughter. His attitude has been like that of the protagonist of the Swedish film Force Majeure (2014) of Ruben Ostlundwhere a family’s vacation in the snow ended in a marital crisis after the husband fled in terror, leaving his wife and children alone when he thought that an avalanche of snow was going to bury them. The film talked about the crisis of masculinity and decline of the alpha male.
We met José Manuel Poga in villainous roles and many of us learned to hate him when he was Gandía in La Casa de Papel. However, the actor already showed us his most comic side in the hilarious Little Faith and here we have him leading the cast of this apocalyptic comedy. Tomás opted for the “carpe diem“as if he were one of the members of”Dead Poets Society“and now he finds that the party he lived has a price. In some way, the apocalypse is a metaphor for the midlife crisis, where one ends up wondering what he has done with his life, if he has wasted or if he has done something that has been worthwhile. In his dedication to pleasure, the truth is that he has ended up discovering that he abandoned what truly mattered.
The other leg of the cast is the character played by Malena Alterio. Julia had to take on the task of raising her family, keeping a cool head in an extreme situation for which I thought I was not prepared. Her husband took care of all those things. The failed apocalypse has also been a revelation for her. As she herself says in one of the dialogues in the series, she thought she was a fulfilled person for having married the most handsome man in school and having had a daughter. All that has come crashing down when she discovered that she married an “asshole.” Now that the world goes on and he has rebuilt his life, he thinks that she is the one who has the right to have fun.
The series has been created by David Sainz (which became known with the web series Living poorly) and Enrique Lojo (One less life in the Canary Islands). They both take the opportunity to make a social satire that often remind us of situations experienced during the pandemic. Terraplanists, anti-vaccines, 5G conspirators, sects and even vegans who come out of the closet practicing cannibalismeither. The series goes beyond the fear of the end of the world and laughs at everyone in a very polarized world where extremist ideas proliferate and try to impose their agendas taking advantage of the fact that the Pisuerga passes through Valladolid. The media They don’t come out very well either, with a sensationalism that seeks more scare the population to report what is happening; while their audiences seem to they stay more with the meme and the joke. The series has a little pacing problemperhaps derived from touching on overly serious themes more typical of Leftovers than a comedy. And those narrative bumps are already present in the first episode, despite having had a hilarious cameo from Chenoa. The thickest moments alternate with other hilarious ones, which prevents it from being a rounder series. The outcome leaves the door open to a possible continuation, a decision that will be up to Amazon to make. That hypothetical second season would be a good time to correct mistakes.
