Salvador - Netflix Series

Salvador | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Intense. Salvador, a former doctor, a recovering alcoholic, is driving an ambulance in Madrid. This show covers just about every hot button / social media topic we have and immigration is front and center. Just when you think you know who the heroes are, the curtain gets pulled back and you find they aren't as squeaky clean as you thought.

We saw this show a couple of months ago. I've been meaning to post this, but then today this story from Modernity popped up and kicked me off my duff.

Spain ERUPTS: Patriots ATTACKED By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty by Steve Watson

Violence broke out in the Spanish city of Granada when roughly 40 left-wing Antifa extremists tried to shut down a pre-election rally held by the nationalist party Vox in Plaza de las Pasiegas. Police had to form a cordon between the rival groups as fights broke out, delaying the event by around 30 minutes.

8 episodes 50 minutes each

Gangs of Galicia: Season 2 - Netflix Series

Gangs of Galicia: Season 2 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Our girl, Ana, the female lawyer, has been in Madrid for the last three or four years, raising her daughter, the daughter that was fathered by Daniel, the son of the Padin patriarch that runs the Galicia drug smuggling empire. Ana and Daniel are our Romeo and Juliet. He's been in jail for the last three or four years and has just been let out on account of they haven't gotten around to holding his trial. The trial may still happen, but for now at least, he's out. 

Ana left Galicia on bad terms with some people, Now in order to make amends, she offers to go to work for a Columbian drug smuggler, setting up a lab to process their drug, which doesn't make a lot of sense, unless maybe they were just doing packaging, but it sure looked more complicated than that with screens being dipped into tubs full of liquid. I mean, I can understand setting up a packaging operation. The drugs (heroin or cocaine) come in lots of hundreds of kilogram size blocks that each need to be cut into at least a couple of thousand pieces for retail delivery. But a lab for producing heroin or cocaine doesn't make much sense. The raw material would be much bulkier which is going to make shipment more difficult. Then again, maybe they were making a totally artificial drug like meth or fentanyl. But in that case I think you would need like full-on hazmat suits and respirators. Or maybe losing a few factory workers isn't a problem. Or maybe I wasn't watching that closely.

Anyway, the Columbian is conspiring with Paco (Luis Zahera - famous to me for his role as Ezequiel in the Netflix series Wrong Side of the Tracks) to take down the Padins. To do this they setup an elaborate trap. When a shipment of drugs comes in, it gets manhandled from the go-fast boat to a waiting van. This happens in a matter of minutes and then the van and the boat disappear into the night. On this night though, the Columbian gets tipped off and sends a squad of fake policemen to raid the scene and snag the van as it was driving away. Now Paco and the Columbian start selling off portions of their haul. Naturally the Padins find out about it, and go raid the warehouse where the Columbians stashed the drugs. The Columbian has been waiting for this - he has lookouts watching the warehouse. When they spot the Padin crew approaching, they call the cops who swoop down and arrest Nilo, Daniel's best bud.

Now things start to unravel all around. I think all of the shooting was confined to the 9th episode, and there was a bunch. Naturally all the principal players survive so we can have another season. Maybe.

Colombia-Galacia-Brazil

Why is the Colombian from Brazil? Maybe because Colombia doesn't have any seaports on the Atlantic Ocean. Umm, no. Colombia's busiest seaports are on their Atlantic coast. Maybe because Brazil is a thousand miles closer, or maybe northern Brazil drug enforcement is not as formidable as what you find in urban Colombia.

Season 1 here.

Alcázar of Segovia

Spania Castello medioevale Segovia

Wikipedia:

The Alcázar of Segovia is a medieval castle located in the city of Segovia, in Castile and León, Spain. It has existed since at least the 12th century, and is one of the most renowned medieval castles globally and one of the most visited landmarks in Spain.

. . .

Its history begins in the 12th or early 13th century when the royal family of Castile had quarters in the Alcázar, known as the "major palace". In the Homage tower, the treasure of the Crown of Castile was stored, from which funds were secured to finance Christopher Columbus's first voyage.

This castle is about 45 miles north-northwest of Madrid, Spain.

Google Maps 3D View of Alcázar of Segovia

1992 | Tráiler oficial | Netflix España

1992 | Tráiler oficial | Netflix España
Netflix España

Alcoholic security guard is sleeping in his car when a bomb goes off down the block. The explosion kills a big-shot, but it also kills another man who was a friend and sponsor of our guard. The man's wife finds an unburned plastic Curro figure in her dead husband's hand indicating that someone put it there after the explosion. The Curro figure was the mascot of the 1992 World's Fair (Expo '92) that was held in Seville, Spain.

Amparo, the wife, is determined. Richi, the guard, in not the least interested in solving an unsolvable crime, but he keeps stepping up to help and/or protect Amparo on account of she keeps stirring up trouble.

Curro - Mascot for Expo '92 in Seville Spain

The story has several accidents that befell the Expo. There were some accidents at the Expo, but they are not a 100% match with accidents in the story. Real accidents:

Major Incidents

Bus Crash (August 1992):.
A bus carrying 56 tourists from Barcelona to Seville, the site of Expo '92, skidded off the road and toppled down an embankment on the A-7 highway near Torreblanca. The accident resulted in 45 deaths and 11 injuries. The bus driver lost control while taking a bend at excessive speed.

Pavilion Fire (February 1992):.
A significant pavilion, slated to house Spanish exhibits, was destroyed by a fire while workers were making final preparations. The blaze was determined to be accidental, and the pavilion was not rebuilt.

Viking Ship Disaster (May 1992):.
Two replica Viking ships, part of Norway's exhibit, were swamped by a severe storm and wrecked at sea while en route to Seville. While the crew was rescued, the ships were lost.

The makeup / special effects people had their work cut out for this show with all the grisly bodies that keep popping up. We not all have the victims of arson and explosions, but our guard is hallucinating and his visions are not all lollypops and roses. The wife meanwhile gets some spectacular nightmares. And I haven't even mentioned the villain. He's particularly gruesome.

6 episodes 45 minutes each.

Cast

The Spanish series 1992, which premiered on Netflix in December 2024, is a thriller set against the backdrop of Seville's Expo '92. The story follows a widow and an ex-cop as they investigate a series of mysterious murders. 

Here is a list of the actors and their characters: 

Main cast

• Marian Álvarez as Amparo. A widow who begins investigating a series of murders after her husband is killed in an explosion.
• Fernando Valdivielso as Richi. An alcoholic ex-cop turned security guard who helps Amparo with the investigation.
• Víctor Rivas as Victor. The serial killer, who is also referred to as "the Flamethrower killer" and "the hooded".
• Paz Vega as Carmen. A character who aids Richi and Amparo in their investigation.
• Carlos Santos as Fernando Victoria. An influential man who becomes entangled in the investigation.
• Álex Gadea as Álvaro. Amparo's husband, whose death sets the story in motion. 

Supporting cast

• Gorka Lasaosa as Police Commissary Robledo.
• Marieta Sánchez as Rosa. Victor's caretaker.
• Jaime Ordóñez as Palacios. One of the killer's victims.
• Darío Frías as Zamorano '92.
• Guillermo Barrientos as Domingo, a farmer.
• Pablo Puyol as Valcárcel '92.
• Francisco Boira as Quintas. 

Castillo de La Calahorra

Castillo de La Calahorra

Castillo de La Calahorra is located in La Calahorra, in the province of Granada, Spain. It is situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Built between 1509 and 1512, it was one of the first Italian Renaissance castles to be built outside Italy. - Wikipedia

It has shown up in several movies. 

Castillo de La Calahorra

Two Graves - Netflix Series

Two Graves | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Very limited series: 3 episodes, 50 minutes each. Basically, it's a long movie. Two teenage girls disappear from a small Spanish town during the night. One girl's body turns up in short order. Nothing is heard of the other girl, then one day, two years later a guy makes an innocuous comment and while it leads to finding out what happened, it also unleashes a veritable shitstorm that falls on everyone.

Cast

	Actor	Surname	Character	Role
5	Zoé	Arnao	Marta	Dead girl, daughter of Rafael, the gangster, friend of Veronica
14	Rubén	Carballés	Salazar's attorney	Gangster's lawyer
10	Nonna	Cardoner	Lupe	Veronica's younger sister
16	Óscar	Dorta	Ginés	Might be Isabel's gardener, but his picture doesn't look anything like the character by about 30 years.
13	Camino	Fernández	Carmen	Rafael's wife, Marta's mother
3	Hovik	Keuchkerian	Antonio	Father of Veronica & Lupe
1	Kiti	Mánver	Isabel	Mother of Antonio & piano teacher
2	Álvaro	Morte	Rafael Salazar	Gangster
15	Antonella	Pinto	Isabel's friend
9	Iván	Prados	Jonás	Friend of the girls & #1 suspect
6	Salva	Reina	Carlos Raén	TV Personality, slime ball
8	Carlos	Scholz	Beltrán	Isabel's student procurer of young women
7	Joan	Solé	Sergeant Zaera	Police Detective
11	Magdalena	Tejado	Jamila	Veronica's very good friend
4	Nadia	Vilaplana	Verónica	Missing girl
12	Ben	Zahra	Farid	Antonio's friend with connections in Morroco

Ducati Monster

Ducati S4R Neoracer

This particular Monster has been in the hands of Lord Drake Customs. Wikipedia tells us that Ducati has been building Monsters since 1993.

British weekly newspaper Motorcycle News commented in December 2016: "The Monster has gone down in folklore as 'the bike that saved Ducati' due to its popularity and cheap development costs", adding that approximately 300,000 had been produced.

The Gardener - Netflix Series

The Gardener | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Elmer, the gardener, was in an automobile accident when he was a kid where he suffered a head injury that leaves him incapable of emotion. Emotionless, he is the perfect hit man. His mother organizes the hits and he executes them. Things are going along swimmingly until another mother, distraught over her sons death, asks Elmer's mom to take out the girl she blames for her son's death. About this time Elmer develops a brain tumor that restores his emotions and he falls in love with his intended target. Distraught mom has offered a large sum of money for the hit, enough money that Elmer and his mom could return to Mexico and repurchase her ancestral home. Hoo boy, whatever happens, somebody is not going to be happy.

The opening title sequence shows time lapse videos of flowers blooming. Pretty cool. And ends with this:

Flower Mask

When No One Sees Us - Max Series

When No One Sees Us | Official Trailer | Max
Max

Lots of women in this show. When an airman involved in secret work disappears, a woman Lieutenant from OSI stateside gets sent to investigate. At roughly the same time a resident of the nearby town of Morón de la Frontera commits hara-kiri. A woman sergeant with local Guardia investigates, and a local teenage boy disappears. The sergeant has a female assistant, the mayor is a woman, and then we have the suicide's housekeeper, the missing boy's mother, the sergeant's mother and her daughter.

Morón AFB (Red), Morón de la Frontera (Green) & Algeciras (Blue)

When I heard that the missing soldier's car was discovered in Algeciras, I got to wondering how far it was from the Morón Air Force Base, so, map.

The show is intriguing, the only clues we have as to what happened are paper thin, but scrap by scrap they are piling up. Unfortunately, this is another of those shows that is in the midst of release, so only about half of the episodes are available now.

Wrong Side of the Tracks - Netflix Series

Trailer - Entrevías [TEMPORADA 4, FINAL] (TeleCinco) | HD
Pack TV 2

Season 4 and all our whack-a-doodle characters are back. At the end of season 3, Irene, the adopted daughter of Jimena, dies. Six months later her death is still having an impact on the family. It shows up in different ways. The old man, Tiros, is finally emerging from his room. His son Santi has developed a serious gambling problem. Jimena, his normally rational, pragmatic daughter leads a protest that attacks the police. Nelson, Irene's teenage husband gets arrested for hitting a cop during that protest. Tiros finds out he has a 'mass' growing inside his head. Gladys finds out that while she can run the day-to-day operation of the bar, she is not a business woman and the bar is in trouble. Fortunately, Pepe, the previous bar owner, has returned from a six month vacation in Cadiz.

Then there's the cops:

• Ezequiel, the street-wise detective who resembles a bum.
• Amanda, the attractive, lesbian department head who is married to Jimena.
• Camilla, the new, cute recruit, paired up with Ezequiel.
• Rene, a new guy representing big business interests. Turns out he is Glady's ex-husband and Nelson's father. He is also a minister of a small church who happens to offer counseling to gambling addicts like Santi. He is totally suspicious, but he might turn out to actually be good guy. Then again, maybe not.

Let's not forget Sanchis. Near as I can make out, Pepe and Sanchis were soldiers under Tiros command and are all still devoted to each other. Sanchis has a bit of drug habit, but he can still be effective in certain high-stakes situations.

Dulce is the kickboxing young woman leading a gang.

Previous posts about this show:

• 2022 post
• 2023 post

Have you been living under a rock?

The Town Where People Literally Live Under A Rock
The Tim Traveler

Cute.

>The Snow Girl Sesaon 2: The Soul Game - Netflix Series

The Snow Girl Sesaon 2: The Soul Game | Official Trailer | Milena Smit, Jose Coronado
Moviefone [Moviefone misspelled 'Season']

This time we have a current murder that's tied up with another older murder. Our girl has evidently been traumatized by her rape many years ago, because she makes some really bad decisions. Jose Coronado dies in episode 2, or maybe he gets killed, I can't recall exactly. Tudum has a page about this show.

Season 1 post here.

Gangs of Galicia - Netflix

Gangs of Galicia - Official Trailer [English] | Netflix
MVSRS

More Spanish drug smuggling, this time in the town of Cambados in Galicia which is in northwest Spain. Sexual attraction gets people all crossed up. When a woman lawyer's father is assassinated she starts looking into his past and discovers that he was in the witness protection program for her entire life. She also discovers that he had another family in Cambados that he abandoned. Not being able to leave this alone she goes to Galicia and starts poking around and soon finds herself doing lawyer stuff for the Padins, the local drug smugglers.

Then we have the jackass of a cop who is willing to bend the rules as long as he can bring the Padin family to justice. The Padins are not nice people, but at least you know where you stand with them. This cop threatens people and lies to them in order to get what he wants. He is the villain in this show.

Cambados, Galicia, Spain
Northwestern Spain

The drug smugglers use a combination of fishing boats and go-fast boats to ferry bundles of cocaine from freighters sitting far off shore to the beach where they hustle the bundles into waiting vans. The fishing boats are pretty safe, I mean they are out there putt-putting around on the ocean which is what fishing boats do so they are not going to attract much attention. They bring the bales from the far offshore freighters to closer in shore where the bundles are transferred to the go-fast boats.  The go-fast boats are the weak link. There are not many of them so if they get spotted by the cops, the cops are going to be after them, and the cops have some really big go-fast boats of their own. Kind of scary actually.

Mussel farms in the Vigo estuary. Rias Baixas, Galicia, Spain

There are several scenes where we see the go-fast boats racing around these floating platforms. No explanation in the show. Seems they are mussel farms.

Pérdida Tráiler (Netflix) 2020

Perdida : Serie Trailer l Netflix
Settler

Pérdida (2020), also known as Stolen Away and not be confused wtih Pérdida (2018) a completely different show.

Insane Spanish soap opera. We have a full boat of characters: an adopted kid, a kidnapping, the whole panoply of the illegal drug business along with all the aspects of the criminal justice system. The show is set in two cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean: Valencia, Spain and Bogota, Colombia.

Primary characters:

• Mom & Dad
• Daughter Soledad
• A pair of Spanish cops, male and female
• A female Coiombian lawyer, her family and the judges she's screwing
• the kidnapper
• A pair of rival drug kingpins 
• Famous soap opera actress who is working in a feature film who is another mother to Soledad. Wait, what? Like I said, insane.

along with a vast array of henchmen and prison inmates.

According to rumor the prison La Brecha in the show is modeled on the real La Modelo prison.

We watched the whole thing and it was great. No false steps, the actors played their roles well. There were some things that wouldn't make sense to any right thinking person, but when people are dealing with strong emotions they don't always do what they ought. I call it a soap opera because in every episode there were a couple of scenes of people being sweet to each other. Fortunately they kept them short, a little syrup goes a long way. Somebody ought to do a body count, I'm guessing there might have been as many as a hundred over the eleven episodes, maybe less than half that, but there were a bunch. Some were even important characters. Episode ten was so over the top that I howled with laughter.

Update a week later replaced missing video. This one doesn't have subtitles, but what we're looking for is atmosphere and attitude, and this teaser does that fine.

Let the Sunshine In

Let the Sunshine, Aquarius - Hair
Grupo Talía

It hasn't rained here for a week, so it seems like summer is actually here. You would think that after spending 30 years here I would be used to rain, rain, rain, but I really enjoy the sunshine. The performers here are Grupo Talia from Madrid, Spain, not the Morman Tabernacle Choir that some people, like Jack, seem to think.

The original was recorded by The 5th Dimension in 1967. The song is listed at number 66 on Billboard's "Greatest Songs of All Time". I don't understand why some people prefer big orchestral productions over small groups. Perhaps there is something in the sound, or maybe they just like big productions. It is kind of cool to see a big group all working together on the same tune. In some cases it might be because the originals are no longer available and any other individual singers would just not sound right. You get a hundred voices all together and that distinction disappears.

KIO Towers

Entrevias, Season 3, Episode 7, around the 4 minute mark

We started watching episode 7 of Wrong Side of the Tracks this evening and this scene pops up. Why do we have two skyscrapers leaning into each other? Seems somebody built a couple of tilted buildings in Madrid. From the right angle they appear to be leaning against each other.

KIO Towers Madrid Spain

Also known as the Gate of Europe they were built in the 1990s. I had to resort to Google Maps to get a decent image. All the other photos have the buildings facing each other, which is really kind of boring. I do wonder what the foundation looks like, I mean it's got to be pretty solid to keep them from tipping over.

Wrong Side of the Tracks Season 3

Trailer - Entrevías [TEMPORADA 3] (TeleCinco) [Avance] | HD
Pack TV 2

The three musketeers return with the whole neighborhood:

Tirso Abantos (Jose Coronado) - the grumpy first musketeer,

Pepe - the second musketeer who runs a bar / cafe across the street from Tirso's apartment,

Sanchis - the third musketeer, disabled because of PTSD, who spends his days hanging out at Pepe's,

Maica - Tirso's ex-wife who shows up out of the blue,

Santi - Tirso's son, who runs the family hardware store half a block down from Pepe's Bar

Gladys - Tirso's lush girlfriend who cooks at Pepe's bar and lives across the hall with 

Alicia - Tirso's grandmotherly neighbor.

Jimena - Tiros's lesbian daughter who is trying to get 

Amanda - her police woman girlfriend out of jail where she is being held on a murder charge

Ezequiel (Luis Zahera) - the sleazeball cop with a heart of gold who understands how the world actually works and gets things done by slipping a little sand, or grease, into the gears as required. He's an outrageous bon vivant and as much fun to watch as Tirso.

Dulce - Ezequiel's leather clad, biker babe, partner-in-crime.

Irene - Jimena's adopted east Asian daughter who has gotten pregnant by 

Nelson - Gladys' son, a former gang banger who is trying to turn his life around.

At some point we have all of Tirso's extended family living in his rather spacious apartment.

Then there are the villains:

Nata - leader of the pack of drug dealers who are still operating in Entrevias, though in a much reduced area.

Romero - the new police commissioner

Linares - Romero's Smithers

Romero has ties to a gang of gypsies run by a blind patriarch.

IMDB lists like 150 characters.

Season 1 here.

Season 2 here.

Entrevias is a real neighborhood in Madrid:

Entrevias, Madrid, Spain

Dragon Tails

Basque Coast Geopark in the Bay of Biscay near Bilbao, Spain

My first impression was that this is a very hostile landscape, for humans at least. I suppose all the nooks and crannies among these rocks make fine homes for all kinds of small creatures, some of which may be edible. So if you were careful you might be able to find enough to eat. Or you could if it wasn't some kind of park where almost anything fun is undoubtedly prohibited.

Title from Peapix. Wikipedia page.

Infiesto - Netflix Movie

Infiesto | Tráiler oficial | Netflix España
Netflix España

Another show about detectives tracking down a deranged serial killer. This one takes place mostly in an unnamed small town in northwestern Spain, at least I think it's unnamed. Maybe I just missed it. The climax takes place in Infiesto, a nearby village. For an annoying bonus, it takes place during the pandemic lockdown. Don't be confused by the title, Infiesto doesn't mean infested, it means haunted. I guess haunted means infested with evil spirits, which is an apt description for a deranged serial killer. In any case not a good name for a town.

Luis Zahera

A bright spot is Ezequiel (Luis Zahera) from The Wrong Side of Tracks,.  He has a bit part here. The character's name is different, but the character is the same. 

Abandoned Mine

The final showdown takes place in a mine deep underground. We get to ride the elevator of doom all the way to the bottom. That was pretty cool. Then we go hunting through the tunnels for the bad guy, all by our lonesome even though there were a dozen cops with us when we started this hunt.

Lagos, Not Lagos

Lagos

Lagos, Nigeria*

In the last episode of Sky High: The Series, our gang flies to Lagos, Nigeria for a meeting with a bunch of other gangsters. It opens with the above shot of the Third Mainland Bridge across Lagos Lagoon. It's kind of a weird bridge, it follows the shore line due north from Lagos Island, the essential center of the city and the government.

Third Mainland Bridge, Lagos, Nigeria

We also get some street scenes that look like you might expect Lagos to look. Here our gang has bailed out of a tuk-tuk and are hustling to the airport terminal. That building in the background looks very distinctive, and it is:

Nawair-ru-deen Central Mosque, Lagos, Nigeria*

It was a little hard to track down because there are at least three mosques with that name in Lagos, and Google Maps doesn't know where all of them are. Even given the address, it isn't sure. The Streetview hasn't recorded the street it's on, but I was able to get a couple of shots from nearby streets:

Nawair-ru-deen Central Mosque, Lagos, Nigeria

Nawair-ru-deen Central Mosque, Lagos, Nigeria

Not Lagos

Then there's the hotel. It seems plausible that it's in Lagos. The performance by the 'native dancers' was a little over the top. I dunno, maybe that's what fancy hotels in Africa do.

Hotel*

I was able to pick out the name of the hotel from a couple of scenes: NAU Hotels & Resorts. They are in  Algarve, the southernmost province of Portugal. Problem is there are several of them, however with a little pointing and clicking I was able to find it:

NAU Hotels & Resorts Algarve Portugal

The meeting with all the other gangsters takes place in this fancy building:

Fancy Meeting Place on Breakwater*

Looking at Google Maps I couldn't find any sign of a building on a breakwater. Breakwaters do tend to stand out. An inquiry on reddit turned up the answer.

Building of control CCS of the outer harbour of Ferrol, Spain

Ferrol is on the northwestern corner of Spain.

When our gang finally makes their getaway, they board a Pilatus PC-12 Turboprop.

Pilatus PC-12 Turboprop*

You can't see the registration number here, but is does show up for a second, so now we have it.

Pilatus PC-12 NGX

From FlightAware, this plane operates mostly in eastern Europe. Then I got to wondering - could it even fly all the way from Madrid to Lagos? Not quite. It's 2,400 miles and the PC-12 only has a range of about 2,100 miles. Stopping in Morocco for fuel would knock 400 miles off the trip, so Morocco to Lagos would only be 2,000 miles, which would be doable.  The PC-12 cruises at 325 MPH so it would take about eight hours. There is no restroom, so you might want to make a couple of pit stops. Me, I wouldn't survive.

* images are screen shots from Netflix. Looking over this post I noticed all the screenshots have a yellow tint. I wondered if maybe that was Google's doing, but no, that's just the way the show looks, though I didn't notice it while we were watching it.