It wasn’t until 2018 when Spanish thriller La Casa De Papel – popularly known as Money Heist made waves in the streaming culture. The crime drama that was picked up by Netflix for a paltry sum of $2 and is now their most-watched foreign show.
The hype surrounding the show is too massive to miss and with a new season in tow, creator Alex Pina had high hopes of wowing the audience once more with the infamous Money Heist cliffhangers.
After a dull fourth installment of the series and the death of a fan-favouite that moved the audience to the core, viewers hoped for redemption and they just kept on hoping. While the first volume of the fifth season partly did justice to the thrill of an otherwise fleshed-out show, it just didn’t live up to the expectation of the first two seasons.
The way Money Heist had portrayed women in the show was truly a breath of fresh air. Be it Tokyo’s unabashed sexuality or Nairobi’s calm but courageous persona, the first two seasons of the show were an out-and-out win. When Monica joined the gang in the first season, her addition added more of a human angle to the group. Monica, later renamed Stockholm, was vulnerable but fiercely loyal. Even Lisbon as Inspector Raquel was well-equipped to call the shots and brilliant at thinking on her feet.
The fifth season is completely steered by a mix of new and old women of the gang with Tokyo, Lisbon, Manila and Stockholm being the saving grace and fatal flaws of the show all at the same time. While Lisbon and Tokyo’s characters come full circle, we saw Stockholm and Manila struggle to survive the current heist.
Manila’s character, which in the previous season revelled in ‘badassery’ succumbed to a far too common rationale – love. Her feelings for Denver took over, resulting in her confessing them smack in the middle of the biggest rumpus the gang had to face yet.
Stockholm, however, was no better. She managed to critically wound Arturo (brownie points to the writers if they kill him off completely). She then struggles with the guilt of her very first kill. While treating Helsinki of his wounds, the very culpability takes over and she decides to inject herself with morphine.
The sudden dismantling of the otherwise, cleverly cut, female characters brought back the stereotypical recollection of how, at the end of the day, women are irrational beings surrounded by emotions.
Let’s get one thing right: the show is second to none when it comes to bringing in the big bucks. With 43 episodes on the biggest streaming giant, the cast of the Money Heist is rolling in millions, on and off-screen. But as someone, who caught on to the show rather early on, the plot of the latest season seemed entirely underwhelming.
The first half of the series was rather offhand about relationships. Yes, there was obvious chemistry between certain characters (we’re looking at you, Tokyo and Rio), but the printing and taking out €984 million was never compromised regardless of the cost. Berlin sacrificed himself for the heist and emotion was never a reason in the gang’s plan.
But it all changed at the beginning of the third season when Tokyo vowed to get the team back together to have Rio released from custody and this Bollywood-style romantic challenge was here to stay as a permanent trope for seasons to come.
