Bienvenidos a Edén was the most successful Spanish series of 2022 in the Netflix catalog. That harvest, it must be said, was not especially fruitful: titles with a commercial vocation such as Smiley, Alma or Feria had problems finding their audience and even a proposal like Intimacy, which in terms of quality rivaled the best international titles on the platform, accumulated secret figures. Therefore, a merit must be recognized to the sect headed by Amaia Salamanca: that of drawing views from potential viewers instead of them being interested in another cover on the menu.
It had a high-concept premise: kids who didn’t know each other were invited to a paradise island to participate in a promotional event for a new drink, but there the chosen ones found themselves with a sect with mysterious motivations. The development was, in short, a disaster both because of the portrayal of characters, as well as the lack of punch in the presentation of the twists, the achievement of stupid decisions by all the characters and some often embarrassing dialogues.
But, of course, its commercial reception also led to a doubt. Was it a server’s problem not having enjoyed even two minutes with the eight episodes of a first season that, at least, did not exceed their duration? Did I have a neural connection error that prevented me from seeing the series beyond the errors, perhaps caused by not being part of the target audience that is looking for the production. So, when the second season arrived, it was time to take a look: phenomena, by trade, cannot be ignored.
In the new episodes, Zoa (Amaia Aberasturi) finds herself where we left her: swimming near the beach because, just as she was fleeing, she saw her sister arriving on the island with another batch of candidates to be part of the sect. Yes, the organizers of this Mediterranean Eden track people’s fingerprints to find out which young people have the most potential to join the sect, but a false profile executed in a few days allowed Gabi (Berta Castañé) to qualify as a candidate. And, after the murder of one of Astrid’s men (Amaia Salamanca), the persecution of traitors intensifies in the community.
If Welcome to Eden were a series that met a minimum, one could criticize a common narrative problem on television: how unnatural it is as a viewer to pick up the action at the point where we left off, without allowing ourselves to take a temporary leap that allows us to reintroduce the spectator in the fictional universe, not even after a few minutes of resolving the main pending question. But this is the least of the problems in a production that only offers a superficial experience.
Going back to her means seeing some characters that seem interchangeable because they are so insubstantial, except for Africa played by Belinda, who against all odds knows how to add some personality to her role, and Amaia Salamanca who is very poorly chosen for the role. The actress can sometimes surprise by having fun in her work, as in Velvet or Everybody Lies, but she usually transmits a nerve that is the antithesis of what is expected in the leader of a sect: it is one thing to be deranged and another that, when presents its victims, nor can it convey a hint of solemnity.
Even after having been a success, Welcome to Eden doesn’t even know how to play the aesthetic card: that of taking advantage of the locations, the modules in which the characters live, the color palette where the blue of the uniforms predominates, that of creating a cloudy atmosphere. It looks just as cheap and conventional as in its first season.
The only hopeful element resides in a dialogue recited by Guillermo Pfening when the script suggests that the members of Eden are even more unbalanced than it seems (or that the story could literally go down Martian paths). Too bad Welcome to Eden takes itself too seriously as a teen thriller to be unintentionally funny.
