Julián López de Haro (Ivan Massagué) from the Prime Video series Parot was an interesting character as the representation of sexual violence. As a member of the aristocracy, he had been educated in both high culture and his birthright to have as much as he wanted, which led him to strain the seams of society, seeking pleasure in the bodies of helpless women. He was an effective transformation of the Hannibal Lecter myth, exchanging cannibalism for rape, knowing that the public would read this monstrous drive as closer, more realistic, possible.
The idea of ??emancipating Parot’s antagonist and dedicating his own television series to him, therefore, can be understood: there are characters that cry out for you to play with them more. In Perverso, Adriana Ugarte’s detective is already forgotten, as if creator Alonso Laporta was afraid of scaring new viewers with reminders of the past, and Judge Lucía (Kira Miró) now lives installed in Haro’s predatory brain, with whom He feels that he has a pending score since he was sentenced to prison for his crimes.
And what is the room for maneuver at the plot level of a serial rapist with a life ahead of him behind bars? Well, borrowing an idea from Thomas Harris (because Hannibal Lecter is a clear reference for Julián López de Haro), with the appearance of another psychopath (Jan Cornet) who is dedicated to kidnapping and killing men with black vests. By contacting the rapist, as if they were professional colleagues, he gives Haro enough cards to return to the game with the judge who sentenced him, a well-placed woman.
In Perverso, which is also broadcast on the Amazon platform, there is hidden a series with something to say about the Spanish upper class, corruption and the sewers of the State, both in the profile of its two protagonists and in the supporting cast. Suddenly, Mariana (Esmeralda Pimentel) appears in Lucía’s life, a Mexican who is dedicated to managing the assets of large fortunes and who is willing to do anything to win clients like Miguel Arrieta (Carlos Pone), an attractive widower with problems. with Treasury.
At the judge’s right hand, there is also prosecutor Prieto (Pepe Ocio), with his sights set on politics and the position he can obtain if he moves skillfully through the judicial system. And, in the most irritating but also most interesting role, there is Fer (Guillermo Bedward), Lucía’s youngest son, who serves as a representation of the most toxic traditional masculinity, a consequence of mixing in an elitist and reactionary environment, and because of that false idea that the world owes him something for being a man and being well positioned.
Just because you can see where the series is going, for the record, does not mean that the characters are well defined. Here comes the central role of Mariana, who is shady and, consequently, there is no need to explain her actions excessively (but her nature must be hinted at in each scene); or the posh-killer, which is a cliché in which the scriptwriters have no interest. You just have to see how her modus operandi, of forcing her victims to risk their lives in board games, is not going anywhere.
In fact, Perverso doesn’t even know what to do with Haro except to let Ivan Massagué have fun with the control of his voice, that contained violence that he always evokes. What a pity that, having a possible critical reading of the Madrid elites, the story develops in such an artificial way, as if the search for sick plots justified any twist, no matter how badly exposed or forced.
And, after Memento Mori and Red Queen on the same platform, perhaps it’s time to give the thriller a twist: when all psychopaths are so special… perhaps none of them are.
