WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Review of La Casa de Papel Season three

By Muhammad Ahmad Iliasu.

It’s unforgivable to have a hankering for good movies, yet never heard of La Casa de Papel (aka Money Heist).

Every episode of the Netflix series has an astonishing way of keeping you stuck on the couch! Little wonder it was regarded by Forbes as the most popular foreign language TV series on the streaming platform in 2018.

A peep into the storyline

Under the guidance of a mysterious man called “The Professor”, a group of robbers, Tokyo, Rio, Berlin, Nairobi, Denver, Moscow, Oslo, and Helsinki, invade the Royal Mint of Spain wearing red jumpsuits and Salvador Dalí masks, and take hold of 67 hostages as part of their plan to print, and escape with, €2.4 billion. Raquel Murillo, a police investigator is put in charge of the case, unaware that the mastermind is closer than she could ever imagine.

The New Season

After two long years, La Casa de Papel season three just premiered in July, and we’re crazy about it! You should too!

Season Three Reviews

At the end of the previous season, the heist team escaped the hooks and nets of the Spanish authorities, leaving behind the corpse of Moscow, and the remains of Berlin who insisted on staying to hold up the agents. Berlin is presumed dead. And the heist team, were seen linking up with one another outside the territorial jurisdictions of Spain.

In season 3, the heist team sailed through the ocean of Portugal, to find refuge on international waters, before deciding on where to nest next, a place they must make sure the Spanish authorities won’t be able to find them. And as any smart tactician would think, it was obvious to them that the arrest of one person in the heist team, means the arrest of the entire team. Even if they’ll be able to equally be loyal enough to keep their mouths closed, the probability of their collective safety became snowballing, obviously indicating that no matter how hard the one arrested tries to cover for them, the authorities would definitely have grasps of how others would be arrested too. Which declared the situation: ‘no one is safe, until all are safe’.

For that reason, the ever conscious Sergio – the professor, divided the team into four equal parts; his genius self teamed up with former police inspector, Rachel murillo. Denver teamed up with former Spanish royal mint official, Monica. Tokyo teamed up with Rio. And Nairobi teamed up with Helsinki. Each conditioned to be settled in a different location, with a certain point set as rendezvous for them and emergency phone numbers in the possible event that one gets arrested. And all these, under guidelines that were overseen by the Professor, the most specific of them being the ‘ban on using mobile phones’.

As we all know, the 18th century idiom, and metaphorical expression, as well as the famous physical property of gravity is and will always be apt; “What ever goes up must surely comes down”. And that’s what happened to the heist team, through the weakest link of their collective play; Rio and Tokyo. Rio is young and Tokyo is wild. Both are rich and drunk from the crudest wine of love. They settled on the Pellican Island where there aren’t many people, enjoying all that’s there to be enjoyed in being rich, exuberant and in love. One day, the wildness in Tokyo made her feel bored, for she can’t live where there are no people, and she decided to leave. And Rio is attached, imagining no life without Tokyo, so he gave her an unregistered phone that he and Helsinki acquired from one Malaysian merchant, so they’ll be talking after every three days.

Three days passed, and Tokyo wasn’t on the picking side of her phone. Rio became worried, so he kept calling and calling and calling, forgetting the ban on using mobile phones that they’re under, until Tokyo remembered and picked up the call, allowing the Spanish forensic official, Martinez, to locate their locations, which he notified Colonel Cortes rightaway, who had been desperate and on their search since the last day of the heist. Tokyo escaped narrowly away from Panama. While Rio gets arrested, on the surrounded-by-ocean Pellican Island.

Tokyo ran straight to Thailand, where she finds the professor to tell him about what happened, which tells them that Rio was surely arrested, even though there was no sign of the news on the headlines. The authorities wanted it to be covert. So the Professor contacted the rest of the heist team, calling for an emergency meeting.

Nairobi and Helsinki have grown a half-baked and confused bond, which is too gross and lacking in affection to be considered love. While Monica has delivered Arturo’s baby, and is married to Denver, who is calling the boy his son. Professor is chilling with Rachel.

In the meeting, they discussed how Rio gets arrested and the need to rescue him. Denver objected, but was later convinced by the Professor after reminding him of how Tokyo stayed by his father’s side during his last hours. The plan was set, based on the team staying on the offensive feet, leveraging Rio’s release through another well crafted Robbery, that’s bigger than the previous one, which the Professor called the voice that says: “Enough is enough”.

Takeaways:

1. The season three of ‘La Casa De Papel’ is another TV series that falls victim of being an extreme love circle. From the loving point of view, the whole brouhaha is brought up by a certain personal feeling of boredom by Tokyo, which was backed by Rio, her lover, which ends up with both of them getting inside the Spanish Central Bank, with their fates risky and uncertain. This, brought other heist teammates into the game. For despite the belief that they must rescue Rio to guarantee their collective safety, they all have had a choice of walking away if they didn’t want to get involved. But still decided to join, for being inspired by love.

Professor for instance, through that rescue mission, got a chance to fulfill the master plan of his late brother, Berlin. Which despite having doubts, he carried on to execute, which along the way, forced Rachel Murillo to join, because of the love she has for him. Palermo, the new member of the heist team got involved to fulfill the dream of Berlin, his best friend and lifelong lover (bearing the suspicion that he’s Gay in mind), which along the way seduced Helsinki to join (who is also Gay) and in love with Palermo, which also encouraged Nairobi to join, for she’s deeply in love with Helsinki, and also seduced Bogota to join for he’s suspected to be in love with Nairobi.

Denver got convinced to join due to what Tokyo did to the only man he’s ever loved, Moscow, which along the way forced Monica to join, because she loves Denver, which later also forced Arturo to jump in, for he wanted to see Monica and ask her about his son. Such a costly and extreme love circle.

At the end of the season three, Professor was made to taste the bitterness of his own tactics, by using love as a leverage. Inspector Allicia notified the team to pretend as if they executed Rachel, to put Professor’s will on the wrong side, which she succeeded. Nairobi got shot in the chest, in what will most likely put her to death, by using the love she has for her child. In this case, Money Heist is heisted by love.

2. No matter how great the plan is, one should trust one’s gut feelings, for if one is having doubts, one should simply walk away. Sadly, the Professor disagreed. And in the end, it lands him in the biggest conundrum we’ve seen since the inception of the show. There’s no doubt about the veracity of the plan’s workability, and its craftiness is as worked out as any plan we’ve seen in the show. However, the doubts that bedevilled Professor’s mind when he was being explained by Berlin and Palermo, played a vital role in its failure. He has never trusted that plan, and for that reason, he declared the probability of its success to sit below fifty percent. But still he went for it. Such a risky move.

3. The season three of ‘La Casa De Papel’ is both good and bad news for the global gender activists. Good news for portraying how women are capable of going shoulder-to-shoulder with men in whichever endeavor, with as much if not more willingness to command a competent leadership and control in the event of uncertainty. In season three, Nairobi is the one you want in command when things go south, the aura of her leadership and the command her presence commands can’t be matched by any Money heister, since the death of Berlin.

Tokyo on the other side, is the one you want holding the gun when authorities invade. No one is better at raining bullets. And they’re both women, with none put in charge, but they still do it anyway, leaving Palermo with accolades of trash-talking and lots of scattered little glasses in his turned-half-blind red eyes. Not only that, the way an 8-9 months pregnant inspector Allicia professionally tortured Rio and screwed the entire heist plan effortlessly is something the feminine world should be very proud of. Professor was playing chess, which gives him an edge everytime he attacks first. But Allicia completely defied that with counter prowess of Nash equilibrium, picking the weak points of the heist teammates, and making them pay using dilemma model like they’re sitting in front of her. Such an admirable tactician!

On the other side, it’s bad news because it shows how patriarchy is a global phenomenon. Women will never feel secured, safe and determined if men like Palermo are allowed to lead affairs that involve them. The impertinent and joking pretender even came up with a disgusting theory he termed “Bum Bum ciao” that explains how gay sex is the best in the world, because it doesn’t involve women, – a biological fact, as he called. Which was outrightly found out by Nairobi that he didn’t say that mainly because he was homosexual, but because he was being misogynistic. Monica also was tried by Denver to be disallowed into making it to that misson, because he believed she’ll be his weakness, for her inability as a woman might get in the way and hold him ransom. She realized he was being sexist, and dumped him for days to come back to his sense.

Misogynists and Toxic masculines like Palermo who believe women are of little importance, and passive sexists like Denver who believe woman should just stay at home and raise children are one of the biggest problems every society is facing. But the rise of strong and intellectually aggressive women like Nairobi and Tokyo will surely keep that in check.

4. Lack of social justice would always turn the populace against the government whenever they get the chance to do so. It only took the Heist team a heavy rainfall of hundred and fourty million euros upon the Madrid park to buy the support of the Spaniards, which as was showed, extended to many other countries, making people wear the uniform of the heist team as a demonstration against injustice. And that’s despite the inspirational speeches Arturo volunteered to give on panels. Would that have happened had there been trust in the system, and the way resources were allocated? I don’t believe so.

Not only that, lack of effective accountability would always put the government on a wrong foot when dealing with covert national security operations. Cheap stuffs that weren’t better than to get explained to the world using highly skillful, professional journos would be made a threat against the competency of the government, and would keep attempting to compromise its collective effort when it falls in the wrong hands. The heist team’s first defensive strategy was based on acquiring ministry of interior’s paperworks which were hidden in the bank by the government, for they believe its a secret worth keeping away from the public, which turned into a strategy that helped and abetted in the smooth going of the heist plan.

5. “Chaos is not a pit, chaos is a ladder”. Lord Peter Baelish can’t be more correct, for that was also the belief of Berlin when Professor spoke of chaos, while discussing the presence of Tatiana, Berlin’s girlfriend. Berlin knew who ever will carry out that plan will have to land in trouble, but still believed it’s worth trying, even though the risk wasn’t calculated. This entire chaos is a distraction, and storm before the calm, so that the Professor would drop a mind-blowing masterclass. Professor’s contingent mind is more than capable of brushing off Inspector Alicia and her counter intelligence, her pettiness and mastery of Nash.

The current chaos isn’t courtesy of a flawed plan, or due to the fact that it wasn’t worked out by the Professor himself. Rather the lack of trust and nervousness the Professor showed in executing the plan. Because even the successful plan in season one and two weren’t crafted by the Professor, but his father. But his trust, and the little assignments he worked out made it successful. If he resigned to what makes him nervous in that plan, Allicia and the entire Spanish authorities will be in massive trouble.

5. This is rather a highlight of contradiction. In the first two seasons, the Professor was executing a master plan crafted by his late father, which along the way, got Berlin killed. However, in season three, the Professor was executing Berlin and Palermo’s plan. And Berlin didn’t come out of the royal mint.

So here are the questions :

a. When did they work out that plan?

b. Was the plan worked out before the start of Royal Mint heist?

c. Why would Berlin risk losing his life when there’s another bigger plan awaiting after the Heist of Royal mint?

d. And if the the plan was worked out after the Heist of Royal Mint, how did they show Berlin was the mastermind when Berlin had died in the Royal mint?

MA Iliasu is INSIDER’s box office reporter.