Since its launch on Netflix on April 11, the Spanish mini-series El Jardinero Carton. Dethroning Adolescence and even Black Mirrorshe rose to first place in the top 10 views in France. Why such a craze? 20 minutes watched her.
Spain queen of successful series
The Spanish series is popular on Netflix. We think, of course, of La Casa de Papelwhose worldwide success stood out on five seasons between 2017 and 2021, accumulating up to 99 million views for its season 5. or, in another register, to the series Phone ladies (2017-2020), a historic drama in the 1920s. The medical series Breathe (2024) which flintes the national public health system, has not gone unnoticed. And to believe his last audiences, El Jardinero (The gardener) should also surf a real success.
What is this series about?
Of a young gardener named Elmer Jurado. He lives alone with his mother, who manages the family garden center. Elmer has gold in his hands and knows how to imagine extraordinary landscaped gardens. “It’s because of the fertilizer,” said the young man. Problem: victim of a road accident when he was a child, Elmer no longer feels any emotion. His mother takes advantage of this singularity to make her son his armed wing in the context of juicy contracts.
So, Elmer became a hitman. Executing his “targets” coldly and without the slightest state of mind, he then makes the bodies disappear under the lush massifs of his gardens. The fertilizer in question, therefore …
The small family murder business does not know the crisis, until the day when Elmer must execute Violetta … which will (re) be born in him feelings.
All the news of “TV series”
Why does the series appeal?
Her pitch necessarily attract. THE serial-killers Always have a strong potential for attraction, developing with the spectator a morbid curiosity for extreme behaviors, while probing this dark part of the human soul. The family drama aspect and the mother-son relationship is also one of the arguments of the series, which explores the land of loyalty (but how far will Elmer go for his mother?).
And of course, the side Dark Romance of El Jardinero Here is everything to seduce young spectators, with the emerging romantic relationship between Elmer and Violeta, both plunged into a very dark universe. There is also the quest for truth around the young Violetta and a mystery that will have to be pierced. Why this contract on his head? Is she really responsible for what Xoan’s mother, her ex-friendly friend accuses him?
Is it worth watching it?
El Jardinero undoubtedly attracts. More than its aspect “serial killer”, it is the evolution of the central character who intrigues, his emotions yesterday absent, today in germ. But also what he will now be ready to commit, how and why, as much as his possible renunciations …
Relationship son/mother is also one of the forces in the series. Over the episodes, the Duo Elmer-Chinia Jurado (characters embodied by Álvaro Rico and Cecilia Suárez) works perfectly and we come to no longer know who will manipulate who …
And then, which spell will be reserved for Violeta (actress Catalina Sopelana)?
Finally, the two aging cops in charge of investigating the disappearances of which Elmer is at the origin, will they manage to disentangle the true from the false? Many questions whose answers will not be so obvious.
We nevertheless regret some too predictable twists and turns: as soon as we get to know Violeta, we obviously imagine that Elmer will have a hard time executing his contract. As soon as the ex of his mother returns in her life, we also imagine and without thinking too much that they … will not necessarily recover together.
There remains a well-balanced mini-series, which cultivates its garden. Freezing, simple, sober (without too much budget, either, we imagine!), Thought to catch a large audience going from teenagers to their elders to its nets, we let ourselves be taken without flinching. Not enough to cry out to the masterpiece, far from it. But at the rate of 6 x 45 minutes, it can be swallowed in two evenings.
