Amid the turmoil, Officer Lopez, a skilled and perceptive investigator, deduces that the assailants are not political revolutionaries but common criminals. The true motive behind the siege, it turns out, was not the hostages or political demands but a secret document locked inside the bank’s safe. Determined to uncover the full story, Officer Lopez teams up with Maider, a resourceful journalist, embarking on a high-stakes mission to unravel the mystery behind the daring siege. Together, they navigate a web of deception and danger, determined to bring the truth to light.
This article contains spoilers.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Episode 1 “Everybody Down” Recap:
The series opens with some background information. After Dictator Francisco Franco’s death, Spain is in turmoil. On February 23, 1981, an attempted coup takes place. On May 23, 1981, at Plaza de Cataluña, a few masked robbers entered the Central Bank of Barcelona and held all the people inside as hostages. At a popular Spanish daily newspaper, Maider Garmendia joins as a journalist for Crime Beat. Outside the bank, a woman places an envelope in the telephone booth. On the first day, Maider gets a call about a coup taking place in the Central Bank of Barcelona. The person says the robbers have left their demands in the phone booth. Immediately, Maider takes Bernardo, aka Berni, to the bank.
Inside the bank, the robbers take a file from one of the lockers. The robbers demand the release of Pedro Mas Oliver, Colonel San Martin, General Torres Rojas, and Antonio Tejero, who all played a crucial role in the attempted coup on February 23. The governor and the president are informed about the robbery. The first thing Lopez does is attempt to make contact with the robbers inside.
Luckily, Lopez gets through and asks the main robber to release fifty hostages. Robber one says he will do so in exchange for food and tobacco. Furthermore, robber one demands that the Red Cross provide the meals and send an ambulance. Since Lopez doesn’t help Maider and Berni create a fuss. So the cops lock Berni and Maider in a van. Inside the van, Berni remarks that while Maider is undeniably a good person, her kindness might be a liability in the cutthroat world of journalism.
When the news about the demand is not out yet, the same woman calls a radio station that broadcasts the news immediately. Inside the bank, the robber one separates the old people, women, and sick people so he can let them out. When the hostages start to create a racket, the robber one fires at the ceiling. Now, the robber one takes a young, healthy hostage and shoots him in the leg. Outside, Maider and Berni manage to escape and capture everything that’s happening.
Are the robbers from the Civil Guard?
The Red Cross arrives, and robber one gets out, taking the director of the bank hostage. The 50 hostages are released, and the robbers enter the bank again. Captain Lopez is introduced to General Pajuelo, who is the regional director of the Civil Guards. Now General Pajuelo is sure the men inside are not Civil Guards. After Pajuelo listens to the phone recordings, he is surprised, as the voice is of Gil Sanchez Valiente, a member of the Civil Guards who had disappeared after the failed coup three months earlier. The General is headed to Barcelona to control the situation.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Episode 2 “Off-the-Record” Recap:
The episode begins with a flashback. On February 23, 1981, three months before the bank siege, the General meets Lt. Colonel Antonio Tejero and tells him that he is on the Constitution and the King’s side. When the General leaves, Antonio Tejero tells his Captain that if Armada does not show up, then he should leave the documents in a safe and flee Spain. Four hours into the siege, robbers 1 and 3 hang out on the terrace. Now, robber 3 is afraid the cops may try and enter the bank, but robber 1 is sure the cops won’t as long as they have the hostages. In the office, Maider goes against Isabel’s order and pursues the siege story with Berni. When they reach the bank, Maider hears the radio and learns that the released hostages are taken to a hospital nearby.
At the hospital, Lopez gets to know that the robbers address each other with numbers. A couple of them have also given details about what the robbers were wearing and smoking. By then, Maider also questions some of the released hostages. So Lopez stops Maider and tells her some information that’s off the record. According to Lopez, the people inside are not Civil Guards nor fascists but just common robbers who are using the release of Tejero as a distraction. The cops have surrounded the bank, taking cover in the nearby buildings. Meanwhile, Francisco Laina tries to talk to robber 1, but robber 1 refuses to talk. Now Francisco talks to Antonio Tejero, who is in the military prison. Hearing about the siege, Antonio Tejero says he does not want to be linked with any release, and Antonio Tejero does not know who the men in the bank are.
Why does Jose ask for a plane from the General?
When the robbers are alone, they address robber 1 as Jose. Inside the bank, two robbers are unable to break the wall that leads to the sewer, but Jose insists they try harder to break through the rocks. Meanwhile, Maider and Berni enter a restaurant to eavesdrop on the cops and military personnel. The government contacts Jose and tells him that Antonio Tejero refuses to be released. As Antonio Tejero does not know who Jose is, Jose starts to panic. Unfortunately, Jose realizes that they don’t have the proper bank blueprint. This realization sends all the robbers into panic mode. Outside, Maider and Berni get into an argument as Maider hates the fact that Berni treats her like a child.
Later in the day, Lopez tells Maider that Berni had a daughter who lost her life because of an overdose. Hearing this makes Maider feel guilty for fighting with Berni. Now Jose tells General Aramburu Topete to provide the robbers with a plane to flee Spain, and if the demand is not met, then they will blow up the building along with the hostages. In the last scene, we see Jose pick up a newspaper and see that Lt. Col. Alonso Manglano is the new director of CESID.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Episode 3 “Ticktock, Ticktock” Recap:
The episode begins with a flashback with Maider and her father. Maider is studying law, but Maider tells her father that she wants to become a journalist. After chatting for a while, she leaves the office with her father, who is an editor of a newspaper. When Maider gets out of the car to bring her bag from the office, her father starts the car, and the bomb goes off, killing her father instantly. At present, Maider writes her first report, and Isabel is impressed. The special ops get to the bank’s wall through the sewers and inform the military and cops that the wall is sealed shut and the robbers can’t escape.
One of Lopez’s informers tells Lopez about a bar owner who might know something about the siege. So Lopez and his men bring the man into custody. The man says he does not know the names of the people involved, but a couple would often visit the bar before the siege. Inside the bank, the robbers take a vote on whether they should surrender or push the government to find a way for them. Fortunately for Jose, most of the robbers want to wait. The CESID president Manglano suggests sending the robbers in two buses along with some hostages to a plane. Once the robbers board the plane, then the special ops can take them down. However, the general wants to make sure the men inside the bank are not Civil Guards before going ahead with the plan.
That night, Isabel takes Maider out for drinks, and Maider runs into Berni. Maider apologizes to Berni for being harsh with him and not knowing about his daughter. Inside the bank, Jose lets the hostages talk to their families, hoping they will pressure the government to find a solution. Meanwhile, Lopez knows the bar owner knows more than he is letting on, so he asks his men to follow the bar owner. Lopez’s suspicions come true as the man meets the same woman who called the radio. Furthermore, Lopez realizes the man inside the bank is the same one who robbed the Hispano-American Bank. More information comes to light as Lopez learns that the owner of Ortez Bar is actually a spy for Carrero Blanco, and the owner is Manuel Vilagran. The spy Manuel now meets Manglano and gives him some documents.
What is Jose’s new demand?
The president now gives orders to use force to take down the robbers inside the bank. Meanwhile, Maider and Berni are on a neighboring building’s rooftop, capturing the events unfolding before them. There is panic inside the building as an armored vehicle comes in front of the bank. So Jose sends two of his men to watch the rooftop, as that is the only entry point.
Furthermore, Jose and another robber shoot at the armored vehicle. Meanwhile, some robbers plan on disguising themselves as hostages and escaping if the situation gets bad. Now, Jose asks the bank director to call the general and ask him to let the robbers leave in the armored vehicles along with some hostages to the airport. If the special operations attack the plane, then the hostages will die as well. By then, Special Ops are on the rooftop, and one of the robbers sees them and rushes down to inform Jose. As soon as Jose gets to know, he takes the bank director as hostage to the front door.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Episode 4 “Number 1” Recap:
The episode begins with Jose’s past. Eleven years before the siege, Jose tells Jose Maria he was nine years old when he first committed a robbery. This was because a priest provoked Jose by slapping him for stealing one coin from the donations. After that, Jose has done multiple robberies. After the conversation, Jose and Jose Maria rob a jewelry and watch shop. The next day, Jose wakes up, and cops are at his door asking where the stolen objects are. When Jose does not reveal the information, the cops beat him. At the present, Jose brings the director of the bank outside, stops for a minute, smokes a cigarette, and heads back inside. Ten years before the siege at the OJE camp, Jose and a few others are given military training and hired to do undercover operations, and Carrero Blanco heads the secret wing.
The jobs included robbing, kidnapping, and blackmailing, among others, to procure money to fund the secret service. At present, Jose’s group tells Jose their plan to escape, and he agrees. Eight years before the siege, the president died, making it difficult for the Secret Service to function. However, this didn’t stop Jose and his friends from robbing. In one such incident, Jose gets caught and is sent to prison. There, Jose meets his cellmate, who reads about anarchists. Meanwhile, the cops follow the woman working with Jose from the outside. Once they catch the woman, she says her name is Carmen. The cops search the house and find books about anarchists. In an emotional moment, Jose tells Jorge that if he dies, he will tell his wife, Christina that he was thinking of her until the end.
How do the robbers deceive the police?
Seven years before the siege, Jose met Christina, and they started dating. Currently, Maider asks Lopez for more details about who the people inside the bank are. So Lopez gives Maider a clue, so she and Isabel look through their old publications and realize the leader of the robbers is Jose Juan Martinez Gomez. Seven years before the siege, Jose and Christina blew up the Spanish Consulate Perpignan, and Franco died. Five years before the siege, as Jose and Christina were driving in the woods, they got caught in one of the checkpoints and were sent to prison.
Three years before the siege, Christina was pregnant and didn’t want Jose to go on dangerous missions, but Jose told Christina that he did not know anything else other than stealing. The hostages inside the bank create chaos as there are only two thieves with them. On the roof, one of the robbers surrenders after the Special Forces kills one. Meanwhile, Jose and his crew blend in with the hostages, disguising themselves to slip out of the building undetected. The ploy leaves Lopez and the Special Ops team scrambling to distinguish the robbers from the innocent hostages.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Episode 5 “Moment of Truth” Recap:
The episode opens with the cops checking every person who walked out of the bank to differentiate who the hostages and the robbers are. During this inspection, Jose wears glasses, helping him escape the first set of scrutiny. However, since Jose is the leader, Lopez is determined to find him. On the bus, Lopez identifies Jose because of his shoes and arrests him. Thankfully, the hostages are safe, and all the robbers are caught. During the first round of questioning, Jose says asking for Tejero’s release was a decoy to buy time to drill a hole in the wall and escape through the sewers. The president is given the news, and he is happy that there aren’t any casualties. Now Lopez begins the real questioning. Jose reveals the timeline of events and what exactly happened to Lopez. According to Jose, he received a job around mid-March.
Both Jose and Jose Marina were hanging out at Ortez Bar when Manuel Villagran approached Jose, saying someone wanted to meet him for a job. The person who wanted to meet Jose was Manglano. This heist was Manglano’s job for Jose, and the payment was the 800 million that was in the vault. Furthermore, the heist was also a distraction, as Manglano wanted a document that was in one of the safes in the bank. In the building, Manuel Villagran is also present. The robbers give Manuel the documents, and Manuel leaves along with the other 49 hostages. This is a huge accusation, so Lopez finds it hard to believe. Now, Lopez’s senior asks him to take some time off work. The story told to the public was that they didn’t know who the mastermind behind this heist was.
Bank Under Siege (2024) Ending Explained:
Will Lopez and Maider uncover the contents of the secret document?
At the office, Isabel does not want Maider to pursue the siege story anymore and gives her another assignment. Despite that, Maider and Berni visit Lopez to ask him for his opinion. So Lopez tells them everything Jose told Lopez. However, Lopez asks Maider to be careful, as he feels the situation to be dangerous. Sadly, nobody knows what is in the document that was so important to stage a heist. Meanwhile, Manglano visits Jose and asks him to change his statement that it was a heist and nothing else.
In exchange, Jose’s family will be spared. On the other hand, Maider interviews everyone close to or who has known Jose to understand if Jose is trustworthy. Later, Manglano visits the President and says the King has asked CESID to be in charge of his security from now on. After a long break, Lopez asks to meet Maider to give her some information. According to Lopez’s informant, Gil Sanchez Valiente was with Tejero in the Congress building during the coup.
Furthermore, Sanchez left the building with some documents. Since Lopez and Maider are watched in the bar, they leave. When Maider comes home, Manglano is waiting inside. Manglano visits Maider to warn her to drop this story as only Jose knows the truth, and he will not reveal it to anyone for his own sake. Soon, Felipe Gonzalez will win the election, and Manglano asks Maider to write a book about the siege after that.
Even though Lopez asks Maider to stop chasing the story, Lopez himself wants answers. Therefore, they visit Manuel Vilagran, as he knows the contents of the document. Thanks to Manuel Lopez and Maider, the document contains information about members of the provisional government after the coup. Furthermore, Manglano was ordered to bring the document in exchange for him becoming the director of CESID. As Lopez and Maider walk towards their car, the car explodes. In 1983, Lopez met Maider and said Jose had a 38-year sentence, and the motive was solely financial.
Jose is released from prison eight years later, temporarily, and he escapes. The first thing Jose did was go back to the bank and take the money he hid in the basement. Manglano resigned in 1995 over a wiretapping scandal. Jose stands by his version of the story. However, Manglano or Manuel’s involvement in the events was not proven. Spain joined NATO and passed the Divorce Act, and coup plots ceased.
In the 1982 elections, Felipe Gonzalez won, and Spain turned a new page. As much as there is doubt about Jose’s version of the events, there seems to be truth in it, too. If the higher-ups were not involved, there was no reason to order Lopez to take a break, especially when he was getting so close to the truth. After Lopez’s car blew up in front of Maider and Lopez’s face, they decided to step back and not pursue the case as they realized the danger they were in. The series shows some real-life photographs and videos towards the end to add to the real-life events.
Bank Under Siege (2024) ‘Netflix’ Review:
Bank Under Siege does a commendable job of recounting the dramatic events of 1981, offering a stark history lesson on the lengths those in power will go to protect their interests. The series also serves as a commentary on the roots of conspiracy theories, demonstrating how what appears to be a straightforward heist can unravel into a tangled web of political intrigue.
By incorporating multiple perspectives—from a high-ranking official to a journalist and a police officer—the show adds a layer of complexity, encouraging viewers to consider the story from diverse angles. However, beyond this narrative structure, the series struggles to leave a lasting impression. The acting is largely unremarkable, with no standout performances, and several subplots feel more like padding than substantive contributions to the story.
For instance, the deaths of Maider’s father and Berni’s daughter are introduced but fail to resonate emotionally, leaving viewers detached from these potentially poignant arcs. Similarly, the characterization of the criminals leans heavily on tired clichés, such as the “panicked novice” or the “drug-addled thug,” rendering them one-dimensional and predictable.
A particularly glaring flaw is the show’s attempt to humanize the criminals, a recurring trope in Netflix crime miniseries, as seen in IC814: Kandahar Attack. While Money Heist set a high standard for Spanish heist dramas by combining gripping action with rich character development, Bank Under Siege falls short, feeling lackluster in comparison.
Ultimately, the series succeeds as a historical recounting, shedding light on the political dynamics of 1981 Spain. However, beyond its educational value and historical intrigue, Bank Under Siege fails to offer the depth or engagement that would elevate it to the level of more memorable heist narratives.
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