The Swedish series “Barracuda Queens” circles a group of female friends who can’t help but stowaway and have thieving impulses to cushion lavish lifestyles. Now most of them are already staggeringly rich, but they are still hinging on their parents. Financial cushioning will allow them to pursue lives separately, without the undertow of parents, having to adhere to certain expectations.
Come hell or high water, the girls have each other’s backs, cruising through misfortunes and spells of rotten luck with solid mutual trust and impeccable rapport. In “Barracuda Queens” (Season 2), the machinations of the thieving aren’t really laid out with specific care and attention as they would be in heist thrillers. There’s almost a casual attitude to them, the girls carrying off, destroying, or making secret deals effortlessly. As always, Lollo is the one who takes charge, pushing the group not to quit dreaming bigger.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 1 Recap:
The second season opens with Lolla getting kidnapped, her assailants interrogating her about complicity in a heist. Before details can fill in, the show jumps two months earlier when one of the girls is having her birthday party. Friends and family have gathered. Amina’s parents have bought her a flat, which provokes a tizzy among her friends. There’s a shocked realisation that the money accumulated from the previous big heist, which was central in the first season, has almost dried up. Lollo kicks off the idea that they must move into a place together. But how can they do it or afford it?
Lollo suggests they could steal from the gallery where Amina works. It’s the Thiel gallery. Having someone with such close access would surely help them in their plan. So, the first episode depicts the heist. At a bar, Lollo steals the key from Jesper, the driver of the BMW parked outside the gallery. Jesper is so charmed with her that he doesn’t notice. In the middle of the night, the girls take off with a number of paintings, but Amina’s boss at the gallery notices the girls dressed in black while they are fleeing. Does it mean big trouble is waiting for the girls?
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 2 Recap:
The second episode opens with a bang of a discovery. The paintings aren’t insured, which means the girls will have to find buyers. But they have already moved into a sprawling apartment. The girls don’t like to think of the consequences or the further road down, after any act/decision. They are incautious, reckless, and prefer to live wildly, taking the wildest chances and most outrageous bets. Luck often favours them. Lollo thinks of Andre as someone who could be a middleman and secure a deal for the paintings.
Frida is uncomfortable given what Andre had done to her earlier. But it’s the only way. One painting is sold. Meanwhile, Jesper tells Lollo, whom she has been meeting frequently on dates, that the police have found evidence in his car, which the girls had used as the getaway vehicle during the heist. Rattled, Lollo shares this with Amina, and the rest of the paintings are burnt in their lawn yard, before the cops can get to them. Paul, a sleuth, informs Amina’s boss that she has been noticed on CCTV at a suspicious time, which contradicts her alibi.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 3 Recap:
Lollo sleeps with Toebbe as well as deepens her intimacy with Jesper. Sparks are again rekindled between Amina and Lollo’s brother, Calle, who now has a partner. Lollo is informed by Andre about a ten-million-dollar offer for a painting that’s at the National Museum. Lollo suggests to her friends that they could try stealing the painting themselves and selling it to Manolo, the art dealer. The mission is well underway, the boat’s ready. But right at the time, a group of burglars breaks in, getting away with many paintings. Lollo vanishes from the spot. However, when the girls return to the flat, Lollo is there, with the stolen painting that they were targeting.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 4 Recap:
Paul keeps hinting to Amina that they should turn in the paintings, that he already has incriminating evidence on her. He tells her they could secretly negotiate a deal, where she gives him the painting he wants, and she’ll be given a sum. Amina’s boss would be left out of the picture. The way this is supposed to work out is frankly unpersuasive.
Amina finds out there’s a strand of hair in Jesper’s car. More trouble starts brewing. The girls discover their flat badly rummaged. There’s been a break-in. Lollo gets kidnapped. It’s the burglars from the National Museum heist day demanding she hand over the painting. Panicking, she calls the girls to retrieve it from her parents’ home. They have almost reached the spot when police barge into the burglars’ hideout. Lollo manages to get out, and miraculously enough, she is reunited with the bunch in their car as they drive away.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 5 Recap:
Manolo calls the girls to a remote place where the painting’s handover would take place. Lollo is busy with her mother at a spa, and Amina is with Calle. Klara thinks it’s not a great idea to meet Manolo without the entire team present, but they go ahead anyway. It turns out that Andre is the one present. The painting gets wrested by him, with no money in return. Phones are destroyed as well. Later, when the girls return to the flat, Lollo hatches a plan to take back the painting from Andre.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Episode 6 Recap:
The sixth episode has several frenzied developments, multiple plans which often strain credulity just in how they leap off the ground with such ease. The girls follow Andre to his scheduled meeting with Manolo, right to his hotel room. They tie him up, gagging him in his room. The events swell into the overplotted ending of the series. At almost every step of the way, you have to keep some suspension of disbelief.
Barracuda Queens (Season 2) Ending Explained:
Do the girls get away with the heist?
To Manolo, Amina introduces herself as Andre’s assistant. Manolo doesn’t really care. He just wants the painting. She hands it over, the deal done. There are other tricks here. While Manolo exits his room, a service tray bumps into him, and he drops the painting. Mia, in disguise, adroitly switches the parcel containing the painting. It’s then planted in Andre’s car, and the police pin the crime on him even as he pleads that he is being framed. Amina tells Paul that Manolo has the painting that he’s looking for, but not the others. She gets the thick sum of money in exchange.
Whose hair was in Jesper’s car?
Amina gets to know from Paul that the strand of hair in Jesper’s car belongs to his wife. Lollo never knew that he had a wife. He didn’t speak of her. Lollo plans the ultimate revenge. The day before Jesper is going away to Bora Bora with his wife and child, Lolla nicks his flight tickets, which, bafflingly enough, he was carrying right then at the bar in his wallet. So it isn’t Jesper and his family who get to go on their trip, but the girls. Triumphantly, the group sets off for their trip, armed with a massive fortune.
