A TV show becomes exciting when it has interesting characters and is able to hook you with its every twist and turn. But if the makers try to make work the show on surficial characters and messy plot twists with no intention to move forward the narrative, the problem arises. In Season 1 of Peacock’s new TV series Leopard Skin, creator Sebastian Gutierrez tries everything under his capability to make the audience feel for every emotion with its ensemble characters that hook us with the twist and turns in the screenplay. But the characters are too surficial and have no depth, making the twist and turns have no significance to the ultimate narrative. Thus, the show becomes extremely irritating as it proceeds, making you wish it would just end.
There are some unanswered questions that Season 1 of Leopard Skin leaves us with and I will try to talk about them in this article in detail. So be aware that the article is full of spoilers.
Leopard Skin (Season 1) Recap:
Episode 1 – The Map and the Territory
The series starts with the introduction of the two main characters, Alba and Batty living in a villa in the Mexican coastal town named Playa Perdida. At first, it seems that Alba is the owner of the house and Batty is the housekeeper. But it becomes so confusing when they can’t give a straight answer about it to a bunch of bank robbers intruding on their house.
The bank robbers consisting of Malone, Sierra, and Clover have recently completed a successful heist worth 12 million diamonds. During their gateway from the scene, they were stopped by two policemen. Clover, the gateway driver, had panicked and attempted to get rid of them by driving fast. Due to this action, the police started firing and she got shot. In retaliation, Sierra shot the two police officers.
Now as they get the heat, they try to lay low for a while. They find the villa and intrude on it by taking Alba and Batty hostage. They treat Clover’s bullet wound first and then retrieve the diamonds from their gateway car (which is an ambulance). They come to know that they (Alba and Batty) are expecting guests at the dinner, Max Hammond and his girlfriend Maru. Malone tells Batty to act normal before them and get rid of them as soon as possible. Though Max gets off early due to his important meeting, Maru becomes too drunk to move and stays in the house for the night.
Episode 2 – All Your Questions Answered
In episode 2, we come to know that Alba is the ex-wife of billionaire Archibaldo De La Colmena. By profession, she is a documentary filmmaker. She met Archibaldo in the toughest phase of her life. At that time, her whole film crew was massacred by a secret indigenous tribe in the Amazon and she barely survived a deadly earthquake. But as they say, there is always a silver lining behind the clouds, she fell in love with Archibaldo and got married.
While we come to know about Alba through the flashback, at present the robbers are in total control of their (Alba, Batty, and Maru) lives. Though they try to run away, they get caught. But most surprisingly, it is revealed that the three robbers are not just random picks for the jobs as we are suggested in the first episode. The three are ex-convicts and they work for Judge Ray Lasalle. Ray sends them to Mexico to pull off the heist in return he promises to erase their past criminal records. But he can’t afford to have everyone out as the money split gets too small. For good luck, he gifted leopard skin underwear to the three of them.
Malone first discovers that Clover is wearing leopard skin underwear. From that, he does his math and comes to the conclusion that they are trapped in a bigger plan made by Lasalle. They presume that the policemen they have killed, are actually assassins, assigned to kill them and take the diamonds. Though they understand the gravitas of the situation, they start to have some trust issues among themselves.
Episode 3 – Private Lives, Part 1
In another flashback, we come to know that Alba was a former member of a convent. And one day, when she was driving her car behind a bus full of nuns (due to the instructions from the convent), the bus was struck by lightning. All of the nuns died in the accident. Alba became very upset by this accident and succumbed to depression.
Due to this, she got distant from Archibaldo. As a result, Archibaldo gets close to another woman and eventually married her without any knowledge of Alba. The new wife of Archibaldo is none other than Batista aka Batty.
Hearing this, Alba became really disturbed, and eventually, she succumbed to drugs. But soon she became sober. One day, when she was visiting Archibaldo’s villa, she came to know from Inocencia, the housekeeper that Batty was supposedly poisoning Archibaldo. To gather information, she installed two hidden cameras in the villa and recorded activities of Batty. Two weeks after Archibaldo died. But from the installed hidden cameras she found out the necessary evidence against Batty to prove that she was the murderer. Despite going to the law, she took advantage of the situation and made Batty her slave.
Episode 4 – The Claustrophobic Diver
Meanwhile, at present, Inocencia comes to the villa and soon understands the hostage situation. However, she is also taken hostage with the other three women (Alba, Batty, and Maru).
At that moment, Inocencia recalls her sexual relationship with Archibaldo before his marriage to Alba and Batty. Due to that, she got pregnant. But Archibaldo denied the possibility of being the father of the child claiming he was sterile. He took the advantage of Inocencia’s lack of education and showed her the test results of his sterility. Though Inocencia accepted that, she knew Archibaldo was the father of the child. She raised the child on her own in her native village. She often stole things from Archibaldo to provide for her son. She had been doing this for many years until Batty caught her red-handed and thus fired her.
At present, the robbers find out that their suspicion is correct. The policemen they killed are really the assassins and the diamonds are worth 12 million. They make a plan to renegotiate their cut in the heist and use the hostages as bait for the exchange of the diamonds.
While they are discussing their plan, Batty and Maru try another escape attempt. But when they are heading towards the ambulance (the gateway car for the robbers), Batty heads back to the villa to rescue Alba (who is taken hostage separately from the others).
We then come to another flashback portraying the past life of Batty from an aspiring scuba driver to a mannequin model to a local restaurant hostess. When she was working as a restaurant hostess, she met Archibaldo and fell in love with him, and got married. But after a few days, she got tired of the marriage and met a kind of similar fate to Alba after her accident. She was diagnosed with narcolepsy and suffered from extreme loneliness as Archibaldo was often out of the home.
In the present time, Maru finds out the ambulance but before she can get away with it, Malone and Sierra capture her.
Episode 5 – Still Life with Cat and Canary
In another flashback, Alba’s sadistic exploitation of Batty is extensively showcased. She made her a slave and controlled everything in her life from what she will do and don’t. She made her do all the jobs of the house with little or no humanity. She also often got sadistic pleasure by punishing her with various degenerating methods.
But after a few months of this sodomy, Alba felt something for Batty and eventually fell in love with her. So, she stopped to sodomize her and started to treat her as a partner. Batty also felt for Alba. Thus, soon they started a romantic relationship.
Episode 6 – Private Lives, Part 2
Batty told Alba that Archibaldo was an abusive husband. He often came home high on alcohol or drugs and hit her. Also, he put Batty into the closet as he knew that she was afraid of claustrophobia. To get free from it, she plotted the murder of Archibaldo.
Alba listened to all of these and understand the situation of Batty. But Batty was still in shock. She revealed to Alba that she thought that she was the reason to bring doom to the people she loved. Though Alba was dismissive about it, Batty believed this strongly. So, on the day of the robber’s intrusion, she wrote a letter to Alba stating she was leaving her. But before Alba could read it, they were taken hostage by Malone and his gang.
In the present time, Malone and Sierra successfully contact Ray Lasalle to renegotiate their terms. Though Ray agrees to their terms, he plans something else on their back.
In the villa, Batty finds out Alba tied to the bed. She releases her from her bondage. Alba finds out Batty’s letter lying on the floor of that same room. She picks that up but can’t read it as Batty snatches it and tears it into pieces.
After that, they attacked Clover, who is guarding Inocencia, in the dining room. But before they can leave the villa, Sierra comes to capture them and put them back in the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Max comes back to pick up Maru. Maru tries to get rid of him by stating she is done with him and finds out a new partner in Malone. Max gets furious after hearing that and charges Malone. In return, Malone beats him and takes his phone.
Episode 7 – All Is Well in the Well of Loneliness
Malone uses Max’s phone to contact Lasalle and gives him the instruction to complete their deal. He notices a photo of Max and Maru on a boat while checking Max’s iPhone. He instructs Max to call the boat to come near the villa or he will kill him. With no options left, Max calls the boat to come.
Then he is thrown into the bathroom along with others. He tells Alba and Batty that he knows that Archibaldo’s death is not natural and all of this is happening for their karma.
As the boat arrives, the robbers tie Inocencia to the front door with a letter attached to her and Max to the dining table while they are monitoring them from the boat. But shockingly, we come to find out that an unknown masked killer is hiding behind the bushes. He first shoots Malone and then Sierra. He tries his best to shoot Clover, but she barely survives the ambush.
Episode 8 – The Myth of the Guilty Murderess
After this incident, we see that all the hostages are trying to free themselves from their bondage. Max successfully frees himself despite injuring himself badly. But when he goes to the bathroom to free the others, he blackmails Alba and Batty to tell them the secret behind Archibaldo’s death at least once or he leaves them in this state. In a panic, Batty reveals that she poisoned Archibaldo and that Alba has nothing to do with it.
But in the meantime, Inocencia mentioned that she noticed Batty poison Archibaldo’s drink. So, she took the poison jar out and replaced it with guaco, a Venezuelan herb, which helps to cure chronic cough and respiratory problems. Archibaldo suffered from those problems, so she swapped the poison with the herb with the intention to cure him. So, Archibaldo did not die from poisoning but from natural causes.
After hearing this, Max gets greedy to capture this on camera. So, he goes to his car to bring out his camera setup. But as he sets his foot out of the villa, he gets shot by the unknown masked assassin. After this final act of killing, Lasalle gets the message that his job is taken care of (which means the robbers are dead and the diamonds are secured).
After this incident, with much effort, Alba loosens her tie and eventually releases the others. They find that no one except the four women are there.
After the hectic 24 hours in their lives, they now get some relief. But before everything settles down, they go their separate ways. The creators make their ultimate outcome ambiguous. So, we can’t get to know what will happen in their lives.
We come to know that Maru stole a small number of diamonds from the robber’s stash the earlier day and conceals it in her vagina. In the end, she retrieves it and maybe she is going to start anew with it. Batty is too conscious of her guilt and tries to escape from it. But Alba consoles her and tells her that everything will be alright. And last but not the least, Inocencia gets a call from her child. She tells him to come down to the villa and live there as he actually deserves to live there with dignity as it is his father’s house.
Leopard Skin (Season 1) Ending, Explained:
What happens to the characters in the end?
At the end of any film or TV series, we hope to find a conclusion for the characters. But in this series, many questions are unanswered at the end, which rises speculation in our minds. So, what happened to our characters at the end of the series?
In the end, we come to see that Malone, Sierra, and Max get killed by the unknown masked assassin. But Clover barely survives the attack. The last time we see her in the series, she swims back to the shore. So, it can be possible that she will avenge the betrayal from Lasalle in the subsequent seasons.
In the final episode, we come to know that he owes money to someone, perhaps the drug cartel. But at the end of this season, he is shot by the masked assassin. So, it can be possible now that the cartel will chase his girlfriend, Maru to settle their score.
Despite these unanswered questions, there are some conclusions about our other characters. In the end, Inocencia invites her son to come down to the villa to live. He is the illegitimate child of Archibaldo. So, out of the stigma, Inocencia never brings him to the villa. But in the series, we see that she reveals the secret to everyone (Maru, Alba, and Batty). And everyone accepts the whole thing. So, now she is relieved from the stigma. Thus, she calls him and tells him to come to the villa, where he actually belongs.
Also, Alba and Batty get their reconciliation. Batty feels too guilty for plotting the murder of Archibaldo. But Alba realizes that she had done the heinous act to save herself from abuse of Archibaldo. So, she forgives her and tells her to forgive herself. Though initially hesitant, Batty forgives herself. Alba hugs her and they get their happy ending.
