“Reina Roja” is a crime thriller drama adapted from a novel series called “The Red Queen.” The series revolves around the protagonist, Antonia, who is really smart and is the chosen one to solve cases that the ordinary police force can’t do. She has her traumas because of tragedies in her life and partly because of a study she takes part in. We then have Gutiérrez, a very likable, funny, and loving cop who gets in trouble for helping lost causes. Both of them are paired up to solve unsolvable and difficult cases.
This article contains spoilers.
Red Queen (Reina Roja) Season 1 Review:
The series, as a crime thriller, manages to keep you thinking throughout. Two opposites are Antonia, a person with a high IQ who has unique abilities but has gone through a lot of tragedy in life, and Gutiérrez, who has a way of dealing with people on a human level but is funny and upbeat. This duo is paired, and it works beautifully for the characters. By the end, Antonia, along with being smart, knows how to relate to people on an emotional level.
The series adds very interesting elements to the mix. It gives you questions about right and wrong and a perspective on what the people in power can do and are willing to sacrifice. The editing work is done wonderfully especially the scenes where Antonia is using her abilities to connect the dots to any situation. Both the lead actors’ chemistry is commendable, and they played their characters convincingly.
Red Queen (Reina Roja) Season 1 Recap:
Episode 1: A Leap
The episode opens with Antonia Scott standing at her window sill contemplating jumping off the building. There are jump-cuts to show her thinking of other different ways to kill herself. Gutiérrez, a police officer, makes a noise as he enters her flat, and she opens her eyes, revealing these are her visualizations. She sees Gutiérrez and tells him to tell his mentor she isn’t interested, and he is taken aback as he does not get a chance to say what he wants to.
She asks Gutiérrez peculiar questions to test him out. Eventually, he gives up and starts to descend the stairs and finds her waiting for him on the ground floor. A flashback to 48 hours ago reveals Gutiérrez helping out a girl who is beaten up. However, he gets in trouble and has lost his gun and badge privileges because he helps lost cases. The mentor is the supervisor of the Red Queen organization, and he tells Gutiérrez about Antonia Scott.
The mentor asks Gutiérrez to convince Antonia Scott to work for them again, and after that, he will get his badge and gun privileges. Gutiérrez asks him why he is chosen to do this job, and he explains that Antonia has a very high IQ and is chosen for the job as he has a way of convincing people. Gutiérrez agrees to do the job. Carla is arguing with her father, millionaire Ramon Ortiz, about work-related issues. He is leaving for London, and she takes her leave as well.
Before going home, she stops by to take her horse with her. They are on the way, and she is talking to her son on the phone, telling him she will visit him in his dreams, but there is a roadblock ahead, and they need to reroute. Antonia Scott agrees to work with Gutiérrez and asks him to drive her to Laura Trueba’s house. She is a well-known banker. Gutiérrez is surprised by the location and is a lot more surprised when she says that a victim is waiting there.
They reach Laura Trueba’s house to find her son, Alvaro Trueba, dead. We see Antonia Scott in her element as she assesses the situation. She tells her mentor and others that his head was dipped in liquid nitrogen, and blood was slowly pulled out from his body. There is also a biblical reference as the victim had ingested oil and wine, which, in a way, suggests that the killer’s sins could be washed off. Carla’s driver stops to figure out the route, sees a man in the distance, and assumes he is a guard. However, the man slits the driver’s throat.
Carla does not open the door, so he slits her horse’s head. He then breaks open the car window with a fire extinguisher. Carla manages to run away from him but stops as she has something stuck to her feet. She’s in pain but manages to remove it and hears the killer whistling. Antonia Scott, on the other hand, informs the mentor that the murder was not done elsewhere, and the body is brought here. She then disappears. We see a flashback to the time Antonia is married and has a child and she’s discussing with her husband about a Swedish word. In the present, she visits a hospital and finds her husband on the bed, kisses him, and sits by his side. Carla is running from the killer but gets caught, and he injects her with something.
Episode 2: A Tattoo
The episode begins with Ezequiel (the killer) cutting Carla’s hair while whistling. Carla’s father is on a flight, and he gets a call from Ezequiel saying he has hurt his daughter and will continue to do so. Ramon Ortiz asks Ezequiel how much money he needs, but Ezequiel tells him that he does not need money but something that will cost him a lot.
Gutiérrez gets a call from the mentor asking to meet him soon. He tells Gutiérrez that criminals are walking in broad daylight, and you won’t know who is or isn’t a culprit. The mentor then reveals that a few years back, there was a program that was created where the best officers from the country would be chosen to work outside the system, as this is the easiest way to catch unusual culprits.
Antonia is having a conversation with her grandmother on a video call, and it shows that only her grandmother understands her well. Gutiérrez is asked to investigate the kidnapping along with Antonia. He visits Antonia at the hospital, and they share a meal. Before Gutiérrez said anything, Antonia knew there was a kidnapping, and Gutiérrez was surprised. She already predicted such a thing would happen again.
They visit Ramon Ortiz and already there are other officers present. They assume Gutiérrez and Antonia are from the Interpol. Antonia uses her special skills and analyses everything in the house to understand Carla. Roamon does not answer when Antonia asks what the demands of the kidnapper are. Things get a little ugly when the other officers do not like them being around. Still, Antonia handles the situation by saying they are from the Anti-kidnapping unit and are only there to observe.
Ezequiel is psychologically torturing Carla, and she gives him her phone password. Antonia says the name Ezequiel has a biblical meaning. She tries to track her phone, but Ezequiel has changed the password. Antonia reveals that Carla loves her hair but is insecure about her body, and she has a narcissistic personality. They visit Carla’s ex-husband, but it is a useless meeting. Meanwhile, Gutiérrez meets a journalist he had arrested once.
They drive through the forest. Carla had been kidnapped the same night she was kidnapped. Antonia sees a lot of birds and realizes there will be bugs. They do find the driver and horse’s dead bodies. As they are investigating, Ezequiel speeds up in his car toward them, but Gutiérrez saves Antonia. They chase Ezequiel, and Ezequiel shoots at them. When Gutiérrez tries to do the same, Ezequiel escapes. The mentor is mad at them as the secret mission isn’t a secret anymore. Later, after analyzing the photos, Gutiérrez clicked and got a lead that Ezequiel had a tattoo. Carla hears some woman crying and finds a space to communicate with her. Her name is Sandra and she is also locked up just like Carla.
Episode 3: A Pill
The episode begins with Antonia taking part in a study. The peculiar question she had asked Gutiérrez is asked to Antonia in the study. The members conducting the study are impressed with her and consider her to be one of the smartest people. In the present, Carla is weeping and talking to Sandra. Sandra asks Carla to be careful. If not, Ezequiel will hurt her. Sandra is a taxi driver, and he kidnaps her from the taxi.
Gutiérrez and Antonia visit Laura to ask questions about her son’s death, but her secretary says they only have 15 minutes to talk to her. Antonia realizes the secretary knows more than she is letting on. They ask Laura if she can recognize the tattoo and she says she didn’t. However, she seems busy, but Gutiérrez asks her if this is more important than her son’s death. Antonia asks her what Ezequiel’s demand was, but she says he asked something that nobody can give. Antonia starts to see visions of chimpanzee and rushes out of the building. Gutiérrez finds her, and she is unconscious.
They get talking, and she reveals that she needs to take the pill as it is collateral damage. Moreover, they realize that Laura and Ramon need to give a confession as everyone has secrets, and Ezequiel is expecting a public confession. They also follow Laura’s secretary but get caught. We see a flashback to the time when Antonia was part of the study, and she was given an extra dosage of something to make her smarter, but the side effect is that when she gets stressed, she sees the visions, and she needs to take the pill.
Antonia and Gutiérrez visit Ramon. Antonia sneaks into the building and asks Ramon to tell the truth about Ezequiel’s demand, but the security catches her. The journalist whom Gutiérrez knew was shooting a video of what was happening. Cop Parra arrives at the scene, insults Gutiérrez, and hits him, and the journalist captures the whole incident. Ezequiel enters Sandra’s chamber, and we can hear both Sandra and Carla wail. After a while Sandra tells Carla that Ezequiel had told her who she is and they aren’t the same. Ezequiel sexually assaults Sandra.
Towards the end of the episode, Gutiérrez meets Antonia at her place and fixes her hair to make her look prettier. Both of them bond over time. Antonia takes a taxi, and on the way, she realizes it’s Ezequiel driving her. She tries to ask him what he wants, but he does not give a direct answer. Antonia tries to escape, but he hurts her with a knife. Subsequently, Antonia asks if he is going to kill her, but he says she hasn’t understood anything. Now, Antonia is trapped in the moving car.
Episode 4: A Spanish Tortilla
The episode begins with a flashback when Antonia is on a dinner date. She and her partner are having a lovely evening with food, drinks and Flamenco when a strange man wants to talk to Antonia. She creates a distraction and talks to him. He warns her about someone called Mr. White, who is considered to be the smartest man in the world. The strange man believes Mr. White will harm her because of her intelligence.
In the present, Antonia wakes up to murals in front of her. She remembers being kidnapped by Ezequiel. Gutiérrez calls her, and she sends him her location and asks him to bring a change of clothes. She starts to analyze the murals, and she comes across articles about the negative things Laura was doing. Gutiérrez arrives, and she tells him that they need to go to La Finca as there was a party the night Laura’s son was killed.
Carla is starting to hallucinate and starts to see Sandra in her cell. She imagines Sandra asking her to join forces to kill Ezequiel. Gutiérrez is mad at Antonia for worrying her and warns her he will chew her brains out if she ever does that again. She starts to change in front of Gutiérrez, and he notices a strange bruise on her back. At La Finca, at first, the security isn’t ready to cooperate with them, but Antonia plays a game of blackjack and bribes them.
They realize the CCTV is bugged, and there is a glitch at the exact time when the taxi is entering the building. They give it to their team to analyze, and they report back, saying that two people are sitting at the front. Gutiérrez is tired as he hasn’t eaten anything and takes Antonia home as well for lunch. Gutiérrez’s mother is accommodating, but it feels peculiar to Antonia. Antonia also believes the reason Ezequiel didn’t kill her is because he is trying to send a message.
The duo reaches a tattoo parlor, as that is the place where Ezequiel got his strange tattoo. The man who did the tattoo has a stroke but communicates with Antonia with Morse code. There are only four people who have such a tattoo. One of them is dead because of cancer, and the other has moved to Germany. They sneak into the third man’s house. There, the man reveals that Fajardo also has the tattoo, and his kid died, and he couldn’t get over it. For a while, he was put in a mental institution, but he just vanished.
Antonia calls Parra to inform him of the developments, but Parra already knows, and they are getting ready to arrest him. Antonia tells Gutiérrez that it doesn’t make sense for Ezequiel to leave the taxi in an abandoned place along with his fingerprints. He is sure he is trying to send another message, and they decide to visit the mental institution. Parra isn’t thrilled that Antonia and Gutiérrez know about Fajardo.
Episode 5: A Choice
The episode begins with Antonia and Gutiérrez meeting the owner of the asylum. He recalls Fajardo and calls him different. He refuses to share his file with them, but Gutiérrez blackmails him, and he succumbs. Antonia and Gutiérrez analyzed the documents and realized that Fajardo had bipolar disorder and had a tendency to harm others and himself. On a lot of these papers the word “I am not bad, I am not weak” is scribbled. He also has symptoms of Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sandra talks to Carla again and Carla reassures her that they will work together as a team. Antonia and Gutiérrez talk to their team and get to know that the license number is fake and the car is the same as Fajardo’s daughter’s death. Antonia wonders why Fajardo had left so many clues. Thomas calls Gutiérrez, and they meet. He is fired, but he shows CCTV footage of a gas station. It’s the same taxi, but a woman gets out. Antonia realizes that Fajardo’s daughter is not dead, but they have created a story like that. Fajardo’s daughter is his accomplice.
The police have reached Fajardo’s house, and Gutiérrez calls Parra to stop him from entering as it is a trap. Fajardo and Sandra (his daughter) are watching the scene from CCTV camera footage. Carla can hear them, and she screams, but they can’t hear her. Sandra presses a button, and a bomb blows off, and Parra’s colleague is killed. Parra is saving another officer, and the second bomb blows off. Antonia and Gutiérrez come to the officer’s rescue, but Parra is severely wounded.
Sandra tries to talk to Carla and starts laughing, and that’s when Carla realizes that she is working with Fajardo. Sandra says her father is soft sometimes, and they also have a very close relationship. Carla tells her that her father will pay whatever they ask, and then Sandra reveals that she had asked her father to talk about their workshops and one specific one publicly. Carla realizes what is happening and is disappointed.
The journalist releases the video on Gutiérrez and Antonia and this puts them in a bad place. The mentor ignores both of them and tells Antonia that she is no longer a Red Queen. Gutiérrez apologizes to Antonia for not telling her everything before. They started to bond when Antonia took him to show her son playing football. She breaks down, saying she lost her son’s custody and about not finding Mr. White.
Gutiérrez visits Parra and promises to kill Fajardo. Sandra is getting ready to go out, and when Fajardo asks her where she is going, she gets angry. She twists his arm and reminds him not to whistle that song, but he says it’s difficult, so she hurts his finger, and he shouts. Sandra leaves and visits Antonia’s son’s school and kills a couple of people on the way. She also kills Antonia’s son’s teacher and finds him watching her scared.
Episode 6: A Disguise
The episode begins with Carla having a vision about her dad but then hears someone in the next cell. She realizes it’s a child, and he introduces himself as Jorge. Carla is heartbroken because a child is brought to such a place. Gutiérrez hears that there has been a kidnapping in a school and realizes it’s Jorge (Antonia’s son) who is kidnapped. Antonia does not know any of this, and she enters Marcos’s (Antonia’s husband) hospital room and finds her dad.
He asks her what she has done to Jorge, and then she realizes something is wrong. Her father does not show any affection towards her, nor is he ready to believe that she has nothing to do with Jorge missing. He tells her that there are police waiting outside, so she better reveal where Jorge is. She gets angry and slaps her father and runs away. The police are chasing her and she does get caught.
Gutiérrez sees the commotion outside and rams the vehicle Antonia is in. He yells at her and asks her to go underground and save Jorge. She runs inside a store and waits in the changing room. Mentor calls and tells her he is unblocking her temporarily and informs her that her phone is getting tracked. He is doing this only for old times’ sake, and he likes Jorge. She asks for time as she knows Fajardo will call.
Eventually, he does call, and Antonia asks to talk to Sandra. Sandra gives her a couple of days to choose between saving Jorge or Carla. Antonia is being followed again, and she runs away. Gutiérrez is at the hospital but is arrested. Antonia’s father tells him not to protect her as everything she touches is ruined, and she has no friends. He calls her unstable and someone who thinks they are better than the others. Gutiérrez tells the man that he has no clue who her daughter is and asks him to leave.
Carla and Jorge start to bond, and she tries to calm him down. He gives her an important detail on what can be a trigger word for Fajardo. She makes Jorge scream Dad multiple times, and when he approaches the door, she calls out to him and confronts him, saying he is a good man and he is surrendering to his daughter. Antonia visits the tattoo studio and gets the girl’s help to fix her stitches. That night, Antonia dreams about her mother.
The tattoo artist suggests she needs to hide her identity and gives her a makeover. She has a tattoo, and her dress has changed as well. She visits the other man with the tattoo, Fajardo’s friend. He reveals that he had guessed that Fajardo had vanished with the woman he met at the asylum. Antonia is confused as she is his daughter, but the man says it is impossible. Fajardo gives antibiotics for Carla’s foot and says her day of death is decided. Antonia sneaks up on Gutiérrez’s mother and asks her if she can count on her to rescue Gutiérrez.
Episode 7: A Mirror
The episode begins with Gutiérrez’s mother bringing him food. In a flashback to a few hours before, we see Antonia and Gutiérrez’s mother preparing some medicine that will help Gutiérrez escape the hospital. In the present, Gutiérrez’s mother gives him a pill and asks him to be strong. Gutiérrez’s pulse is going up, and he is moved to a different room and kept under observation. Sandra and Fajardo are arguing as Sandra wants him to kill both Jorge and Carla immediately and not at the given deadline.
Meanwhile, the cops arrive at the tattoo artist’s place looking for Antonia. Antonia anticipates this and leaves without telling the girl but only informing her father, Daniel. After checking the place they don’t find Antonia. Carla and Jorge talk, and through the conversation, Carla gets an idea, and she starts to peel and break one title of the wall. Gutiérrez wakes up and jokingly curses his mother for putting him through the situation.
The cops and the doctors open the room door to find him missing. Just in time his mother picks him up and asks him to change. Antonia sends an underground map to him along with a video in her weird way thanking and apologizing to Gutiérrez. She also asks him to get underground so they can converse better and save Jorge and Carla. In a flashback, we see Antonia convince Laura to meet her by saying she knows everything.
Antonia tells Laura that her son is taken, and Laura reveals that the boy murdered is not her son but Theresa’s (her secretary) son. They went to the same school and were of the same age, so it can be confusing, and hence her son is living with Theresa. Antonia had asked Laura for a gun, and she delivered. Ramon talks to his lawyer about missing Carla and how he never could get through to her. He also mentions that if he had raised her well she would have taken the same decisions he had taken.
Antonia and Gutiérrez are both underground and are communicating. Antonia sees a gate and also finds a bomb. She manages to deactivate and, after walking further, sees a connection between the murals and a painting on the wall. She tells Gutiérrez that there are bombs across Madrid and she will guide him not to step on any. Gutiérrez comes through a tunnel and finds pictures of himself, his mother, and Antonia. Seeing his mother’s picture, he is riled up and almost steps on a bomb but is saved by Antonia’s warnings.
Antonia is walking through another tunnel and starts to have the vision of a chimpanzee and starts to worry, but this time, Gutiérrez saves her by reminding her to think of Jorge, and this calms her down. He tells her that she does not need any pills. Fajardo enters Carla’s cell, and Carla takes the tile piece she has broken and stabs his eye. He stops moving, and she takes the key bunch and opens Jorge’s door. Fajardo comes in and attacks Carla, and luckily, Gutiérrez arrives.
Fajardo shoots at Gutiérrez, and he falls. Carla and Jorge are stuck, but Fajardo asks Jorge to run. Meanwhile, Antonia lures Sandra to the tunnels, and Sandra tells her she has passed all the tests. Jorge runs down and asks for his grandfather, and Antonia talks to him and asks him to run. Antonia and Sandra get into a gunfight. Meanwhile, Fajardo is about to shoot Carla, but Gutiérrez saves her. Fajardo stabs Gutiérrez and pins him but Carla shoots Fajardo.
Red Queen (Reina Roja) Season 1 Ending, Explained:
Can Antonia save her son Jorge?
Sandra realizes Antonia has run out of bullets and tells her it’s game over, but Antonia outsmarts her and makes sure she steps on the bomb. Jorge runs towards his mother. We now see the future of all the people. Laura gets her son back. Carla is back at work and showcasing her work. Gutiérrez is given a respectful welcome at work. Antonia and Jorge are living together and bonding. The mentor watches them play on the ground, takes something from the pill box, and chews.
Gutiérrez meets Antonia, and they share a hearty laugh, but Gutiérrez tells her that they have found Fajardo’s daughter’s grave, and it is Fajardo’s daughter. Antonia goes into a spiral and tells Gutiérrez that someone wants her out of the rabbit hole and someone is playing a game. Upon asking, she says this has been Mr. White’s game all along.
The ending tells us what Season 2 (if there is one) will primarily focus on. Mr. White has been brought up in the last few episodes, and Season 1 can be seen as what Mr. White is capable of by introducing Sandra into the picture. It is possible that Mr. White is Antonia’s figment of imagination to cope with trauma, or Mr. White can be the mentor as well. What’s still unclear is Ramon’s workshop. Laura’s truth was revealed, but we don’t know much about Ramon.
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