The Longest Night (Season 1, 2022) Review, Recap, and Ending Explained: Netflix’s new six-episode Spanish thriller ‘The Longest Night’ (La Noche más larga in Spanish) successfully hits its target of being an extremely ‘binge-able’ show. Each episode, with around forty-five minutes, takes the story forward at breakneck speed. Directed by Oscar Pedraza, from a screenplay written by Xose Morais and Victoriano Sierra Ferreiro, ‘The Longest Night’ is a breezy thriller with a deft exploration of moral ambiguity.
The Longest Night (Season 1, 2022) Recap:
The story starts on a Christmas night, with the arrest of Simon Lago (Luis Callejo), nicknamed ‘The Alligator,’ a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. Chillingly calm and neat, Simon is taken to a prison that also offers psychiatric treatment in Baruca, a place where he was not initially supposed to go. Baruch is a relatively low-security prison; that is why the decision to move Simon to this jail baffles its warden, Hugo (Alberto Ammann of ‘Narcos fame), who was in the middle of his Christmas celebration with his children.
Hugo has to leave for work, which makes his eldest daughter, Laura (Maria Caballero) chagrined, and she leaves for her mother’s and Hugo’s ex-wife’s house. However, the other two children, younger daughter Alicia and youngest child and only son Guillermo, accompany Hugo to the prison. After seeing Simon in his isolated cell, Hugo receives a video that shows Laura being kidnapped with a message not to hand over Simon to anyone and guarantee Simon’s safety till the morning or Laura dies.
At the same time, the prison is barraged with bullets and tear gas shells from an army of masked men. Their leader, Lennon (Jose Luis Garcia Perez), asks Hugo to hand Simon over to them. Upon refusal, he executes three inmates. Hugo does not confide his real reason for not surrendering Simon to anyone, not even to Dr. Elisa (Barbara Goenaga), who seems to be Hugo’s current girlfriend. The story deftly poses this sort of moral conundrum to most of its characters, and there are a lot of characters in the show.
After the first episode sets the tone for the series, the next three-four episodes would pass in a jiffy with high-octane cat and mouse chases and conflicts. Apart from the assailants trying to break into the prison and Hugo trying to collect his two children from a different wing of the prison and trying to keep everyone safe with other officers, the tension further increases with a riot and revolution organized by the more notorious inmates of the jail, spearheaded by their volatile leader named Cherokee (Daniel Albaladejo).
The Longest Night (Season 1, 2022) Review:
As mentioned above, the series has a lot of characters. Perhaps a little too many for its limited six-episode scope. However, it has to be praised that even in this fast-paced screenplay, some genuine arcs and moments are created for some of its characters. And the moral dilemmas it presents to most, if not all, of its central characters add a different dimension to the show’s time-constrained-action caper plane. The exploration of moral ambiguity hardly leaves any survivors here. No character is infallible, and no one is incorruptible.
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The acting by its vast cast is top-notch. Alberto Ammann and Jose Luis Garcia Perez have been the perfect opponents for each other. But special praise has to be reserved for Luis Callejo with his spine-chilling turn as the serial killer Simon Lago. Callejo’s performance is reminiscent of the performance of Kevin Spacey in David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’. He imbues a calm unpredictability where the only predictable thing is that he will definitely kill. Callejo makes Simon Lago both loathsome and scary.
The direction, cinematography, and editing help maintain the trapped feeling, both physically and emotionally, during the eponymous long night in prison. The flashbacks are shot neatly, and the back story that reflects psych of Simon is extremely subtle and carefully crafted. One of the best scenes of the series is the montage of Simon’s daily routine, making him descend into the killing spree with almost unnoticeable triggers.
The Longest Night (Season 1, 2022) Ending Explained: Did Laura die?
Chaos reigns supreme at the end of ‘The Longest Night’ season finale. Hugo finally succumbs to his choice of saving his daughter at the price of other people’s lives. Previously his refusal has made people lose their lives at the hands of mercenaries of Lennon. However, Hugo himself has not killed any of his compadres. That changes when one of his subordinates takes matters into her own hand and tries to hand Simon over; Hugo kills her (presumably as he pushes her off the roof of some three-story building).
The jailbreak, led by Cherokee, is set in motion, and Hugo’s two children go into hiding with Elisa. However, they are soon found by none other than Simon Lago. It is revealed that Lennon and his gangs are none other than the police. They have been getting instructions from an unnamed person, possibly from the higher echelon of society. Between the Christmas celebrations, that man has been passing information and education to Lennon.
Laura’s kidnappers are shown to be a couple; the wife is called Rosa. Rosa and her husband are also forced into kidnapping Laura as their own daughter is kidnapped as well. The couple’s instructions are to kill Laura if they do not receive a call from Simon or Hugo with a predetermined code phrase. Hugo does call them in the nick of time, but Laura gets into a seizure. It has been previously hinted that Laura has heart problems.
The person who kidnapped Rosa’s daughter gave her some injections and medicine. It is possible that they were already aware of Laura’s condition. Although Hugo believes Laura to be dead by the end, there is a possibility she might live.
Will there be a second season of The Longest Night?
Without question, there has to be another season. The show has not even come close to the ‘Why?’ of it. The ‘Why’s behind actions from both groups, the one wanting Simon to not appear in front of a judge and the one wanting the opposite, needs an explanation in upcoming seasons or seasons. In fact, this season only posed questions and answered very few of them.
As the sirens of police ring outside of Baruch, Hugo and Lennon sort of form an alliance to help each other. Lennon needs Hugo to masquerade in front of the incoming police force; Hugo needs Lennon’s withdrawal of force to get to his other two children.
The show ends with a photograph on the mantelpiece of Laura’s kidnapping couple’s house. The picture had the couple alright. But it also had Hugo and the aforementioned unnamed man’s face. It seems Hugo knows the couple as well as the possible mastermind behind his predicament. All in all, we should be looking forward to another edge-of-the-seat season of this show where the night is elongated even further.
