The end of ‘La casa de papel’ put on the table a double bet for Netflix. Not only did it have to be a satisfactory conclusion that justified three seasons for the same heist, but it had to overcome the closure of the ingenious assault of the first two seasons, something that he achieves by increasing the stake to delusional levels, but functioning as a gear that does not leave out any of the elements that it throws on the table.
The ideas presented in the last chapter justify a longer journey than usual, but make it clear that everything is so well tied from the beginning that the extension to 26 episodes of the plan is excessive. Actually it does not matter so much because the road has been a roller coaster of emotions, twists, departures from “plan a”, detours to “plan b”, steps to a “plan c” and even improvisation that also gives an oxygen to the difficulty, but with some cuts the coda would have had an even more powerful punching effect, since it did not accuse the fatigue of carrying everything on the edge at all times.
And is that ‘La casa de papel’ is pure hyperbole, feelings multiplied by a thousand at all times, emotions celebrated to the maximum and low moments in which it seems that there is no possible way out. The joy is jubilation, the action is exorbitant, the violence is on the limit and all these explosions are accompanied by a frantic montage, songs and music that seeks to elevate the sensation to levels of unreality that connect the narrative of the series with the anime. The eyes cry to the maximum, the characters are deformed to the caricature in the role they represent.
## SPOILERS sobre el final en el texto
Even his ability to stretch time is reminiscent of the great ‘Champions’ football matches, in which the space from one goal to another lasted half a chapter and an unexpected entry from the opposing team became a turn that led to the protagonists (and the viewer) to total emotional ruin. Is pure sequential expressionism that shoves the audience into a cocktail shaker and shakes it until drunk and exhausted. A trip that is worth it but that by the time he puts on a white glove, in his final stretch, we have some excess of turns and dangers.
A clever and meaningful illusion trick
But this does not change that the last final trick is memorable. The script for the fifth season plays into confusion with a series of flashbacks from Berlin that seem like inclusions forced by international demand to watch and devour minutes with the character. In fact, when the spin off starring Pedro Alonso was announced, it seemed that they had included the typical pilot episode of a new series, interspersing with treachery a story of a past robbery with new characters and a slightly different tone.
But in the end of episode 8 we are shown that there was a good reason for that flashback. The professor is robbed by his own nephew thanks to the information he obtains from his father and it all makes sense. Even the method of the change that his brother uses will serve as inspiration for the final proposal. The detail that the gold is stolen at the last moment is a masterstroke of the script, since it is an unexpected escape that disrupts the most important step of the process, having the gold to negotiate the exit.
The tension is divided into three sources, which allows Alicia, one of the great characters of the series, to take the reins on her own as a member of the gang, teaming up with Logroño in a mission against the clock that can only be solved by someone with his wicked wit. Adding the great antagonist of the last two seasons as an ally is one of the keys of a crescendo of emotion that leaps on itself to surprise and improve when this seems impossible.
A Hollywood action show in the spirit of Bruguera comics
On the other hand it moves the hilarious “thumb plan”, which elevates the character of the series’ accomplice mockery with a false “follow the tracks” to unhinge the police worthy of an episode of ‘Coyote and Roadrunner’. The media coverage with the thieves explaining the theft to destabilize international markets is crowned with the images of large ships “combing the Cantabrian Sea” to find the gold that makes the country the laughing stock of Europe, giving such a touch to the economy that it causes that accepting fake loot is the only way out.
An idea that seems very simple but within ‘La Casa de papel’ it works on several levels. On one side is tremendously consistent with the modus operandi from teacher, proposing just the inverse of the previous one. If instead of withdrawing fake money created in an “official” and valid way, the plan here is as simple as introducing gold from brass to keep the real one. With a difference, there is a deal with the state that involves letting yourself be robbed and on top of taking out the robbers between cotton wool. Once the treasure was removed, the exit plan had always been that.
In addition, the deal has a double clause, it not only serves to keep the gold, but also to gain a life in freedom that means the gang stops fearing for their safety or that they go through a kidnapping like the one in Rio. For this they do need to recover the real gold, since if something happened to them, they would reveal that the Government actually has a phantom reserve. They are several pieces that fit surprisingly well and leave no room for action. Once they have taken the gold, the checkmate position is like the real ones in chessIt is difficult to realize that you have lost until you check that there is no possibility of movement.
The series of the crisis and the neopicaresque
The exchange creates a tabula rasa consistent with the spirit of ‘La casa de papel’, a modern picaresque tale that It claims itself as an international product without renouncing its national character. The series is James Cameron and John McTiernan, but also ‘Mortadelo y Filemón’ or ‘El tío Vázquez’, so its final key cannot be more idiosyncratic than let the world flow while hundreds of brass ingots sleep underwater in the national reserve with a small golden bath. There is nothing more Iberian than this. Perhaps the explanation of Lazarillo de Tormes to Tamayo was unnecessary, but it is possible that otherwise they would not have understood it in the United States or India.
A brilliant script idea that also highlights the fragility of an economy based on assumptions, on possible wealth, on phantom deposits, which, in the middle of the virtual currency bubble, it couldn’t be more relevant. It also represents a finishing touch (jé) to the populist spirit of the band, a sympathy based on the sign of the times, in the aftermath of a crisis that has created a type of fiction – the very success of ‘The Squid Game’ it has a similar basis – it relies on the lack of trust of the middle and lower classes in institutions and is well represented in the series with the similarity of Dalí’s masks to Anonymus.
‘La casa de papel’ is a phenomenon that has known how to play its connection cards with the public from the beginning to the end, with an enviable playful vocation, very generous and dedicated to the spectator, whose final section not only achieves the pharaonic task of complete a puzzle with an extremely complicated structure, performing his illusion trick with engineer precision, but instead sets a status quo between all the elements that define the series (and Spanish) as intelligent and meaningful as the teacher’s own master plan.