‘Money Heist’ season 4 jumped the shark: All the reasons why
Netflix’s La Casa de Papel (or Money Heist, depending how far you’ve progressed in your Spanish Duolingo lessons) is a global phenomenon that took the world by storm when it first appeared. It is a tightly wound, good ol’fashioned bank heist of a show, and the first two seasons were a perfect bookend to the other.
Then it was rightfully recognized as a global sensation, and studio executives pushed to expand the limited series into something longer, throwing money at the show in the hope it would all make sense later.
It didn’t!
While the original 22 episodes followed one concentrated event that took years of planning (both for the show creators, and the characters in the series), the third and fourth seasons are a vague mess of government threats and kidnapping and plotting things in an Italian monastery.
Netflix renewed Money Heist with a notable budget for 16 new episodes, while a fifth and sixth season are already in the works (although that will be delayed due to the outbreak of COVID-19).
While we obviously want to see where things go from here, we can’t ignore the sloppy hot mess this series has become, compared with the fun hot mess it was earlier.
What exactly is the plan here?
The issue with the more recent seasons is that it has relied on recycling the plot of its earlier iterations. Money Heist has performed some mental gymnastics to justify its attack on the Bank of Spain.
Rio’s (Miguel Herrán) kidnapping was a fresh twist on the story, and it was interesting for the audience to think about: just because these people performed a successful bank heist does not mean they will ever truly be safe, they just painted a target on their backs worth 2.4 billion Euros.
However, instead of exploring the transition from an anonymous crime to living as marked men, the show gives up and sends everyone into the Bank of Spain on another heist.
The result is both predictable and ridiculous. Money Heist even finds ways to drag in some of our favorite villains like Arturo Román (Enrique Arce) for no other reason than he is fun to hate.
Give us a new villain!
Hostage negotiator Alicia Sierra (Najwa Nimri) was the one breath of fresh air to come out of the third season. She was also a fun twist on the relationship between Raquel Murillo (Itziar Ituño) and El Profesor (Álvaro Morte) from the earlier seasons.
However, with her discovery of El Profesor’s hiding spot by the end of the fourth season, we’re worried she’s going to join the team and lose all of her villain energy.
Nobody wants to spend this much time in a monastery, not even monks
The time jumps are just a tool for more flashbacks featuring Berlin (Pedro Alonso). He is dead! Move on to the living characters!
Speaking of which . . .
Stop killing our beautiful, talented, amazing, fantastic, incredible, dynamic, favorite characters
Nairobi (Alba Flores) deserved better. And the audience deserved better than having to sit through an entire season focused on saving her only for her to die in the final episode.
Maybe logic could be applied to the heist, for once
Not to judge, but El Profesor’s plan might have gone a little more smoothly if he hadn’t hired a bunch of beautiful, temperamental criminals with automatics to carry out the bank heist.
Like, maybe hire an accountant with critical thinking skills and an aversion to violence? It might have resulted in fewer fights.
While we were willing to suspend disbelief that all of these criminals that look like models would be able to successfully get along for more than two days at a time to perform the biggest bank heist in history, it is getting a little ridiculous. The show would benefit from more talking rationally and less screaming, both for the characters and the volume setting on our TVs.
