If there is a Spanish series well-known throughout the world on its own merits, that is La casa de papel (Álex Pina, since 2017). Well, and due to the invaluable help of Netflix and the great projection of its international platform, of course; that even the novelist Stephen King could get hooked on it like that.

But it is where it is more evident that the filmmakers of this European country have finally understood that series can no longer be made as before, than after incorporating the cinematographic perspective on television with Twin Peaks (David Lynch and Mark Frost, from 1990) and The X-Files (Chris Carter, since 1993) and after the globalized phenomena of Lost (JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber, 2004-2010) and Game of Thrones (David Benioff and DB Weiss, 2011-2019 ), the bland planning and simplistic montages that they have been offering us until the other day do not work.

With regard to the Navarrese Álex Pina, it seems that we can be calm. He has shown us that he has a lesson well learned in his series after La casa de papel: El embarcadero (2019-2020), White Lines (2020), and Sky Rojo (since 2021), the first and last, with his colleague Esther Martínez Lobato, who also works as producer and scriptwriter of the thriller about robbers in the red jumpsuit and Salvador Dalí masks, iconic at this point.

An irregular start that is redirected

These characters and those who want to stop their feet, with the Professor (Álvaro Morte) at the head in the case of some, now return with the fifth and final season on Netflix. The opening sequence of El final del camino (5×01), prior to the usual suggestive titles with “My Life Is Going On, Cecilia Krull’s family song, is both a way to remind us of the tessitura and to reintroduce ourselves in the tension and spirit of La casa de papel with an absolutely talented speed and glorious choral music by the usual composers, Iván Martínez Lacámara and Manel Santisteban ( Vis a vis ).

And the contextualizing flashbacks and the spark of eloquent dialogues also return, to which the seams are seen a bit in the later scenes due to the rhythm with some haste in the six-handed montage, those of Luis Miguel González Bedmar ( La que looming ), Raúl Mora ( Aída ) and Patricia Rubio ( Sky Rojo ); and that undermines the hypnosis you want to achieve for Netflix viewers.

The recognizable virtues of La casa de papel

Fortunately, this situation is redirected and the footage is on track in the usual cleaning of La casa de Papel. And here is a sequence propped up with a classic musical theme that is very vivid and quite funny, and its sly humor, very grateful. In addition to the complex compositions we expect, assembled like a puzzle with complete meaning and the glue of the usual Tokyo voice-over (Úrsula Corberó).

In the first chapter and during “Do you believe in reincarnation?” (5×02) remains the bewilderment of the unpredictable and the healthy curiosity that generates the doubt of how the hell they will be able to get out of similar difficulties, the supreme virtue of what engages in a greater degree than almost any other narrative proposal. AThe paper house only lacks the fascinating, as in the baroque density of Hannibal (Bryan Fuller, 2013-2015) or the fantastic maze of Dark (Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, 2017-2020) Álex Pina for auction that specific task.

But, if something distinguishes this part of his most outstanding television fiction, it is that it offers us less introspection and not so much development of the relationships between the characters, to the benefit of intrigue and action. He gets to the point without too much circumlocution; that is, it simplifies a bit in the depth of its dramatic charge. What a pleasure, on the other hand, villainy or antagonism to the same stature as the most ingenious protas. And, in short, the two chapters with which the fifth season of La casa de papel on Netflix begins suffer ups and downs, yes, but what shines dazzles us as always.