Muted, ofStilted, is a new Spanish mystery series on Netflix that launches with the unusual promise that a mute protagonist will be accused of committing a heinous crime. The plot revolves around Sergio Ciscar, a young man who pushed his parents off their apartment balcony when he was still an adult. Although Sergio was in prison for his actions, he never spoke to police or judicial authorities about why he committed the crime, even after six years. Despite the interesting premise and fun visual style,Mutedit ends up being unconvincing and self-indulgent and ultimately not worth watching.
Spoiler alert
'Understated' plot summary: what is the show about?
Mutedopens with a scene one evening in which a woman cycles calmly down the main road, but is startled when she suddenly sees someone fall from a high balcony of an apartment. When the victim, a woman, lies dead, another victim, this time a man, falls in the same way. As a crowd gathers around the two dead bodies, we are taken to the apartment they fell from, with a teenager named Sergio in view. It is clear from the condition of the apartment that a major brawl took place there, and Sergio was shocked and nervous about the whole incident. He walks around calling out to someone named Noa, then Noa is revealed to be his younger sister, a child of seven or eight. Sergio sits down to comfort Noa, and as the siblings embrace, the timeline shifts to six years later.
After serving most of his prison sentence, Sergio Ciscar is released from juvenile detention and the man remains silent to the authorities. During all this time, Sergio has only spoken to a few select people and has not told them about his murder. Dubbed the "Balcony Killer", his public image is still tarnished as most want him to be severely punished for killing his parents. To understand the man's reasoning and way of thinking, a psychiatric expert named Ana Dussuel is given special permission by the court to conduct a detailed investigation of Sergio. As part of this investigation, Sergio's apartment and building are planted with numerous hidden cameras and Ana is given access to all of the city's security cameras. The plan is to constantly monitor Sergio and analyze his psyche. However, what emerged at the end of this experiment was something completely unexpected for all the characters involved.
What was Nathanael Torroja involved in?
The conditions under which Sergio was released from prison are two: that he will always wear an ankle bracelet and stay out of trouble, and that he will serve the remainder of his prison sentence as community service with a religious organization. A man named Natanael Torroja leads this organization, which offers a second chance to ex-convicts and criminals by making them work in a large greenhouse, where various plants are grown. The judge in Sergio's case was the one who appointed Nathanael, who is also an evangelical priest, as the young man's teacher. Natanael's role is to help Sergio achieve a mental state where he can reintegrate into society without posing a threat to anyone's safety. Despite the obvious psychological and religious associations woven into the whole, Nathanael's character and his greenhouse farmland seem extremely suspicious and dubious.
The first few days go very smoothly, as the priest introduces Sergio to his wife and other workers, even protecting the young man from some other former prisoners who don't like him. But soon after, after Sergio starts visiting the farm regularly for work, Nathanael becomes quite controlling and harsh towards the protagonist, often bossing him around. He has Sergio write him a list of all the people the young man considers close, almost as if there was an ulterior motive behind it. Even the way Nathanael's greenhouse farm works makes it seem like the man is actually growing drugs in secret.
althoughMutednever show anything like this or even clarify why Natalael's character develops so negatively, the guy looks more suspicious with every episode. The whole thing escalates with the arrival of another young woman named Arantxa, who arrives at the farm shortly after Sergio. The woman shows some interest in Sergio, as they are both the same age, but Nathanael doesn't take it well. He tells Sergio to stay away, and then it is finally revealed that Natanael forced Arantxa into sexual intimacy with high-ranking government clients to win their favor. It seems likely that Natanael Torroja is actually involved in criminal or illegal affairs, and in order to gain support from corrupt rulers, forces Anrantxa to become intimate with them. It is also very likely that the man is forcing Arantxa into intimate relations with him. In the case of Sergio and the other male members, Nathanael may want to train them to become criminals for his organized cult-like group, so he helps juvenile convicts.
Finally, Sergio confronts Natanael, and the older man is about to attack him when Arantxa deals a heavy blow to the wicked man. Until now, Arantxa had been used many times and as revenge she wanted to hurt Nathanael herself. But another woman joins in - Natalael's wife, Silvia - who now also wants revenge on the man for cheating on her and also for ruining a young woman's life. Arantxa and Silvia kill Nathanael together as Sergio leaves the scene.
Why did Sergio kill his parents? Where was the younger sister, Noa?
Gradually, as the plot progresses, the real reason for Sergio's silence about the murders he has committed is revealed. After Marta successfully approaches him, he shows her the videos young Noa has been recording on his phone all along. While researching these recordings, Ana discovers that Sergio has been given vials of medicine by his mother Blanca. As Ana well knew, Blanca Ciscar was a well-known psychiatrist with extensive experience in the field. In fact, Blanca was very supportive of Ana during her academic and professional days, and the two almost had a mother-daughter relationship. When Sergio later gets a chance to talk about it, the young man says that his mother did indeed give him experimental drugs as some kind of cruel experiment. Sergio was very negatively affected by these drugs, and although he wanted the experiments to stop, Blanca always managed to get him to take the drugs.
After passing those extremely tough tests from Blanca, Sergio discovered that his mother's next target was his younger sister Noa. Although Noa was an adopted child, she was always very close to Sergio and her brother always treated her extremely protectively. Sergio states that on the night of the murder, Blanca was determined to try her cure on Noa, while the boy did his best to stop her. He then enlisted his father, Javier, who also disapproved of Blanca's scheme, resulting in a major argument between the pair. The argument quickly turned into a fierce fight and in the heat of the moment Javier pushed Blanca off their balcony. Shocked by what he had just done and still full of love for his wife, the man jumped off the balcony and killed himself. So, according to Sergio's confession, it was his father who killed his mother and then killed himself. The protagonist says he didn't reveal this before because he wanted to protect Noa from seeing her parents, so he kept her company. By the time the police arrived, they were sure that Sergio had committed the crime, and the boy never claimed his innocence because no one believed him.
It is also revealed that Noa was adopted by Ana and her husband after a horrible incident where her parents were killed and her older brother was imprisoned. Currently, Noa is a teenager who lives in Ana's house as a daughter. Although Noa still vividly remembers everything that happened in her former childhood home, she doesn't seem to say much about it to anyone. A girl is touched after seeing the news that her brother has been released from prison, but there's not much she can do about it. In the end, when the opportunity arises for Noa to go and meet Sergio, she is adamant about doing so, even against her father's wishes. In fact, the final confrontation takes place at Sergio's house, where Ana is already present, and then Noah arrives.
Why did police inspector Cabrera try to sabotage Ana's job?
From the moment Police Inspector Cabrera became part of Ana's team, something seemed wrong with his intentions. The man claimed to be part of the team because the police wanted to check the psychiatric evaluation as well as Ana herself. However, Cabrera repeatedly tries to create situations where the experiment can no longer be sustained and Ana's work must be stopped. First he arrests Sergio for a staged crime, which is a great relief to him because Ana can no longer follow the young man because he has been sent back to prison. When Ana manages to get Sergio back out, Cabrera shows up and instead hires two of Ana's trusted employees to work for him. At first he gets Mikel, and through him Cabrera plants a surveillance bug in Ana's office to hear all her personal plans. Subsequently, Cabrera also enlists Greta, who is Ana's sidekick and assistant, and sets out to take down the psychiatrist.
Inspector Cabrera turns out to be a corrupt police officer who worked for an influential and powerful man in the government or industrial sector. Although this man has been seen several times,Mutedhe doesn't seem to reveal who he is or what his motive is for stopping Anna. Judging by the hints left in some scenes, it seems that the influential man was involved with the lab that made the neurotic drugs that Blanca was testing on her son Sergio. Since the public disclosure of the existence and experimentation of such drugs would lead to great slander against the laboratory, the man wanted this psychiatric investigation stopped and Sergio Ciscar returned to prison. This was why he paid Cabrera to sabotage the operation, and their ultimate victory came when Cabrera was able to get hold of the drug ampoules that Ana had collected as evidence. Since the vials are the only thing connecting the lab to this case, the crook throws them into the water, destroying the evidence. But Mikel managed to keep one vial, which he used to file an official complaint against the lab and Cabrera. In the end, Inspector Cabrera is arrested on corruption charges and is believed to be imprisoned.
'Muted' ending explained: What happens to Noah, Ana and Sergio?
When Noa finally arrives at Sergio's apartment, the same place where their parents died six years ago, the girl lets her brother hug her. It is clear that she also has enough love for the young man, but then Noa discovers that everything Sergio said in his alleged confession is completely untrue. Noah then makes the ultimate revelation - Sergio was already a bad boy with seemingly the wrong influences in his life. He also suffered from various mental disorders for which Blanca treated him herself by giving him medication. However, Sergio believed that these drugs were experimental drugs and also strongly believed that his mother poisoned him on purpose. On the night of the murder, Sergio came home late in a very aggressive mental state and had a major argument with Blanca when she tried to administer the medication. At that moment, Sergio attacked his mother and pushed her off the balcony. When Javier came running a little later, the boy had also pushed his father, which means that he was directly responsible for the death of both parents.
This revelation clearly shows that Sergio was indeed a psychopath who constantly made up stories and told them convincingly to ensure his safety. On the other hand, Ana apparently suffered from hybridophilia, meaning she was deeply attracted to Sergio Ciscara's troubled psyche. Blanca has been studying her son's mental state, evidenced by the fact that she would record videos of Sergio from her hidden room, but she did nothing wrong or intentionally harmful to him. But that doesn't really explain why a high-ranking man paid Cabrera to sabotage Ana's mission. Anyway,Mutedit eventually turns out that Sergio was the one who killed his parents.
FinallyMuted, Noa asks Ana to leave the place with her, but the psychiatrist decides to stay with Sergio. Almost as if disappointed by what he's done, Ana hugs Sergio and then joins him to the balcony of the apartment. As we are then shown a blurry and irregular image from one of the broken, hidden cameras, only one figure remains standing on the balcony, while another body falls from the building and dies. The most likely outcome might be that Sergio killed his third victim and he would be sent back to prison and ruin his life forever. It could also be that Ana pushed Sergio away and killed him, as a strange homage to her even stranger obsession with the young man. While the ending is deliberately left ambiguous, it's absolutely certain that there couldn't have been a more pretentious ending to an already abysmal crime drama series likeMuted.
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