The Kingdom Season 1 (El Reino) premiered with good reviews on 13th August 2021 on Netflix. It is an Argentinian political crime drama created by Marcelo Piñeyro and Claudia Piñeiro and co-directed by Marcelo & Miguel Cohan. There are 8 episodes in total with a runtime of about 40-50 minutes. With the second season about to be released next week, here’s a recap of everything that happened.
The main cast of the series includes Diego Peretti as Emilio Vázquez Pena, Chino Darín as Julio Clamens, Nancy Dupláa as Roberta Candia, Joaquín Furriel as Rubén Osorio, Peter Lanzani as Tadeo Vazquez and Mercedes Morán as Elena Vázquez Pena. Along with Vera Spinetta as Ana Vazquez Pena, Nico Garcia as Remigio Cardenas, Victoria Almeida as Magdalena Vazquez Pena, Santiago Korovsky as Ramiro Calderale, Patricio Aramburu as Pablo Vazquez Pena, Alfonso Tort as Oscar Sofia Gala as Celeste and Alejandro Awada among others.
Netflix’s description of the series reads:
After his running mate’s murder, a controversial televangelist becomes Argentina’s presidential candidate. But nothing about him is as holy as he seems.
The Kingdom Season 1 Recap
The series starts off with a young boy walking in somewhere in the dark, who is met with a slightly older boy who washes him & gives him a knife for his protection. It then cuts to a couple laying in bed, where the girl Ana is apparently pregnant & her boyfriend Julio Clamens works with her father Pastor Emilio.
At the same time, Emilio Vázquez Pena is seen looking at his injury near one of the eyes, while his wife Elena assures him that it can be covered with some makeup for his election rally. The next day of the rally, tensions were high as the opposition party sent protesters to create riots and cancel the rally. But among them is an unusual man who is carrying a knife in a cross-shaped case & looking for someone with death in his eyes.
The rally starts anyway with Vice president Emilio wearing a cape with his name, along with the Presidential candidate Armando Badajoz greeting the crowd. Suddenly the killer steps up on the stage & stabs the man wearing the cape but instead of it being Emilio, it turns out to be Armando, who dies at the spot.
The stabber turns out to be Remigio Cardenas who works at the Church for the Light, caring for orphan children. He confesses to killing the pastor but is unaware that he stabbed the wrong person. On the other hand, Julio thinks that his father Zambarano Paz, an opposition party leader is behind everything & sets out to meet him.
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Though Remigio confesses, no one believes the case is that simple. Emilio is questioned by DA Roberta Candia and his relations with Remigio since he wanted to kill him only. Despite being well aware of Remigio’s violent history, Emilio claims he’s turned a new leaf since discovering religion and thus made him in charge of taking care of children but him being the target, definitely shocks him.
On the other hand, we get to know that when Julio was young and at a party getting drunk & high, he played the game of Russian roulette with a young boy who ends up actually dying. He ends up going to prison for it & where he met Remigio who saves him from getting beaten up & shows him a path to god & spirituality, leading to Emilio’s church.
But when Remigio gets to know that he stabbed Antonio instead, he denies all claims of killing and asks for Julio as his lawyer. Since Julio works for Emilio he refuses & gives another lawyer’s contact as advised by Rubén Osorio. Remigio also gives a message to be delivered to Tadeo which contains some secret that needs to be protected.
Osorio advises Emilio to run for president since his popularity increases double fold since the incident but Elena is very much opposed to it & even makes a show at the church, calling politicians evil. Meanwhile, the DA analyses the clips from the rally day & suspicions against Elena rise, as the mastermind behind everything since she had been secretly meeting with Remigio.
Tadeo finally meets up with Remigio in prison and realises that he wants to save the big fish, whose real name is Jonathan & he seems to possess some mystical powers. For going away, they need money & thus Tadeo decides to steal from the church walls where all the black money is stashed. The DA also gets a hint about the money being hidden in the church however has no way to search for it.
While Rubén has worked for powerful politicians and interests, so he wields his influence and connections to try to kick Julio out of Emilio’s inner circle. But with the help of Ana, Julio puts up a show of getting his demons out by the pastor & maintains his position in Emilio’s team. As Jonathan and Tadeo prepare to flee with fake passports, Julio learns the dark truth about the man he works for.
It turns out that Emilio used to abuse the young boys at the church & it was Remigio who would help relocate those abused kids to some other places, with Elena’s help. Similarly, the day before the rally he showed up looking for the big fish but since Remigio thinks of him as the god’s chosen one with special powers, he hits Emilio for trying to hurt him – thus the injury on his face on rally day is explained.
At the same time, Elena is also seen making arrangements for Pastor Emilio’s replacement, in case his bad deeds come to light. She wants to save the church and distance herself from her husband.
Despite learning everything Rubén decides to make Emilio the president & asks for Julio’s cooperation. Looking at it, Julio strikes up his own plan as he helps Tadeo to flee & also asks Ana to remove her name from all the family business & move abroad for a while. But Rubén stays a step ahead and abducts Tadeo with Jonathan & shows their captive video to Remigio to threaten.
He asks him to take the blame for abusing the kids & Emilio was going to expel him that’s why he tried to kill him. Remigio strikes up another deal & asks for Tadeo & Jonathan to be safely sent away, then only will he confess to everything. Rubén does as asked & gets everything in writing by Remigio, but also sends his men to capture them again on the way.
However, due to Jonathan’s powers, they mystically disappeared from the bus and found their way to the neighbouring country. On the other hand, Julio drops Ana at the airport to go away as he will join her after tipping the DA with Remigio’s diary, which contains the record of all the abused kids who were relocated. But the DA finds herself getting transferred by the higher authorities who want to close the case as Remigio confessed to everything before taking his own life.
Being stuck at Emilio’s presidential candidature announcement, he sees Ana being escorted back by Rubén’s men & another surprise awaits him, as he is elected as the Chief of staff for Emilio’s cabinet. It puts Julio in the spot as he doesn’t know what to do next, he is getting everything he wanted for his career but at the same time, he will be working with a criminal.
The Kingdom Season 1 is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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