There are more and more miniseries that are so successful that those responsible decide to go ahead with new seasons. A perfectly logical decision from a commercial point of view, but the thing is much less clear in the artistic, since there are examples in which they turn out well and others in which it quickly becomes clear that continuing with the story was a bad idea.
In the case of ‘Operation Black Tide’, I reacted quite skeptically to the announcement that Amazon Prime Video had commissioned a second season. After all, the first one was based on a true story and there wasn’t much more scratching around. To those responsible They have had no choice but to be inventive and the result is much more successful than expected.
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a different series
It was inevitable that the march of Alex Gonzalez and the signing of Jorge Lopez (‘Elite’) to give life to Nando should be noticed, but the fact is that the character himself is in a very different stage of life -he has been in jail for two years now and that has been noticed both in his character and in the way he behaves. face things – which makes things easier after the initial shock.
In addition, there is so much new character that ‘Operation Black Tide’ becomes a series with little in common with the first installment beyond the fact that in both cases it is committed to the thriller as the dominant genre. The commitment to the prison story was inevitable in the first episodes, but then Nando suddenly becomes a manipulation genius to try to carry out a plan that is not entirely clear until the fifth and last episode of this second season. .
Along the way, ‘Operation Black Tide’ raises the intensity, since it is true that the first installment was vibrant and had no problem making use of all the forcefulness that was necessary at specific moments -let’s think, for example, of how the arc of the character of nuno lopes-, but here that becomes a much more common resource to make it clear from the beginning that the dangers that their characters have to face are much greater. And if by the way they leave more impressive scenes, they come out on top.
More aggressiveness and less verisimilitude
In return, the possible plausibility of what he is telling us is, being generous, quite low. It’s not that the first bet so much on realism despite being based on something that really happened, but there was a slight point of pathos in Nando’s story that helped keep our feet on the ground a bit. In the second, a much more movie-like approach is chosen to hook the viewer, incidentally complicating the story with many more open fronts and expanding others on which something happened a little in the first batch of episodes.
That also subtracts some humanity from the series, something that is tried to be strengthened in a timely manner with the sporadic appearances of Manuel Manquina and Luis Zahera, but at the moment of truth they end up being a little out of place. It is as if ‘Operation Black Tide’ suddenly wanted to recover those closest features but did not want it to affect the rest of the elements at all, and it is a shame, because at least in the case of Manquiña there is material so that the impact of its scenes be much older.
And it is that the second season of ‘Operation Black Tide’ is much more aggressive at all levels, largely because Nando goes from a passive position to an active one. In the first season he was still a loser in search of a better life, but here he hatches a plan to regain control of his life and in the process take revenge for what happened. That is where the change from a more fragile and close González to a much more determined López, halfway between the mysterious and the monotonous, fits better.
In short
The final baggage places it at a similar level to the first season, since It looks very easy and makes entertainment prevail over any of its weaknesses. Of course, ‘Operation Black Tide’ is still not a great series in its second season, but seen what has been seen, I would have no problem seeing a third one tomorrow.
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