Netflix pointed somewhat at the beginning of 2023 with ‘The snow girl’, adaptation of the homonymous novel by Javier Castillo, the author of Bestsellers as ‘The day he lost his sanity’. The miniseries led by Milena Smit and Jose Coronado was a resounding success, and soon the machinery to continue adapting the saga of Miren Rojo, the journalist to which Smit gives life.
So, also at the beginning of the year, he has reached our homes ‘The snow girl 2: the game of the soul’, the second season (or second miniseries? Letterboxd does not seem clear), again with David Ulloa and Laura Alvea in the direction.
Again, we have the journalist look red investigating a mysterious disappearance, but this time without the character of Coronado, but with Miki spread as a partner. To the disappearance, which occurred a few years ago, the macabre murder of a teenager, a religious school full of secrets, and an online role -playing game is added, which only needs to develop through diskettes. The Z series aroma (like compliment) that this could have and does not have is one of the numerous failures of this second season.
It is not that the first was excellent, but very entertaining and with a chapter that raised the rest of the series. I have read in a review of “The Game of the Soul” that this was “The Thriller version of ‘The Messiah’.” Nothing happens, I don’t think anyone expects to find that here, nor a ‘True Detective’ homely with reflections on religion or faith. No problem in the intensity and wants to do something popcorn … but that does not work here. ‘The soul game’ mixes the worst that can have the popcorn (deliver something forgettable) and the worst thing that can have the intense (bored). It is curious that the platform that in theory brought the opposite to the series “For the Lady of Cuenca” ended up suffering from the same as those series that sought to content everyone.
Perhaps it would be better if that point z was taken seriously without thinking if it is too much, such as ‘personal reasons’, or if it was delivered to the malrolism that they achieved police series of our country as ‘Genesis’ (or, at times, ‘the commissioner’ ). Not even the darkness that the subtram of child pornography could bring; It seems more something involved because it attracts attention.
‘The soul game’ does nothing of this and bets more on an affected tone that completely takes out of history, because nowhere there are mimbres that support it. In the interpretive field, whom this most affects this is its protagonist, of course. Everything is committed to the character of Milena Smit, but the amount (of minutes) does not equal quality. Instead, two powerful duos as Maripaz Sayago and Vicente Romero on the one hand, and Luis Callejo and Luis Bermejo for another are wasted. It seems that the series intends to raise Hugo Welzel as revelation, and at times it seems that yes … if the development of his character was not, as so many aspects of the series, half gas.
The non -existent chemistry between the characters of Smit and Esparbé is in what ends up being the best of the series: the police couple formed by Aixa Villagrán and Marco Cáceres, surely benefiting being somewhat further away from the main plot. A spin-off of them two would probably be better than the third season, but it is not even clear that there will be third: there is a third book of the saga, but the audience data has not accompanied in this second. Of course, if from Netflix, more cares about offering a careful series and not in prioritizing so much thousand things that have nothing to do with the artistic, that (unlikely) third season could be good news, because there are good ideas, good cast and Good technical invoice.
