There’s a sneaking suspicion that up until now I’ve been way too harsh on Alex de la Iglesia’s stonking HBO horror show, 30 Coins as for its first four episodes it’s consistantly delivered excellent and gripping content right from the start. However, as fantastic and crazy as it is – and I truly do believe it is fantastic and crazy – I’m also aware how utterly fucking mental Iglesia can get.
I truly believe that the Spanish director and his frequent screenwriter, Jorge Guerricaechevarria, have been holding back on the truly fucked-up shit in order to construct their conspiracy laden world and we only got a taste of it back in the over-achieving first episode – but guess what; with its fifth installment, 30 Coins fucking nails it once again with twin plots that not only delivers yet more loopy religious conspiracies and gives us some answers to some dangling threads, it also gives us the coolest creature shit seen since a certain spider/baby scuttled on screen in episode one.
When we last left the beleaguered cast of this deranged show, they were scattered to the five winds as Elena, sick to the back teeth of endless supernatural occurrences, was about to vamoose from Pedraza once and for all and abscond to Paris with rich hunk, Roque and grizzled Padre Vergara fled to Rome in order to warn the Pope about the demonic conspiracy led by former colleague, Fabio Santoro. However, both their plans ran into respective brick walls when Elena’s long missing suddenly returned and Vergara discovered that his former friend is now a freaking Cardinal and now they both have to deal with some pretty weird fallout.
We’ll deal with Vergara first as we rejoin with him rotting in a dungeon at a mystery location as his captor penetrates his very dreams and talks to his childhood self in order to divine the location of the coin that everyone and their possesed dog seems to be looking for. However, it ends up backfiring as it allows for the imprisoned priest to mentally contact his other former colleague – the caring Sandro – with information to come at save him.
Meanwhile, Elena seems ecstatic that Mario, has returned after being missing for two years, but not everyone is so happy. Yes, the lovesick Paco is painfully jealous, but local hunter Jesús seems to be mortally afraid of this miraculous return. Of course, we know that this Mario is a double created by a witch from a scarecrow in yet another attempt to get hold of that coin, but Elena is blissfully ignorant of this until it’s way too late.
Back to Vergara, and in an attempt to seduce him to his unholy cause, Cardinal Santoro gives his prisoner a guided tour of his Vatican meets Bond villain lair to explain the full extent of his reach and his powers. However, magic spells and the fragments of a gospel written by Jesus himself will only be available to Vergara if he kills a battered Sandro who was caught trying to mount a rescue attempt. Will the Padre crack – at what will be the punishment if he refuses?
I feel I really have to drive home the point that I truly love watching this show, but I’ve restrained myself from flinging around 5-star reviews willy nilly up until now in respect to Alex de la Iglesia’s innate talent for screwing with our heads. However, The Double is the closest the show has gotten to utter greatness since the lunacy of the pilot and it’s nothing short of masterful. Like, literally, this episode has it all and its deliciously crammed to overflowing with everything that makes this show so goddamned watchable.
Both threads presented here have been building since the start with Vergara now finally seeing the scope of everything that has been building from the moment he witnessed Santoro sell his soul and Elena getting some much needed closure (or so she thinks) concerning the vanishing of her husband. Any other show would have probably given each of these threads their own, full episode each, Iglesia recognizes that both characters are facing huge, moral temptations and instead has them play out simultaneously. While there’s a huge risk that two such important plots might be in danger of cancelling each other out, it instead makes the episode move like shit off a shovel.
The more intimate story is Elena’s as a returnto a normal existence seems tantalisingly within her grasp at long last as she blows off fleeing Pedraza with Roque in favor of fleeing Pedraza with Mario (either way, the puppy-like Paco loses), but unbeknownst to her, this Mario is merely a facsimile created by a witch talented in the arts of necromancy who is steering her creation like a meat puppet. As creepy as the concept is, it’s a fuck sight more creepier when the old crone physically experiences the love making between Elena and her creation.
When cat is let out of the bag when its revealed that Jesús had actually killed Mario two years prior in a hunting accident and buried the poor bastard in secret, the double shifts its goal from gaining Elena’s trust to brutliizing her to get the location of the coin while murdering a poor random with a gas pump on the way. It’s yet another blow for the long suffering vet, but Paco’s continued insistence on watching her back leads to them almost kissing once Mario has been vanquished, but there’s a strong feeling that damage has already been done.
Speaking of damage, thanks to the show finally getting a central villain in the form of Cardinal Santoro, the Vergara plot isn’t much more than a guided tour around the bad guy’s base of operations, but as tours go it’s an eye opening experience. Not only does Santoro get to lay out his game plan in an attempt to sway his old friend, but we see the impressive array of religiously powerful antiquities the Cainites have collected (Spear of Longinus anyone?) and mystical abilities the villian has obtained thanks to his collection. However, there’s also a natty uniform of the Cainites that’s a reversal of the colours a normal priest wears (all-white suit with a black dog collar) and a member of Santoro’s inner circle who seems to be seven feet tall. However, in the face of Vergara’s refusal to be turned and subsequent escape, we get a front row seat to Santoro’s most disturbing power – the ability to transform the body of a fatally shot underling into a huge, bulbous, eldritch monster that not only has awesome shades of The Thing (the human parts are still grotesquely visible) but it also claims the life of poor, loyal Sandro as it rips the guy clean in half.
A return to the unhinged nature of 30 Coins at it’s most deranged, episode five brings the crazy with reckless abandon without sacrificing all the mounting story and emotion that’s come before.
Necro-witches, evil doubles and bloated Lovecraftian monsters getting vanquished with the spear that pierced the side of Jesus all in one episode? With 30 Coins you certainly get what you paid for.
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