As 30 Coins hurtles toward its season 2 finale, the show has admirably managed to get its content of insanity back up to where it needs to be, but it seems to have done it at the expense of anything approaching coherence as there’s a good chance you’ll race into next episode’s finale without the slightest clue about what’s going on.
Up until now, I’ve strongly vouched that the shows frenzied and often unwieldy grasp on what’s happening has often played to the strengths of Alex de la Iglesia’s berzerker horror epic, but a reoccurring problem with the show is if things get too muddled, its tough to care about how everything will ultimately be resolved.
Thus we have “The Two Cores”, a full-speed-ahead headscratcher that’s so dedicated about maneuvering its players into the proper places at the proper time, it truly seems to not care if you can keep up or not.
While all the players on this apocalyptic game are now not only in motion, but racing recklessly toward their respective fates, we find Paco a prisoner on Barbrow’s yacht after being yoinked there by a teleporting Merche. While the smug billionaire tries to entice him over to the dark side in his mind by returning him to his life before all this gonzo, biblical bullshit started, Paco refuses and gives his obsessed ex-wife some hard truths.
Elsewhere in the world, the former citizens of Pedraza have escaped the psychiatrist hospital with the help of Laguna, Salcedo and Haruka and are now trying to do their part in saving the world by following Antonio’s visions. Its here that we finally find out how Barbrow is going to end the world and that’s to use the Black Book of the Mad Arab to open a window in reality that’ll cause God’s eye to directly be upon earth, subsequently causing all life to die, probably horribly. To do this the plan has two “nucleus'” which must be disabled and the only way to do that is to locate a “church of many wires”.
Meanwhile, after a socially awkward plane journey in which their decaying bodies stink up the passenger section, the recently dead Vergara and Santoro head to Elena in order to decipher her copy of the Black Book only for chaos to erupt at the airport. However, after Vergara engages Barbrow’s men in a huge gun battle and Santoro manages to glean the mathematical equation from the book’s last page. However, they aren’t done there as the trio next bop over to the Vatican in order to forcibly take the Pope’s Blood Staff (thus named as it’s full of Christ’s blood), to aid them further in their mission.
With everything set, the final destination is Peru where the final battle of this fucked up series of events is due to occur.
Once again, I find myself having to drop a disclaimer into a review for 30 Coins that may seem less than favourable. I truly adore this show and I’m not entirely sure why more people aren’t talking about it as there’s nothing quite like it on TV at the moment. However, while “The Two Cores” continue the run of absurd plot twists, gargantuan conspiracies and some magnificent scenes involve two resurrected priests accidently scattering cockroaches all over the aisle of a passenger plane, there’s a huge issue that’s arisen that I just can’t ignore. I literally have no fucking clue as to what’s going on.
I mean, I know the basics. I think. Barbrow’s plan to let God’s gaze annihilate all life on Earth will be taking place in Peru while he needs the accumulated power of the 30 Coins, a strange monolith, a powerful grimoire and an all powerful super computer to make everything slot into place. Conversely, while the people of Pedraza have gathered at the said super computer and Elena, Vergara and Santoro have used their book to discover how to disrupt the ceremony with the Pope’s staff – but I’ve only managed to discern any of this by reading up aboutvwhat’s going on after the episode has finished. Despite title cards flashing up to notify me anyone is at any given moment, I soon list track to which country anyone was currently in. Also, there so much globe hopping is such a short amount of time, all of the characters must be getting some serious frequent flyer mileage – even the dead ones. In fact, how exactly two rotting priests can get on a plane to Peru despite after publically shooting up an airport elsewhere in the world is one of vast plot holes that 30 Coins in unwilling to address.
Now while this wouldn’t be much of a problem in my book – it’s not like David Lynch is in any hurry to make conventional sense – the confusion doesn’t exactly make me super excited for the season finale beyond me being curious about how this all wraps up.
There’s still a great amount of great moments here to keep things fun, with the continuing details of a rotting Vergara being incredibly fun, be it him trying to keep his disintegrating torso in one piece with the application of clingfilm or watching the zombie, bearded exorcist padre engage dozens of men in a blazing gunfight. Elsewhere there’s an amusingly nasty scene where the civilian Santoro is forcing to flick though the pages of the curse book has his head catch on fire thanks to the sheer power of what’s written on the page.
The episode even manages to score some pivotal moments that sees Vergara and Santoro confront the Pope with exactly how benevolent God truly is – the show suggests that both He and the devil are merely two sides of the same coin, both caring and cruel depending on the moment – and later yet, the crumbling priest confesses his love to Elena despite us not really being sure when or how these feeling manifested. Yes, Vergara has mentioned them before, but everyone’s been so busy from around the middle of the first season, I’m surprised he had time to have any feelings at all.
If “The Two Cores” wasn’t the penultimate episode, I’d be rating it much higher, but as it stands, I’m feeling a little worried about the final episode. After all, season one dropped the ball somewhat when it came to attempting to round everything off – to be honest, I don’t think they were actually trying – and while I’m convinced I’m going to see some awsome shit, I’m not sure its going to hit the spot anywhere near as well as the earlier episodes of the season have.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the confused nature of the past three episodes will suddenly straighten themselves out now that everyone’s in the places they’re supposed to be and maybe I’ll get an experience like no other.
Or maybe, like Vergara, the show will go straight to Hell…. Time to flip one of those 30 coins and see, I guess.
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