What can I say? I enjoy the international content. I binged RAGE, which hails from Spain, and watched all eight 30-minute episodes in one sitting. It is all about five women in contemporary society, wallowing in the emotion that is rage! These are five women ready to do anything in the face of extreme situations such as extortion, oppression, deceit, exclusion, or manipulation in a single shared universe articulated around five conflicts that will develop like a butterfly effect – one as a consequence of the other – and so on to shared catharsis. Here is a look at what goes down, one episode at a time. Just be forewarned – watch out for their rage, after all, that is what it is all about in this satire.
Most of the installments are titled after the woman the episode focuses on. Thus, we start with –
MARGA y TINA
We open at a resort or retreat where a few women are outside with their guru (?) doing meditation and reflection as they come to grips with their aggressive tendencies. They are the women of our stories in RAGE. Are they in court-ordered sessions due to their ballistic behaviors, or did they just decide to take a course after their intertwined ordeals? Maybe we will get clarity on that after we learn of each of their ordeals, yeah?
So, who are Marga and Tina, and what ordeal opened up their rage? We start their story with Roberto, the man of the house, coming to breakfast one morning. He quickly caresses and talks with the woman setting the meal. His wife, we assume, until a second woman enters and turns out to be his wife. She is Marga, and the other woman is Tina. Tina, the housekeeper, is having an affair with Roberto. Marga is an installation artist who balances her artistic flair with tai chi and rifle shooting. She is indeed a woman who needs to be taken in small doses. Roberto is leaving her for Tina, and when he tells Tina, she opens up that she is pregnant with his child.
Needless to say, Marga will find out about the affair, thus triggering her rage down the line, right?. Don’t forget, she has a shooting range at home. It is not, at least at first, Marga’s emotions we should be worrying about, though. Tina is the one put on the spot. Marga had her eggs frozen, and Roberto admitted, through Marga’s gynecologist, that they were going to pitch to Tina the notion of her being a surrogate to Marga’s eggs, but with Tina now actually pregnant, they are going to have to disguise the fact of whose maternal traits the child would actually have. The proposal is that Tina would be compensated for carrying Marga’s child. Tina is clearly blindsided here, and is is full well entitled to let loose some rage.
So, it is Sunday night, and there is a party at the house linked to Roberto’s business. Tina, as housekeeper, is playing her role, but she is quiet and clearly hurt. Roberto spikes the alcohol, and Marga brings up the music, and a party happens. At a point in the evening, Roberto announces that he and his wife will be parents. All eyes are on the announcement, except Marga’s; hers are on the crushed Tina. Marga confronts Tina, and the suspicions Marga has come out, and Tina admits the truth. And so, we have two women seething with rage – Tina for Roberto’s manipulation and Marga for Roberto’s deceit.
The game is on when the women fight for who gets to the shotgun first. A slow-mo race for the rifle ensues!
Tina beats Marga down the hall by an inch and reaches the rifle first; they both tussle with Tina ending up with it, pointing it right at Marga. So they’d better talk this out quick. But they don’t. Tina pings Marga on the shoulder and butts her with the stock of the gun, races to the party, and calls Roberto out for his actions. Marga races out to take a mallet to Roberto as the guests flee. Tina disappears from the scene, leaving Roberto & Marga both roughed up. He has now lost his job, his wife, and his home as they both gaze upon an Iberian pig rummaging through the yard. Stew on that, people!
Quirky little story and clear-cut reasons for Tina & Marga to lose it. But, now what?
NAT
In the first episode, Marga went to the fashion shop Gallery to buy an outfit for the Sunday night party she and Roberto were hosting. The senior associate at the store was Nat. She fussed over Marga and sold her the right outfit. However, she feels her job is threatened. When her employers begin hiring younger staff, Nat fears she’ll be laid off due to the cheap bimbos, who are named Lu & Megan (also seen in the first episode). Nat vows to keep her job…no matter the cost. Her actions just might cause her to lose her job in the end anyway.
My, we ramp it up a bit here. We first, with each of these women, get set up with their situation and then let it boil until they unleash. How and why the rage flows is unique to each. In Nat’s case, she is the top earner at the store and has the top clients, as she is in charge of the latest in fashion and dresses sharply herself. Her friend is Rosa, who works in the sports/activewear section. She gives Nat rides to work, and they lunch together and dish the dirt together, too. As happens to many in the retail world, the company wants to be trendy and hire younger people for the store. Of course, the older workers like Nat resent it, and she was on target for a raise, so she knuckled down and hogged all the clients for herself, which got her in trouble.
On the day she thought she was getting a promotion, she was actually fired. Lu & Megan set her up in retaliation for how she treated them. They took Nat along out to a club one night, got her drunk, and took suggestive pictures of the totally unaware Nat. When her supposed debauchery was seen by management, her days at the gallery were over. They phased out Rosa, too, and she went on a little rage of her own and told Nat how much she actually hated her. But in their misery, they hid out in the store overnight and decided to torch the place. Yeah, Marga only threatened Robero and set divorce in motion, but Nat actually committed arson, and she and Rosa sat across the street at a cafe and admired the blaze as the sirens blew. Sad sots both and a bit crazed in the moment.
VERA
She is a vegan celebrity chef. In the first two installments, we have seen her meticulously worry about her product and her career. She is alert to detail when it comes to her food choices and preparation. In the second episode, we see her in Gallery fussing over the placement of her vegan snack line, insisting it be on the top shelf of the display. Just what is it that causes her bout of rage?
Well, it appears she has a food critic who just trashes her style & palate, and it eats at her. One day, as she leaves Marga’s house, she is caught behind a truck delivering a top hog to an address; the address is the home of the critic Emilo. Vera, being a vegan, vows to rescue the hog from certain butchery. She gets away with it, but that is not enough to curtail her anger. That explains the piggy roaming into Marga’s backyard in her episode. So, Vera cannot get past reliving her humiliation, and we finally get to see the footage of Emilio trashing Vera right in front of her restaurant.
Rescuing the hog is not enough for Vera. During a visit to her husband’s plastic surgery clinic, she manages to abscond with several vials of nerve-numbing medicines. Next thing we know, lo and behold, she is back inside Emilio’s enclosed enclave. Her rage is full on as they tussle and roll. She manages a few syringes of the drugs to pierce his skin, and before you know it, he is bound, spread-eagled on his dining room table. What does Vera have planned…? Her first meat dish is going to be his bollocks…?
ADELA
Now here is a lady with a legit problem. She is going to be evicted from her flat because she just can’t hold down any sort of job. The reason for that is that she is saddled with her demented mother. A large amount of her time is spent caring for her needy parent. We surely see her patience being tested, but it’s her mum. What is she going to do, just dump her in the street?
It’s not like Adela hasn’t tried. We all know that a telemarketer job is a rough job, and we see Adela over several scenes struggling to keep going with such a job to no avail. She ups and quits it, but still her problem exists. She is reminded that it exists because, on top of it all, she is harassed by the landlord for payment or vacating the premises. He is really pissy and whiny about it, too.
I call this out as the most legit dilemma of the series to date. I mean, there is more than one way to handle a crummy husband, and violence doesn’t have to be the resolution, but Marga nd Tina didn’t see it that way. As for Nat, she was being treated pretty shitty at work, but arson? Come on. And Vera just has self-esteem problems to let a food critic get into her head that much. She has some serious assault charges looming over her to get the situation to escalate that far. But poor Adela, she is legitimately trying to improve her lot here, and thinks of her mother’s health. We are not sure of her outcome, but she, at least, takes care of her mum. She turns the torment the landlord has given her by smuggling her demented mother into his home with a note to take care of her, while she works things out. We didn’t see that coming.
VICTORIA
Victoria is the older actress we’ve seen in various scenes throughout the episodes. She has lost her acclaim and celebrity and is just branded a has-been in the biz. We all know how the industry spits out the older actresses. We witness that experience in a microcosm here. Victoria doesn’t seem to be brewing with any rage at the onset. She seems resolved that her career is over. But then a carrot gets dangled in front of her, and she really comes to bloom, and in fact, seems quite happy.
Her old adult entertainment agent, Raul, surfaces to tell her that she is going to be honored with a lifetime legacy award at a special gala, which could generate a late comeback career for her if she wholeheartedly embraces the honor. That is why we see her in Nat’s Gallery shop buying a dress in earlier episodes. She is in full actress mode for the gala ceremony. She puts on a big smile and dolls up for the event; no sign of rage in sight. 
As celebrities do, she gets a paid suite and complimentary drinks. Also, helping to pump up her ego and self-esteem, a young podcaster wishes to have an interview with her the morning after. She quickly learns that all is not what it seems. The real star of it all is not the honored guest but the big sponsor of the evening – a vodka company- and that Raul was going to make a haul for his part in shilling the brand. That causes Victoria to brood in her room before the event, slugging down far too much of the sponsor’s product and reflecting on how she was manipulated, used, and abused by the industry all her career. Her rage does not build until she is in front of a full house with a live microphone and an award in hand. She reams out Raul and the industry, making quite a dramatic scene. When Raul comes onstage to get her off the stage, Victoria clocks him in the head with her award and, in a now blood-splattered gown, has the paparazzi’s full attention. She gets one last moment of fame as all eyes are on her, but it is due to a vodka & rage-fueled rant and an assault charge.
¿FAMILIA?
Now, we are getting to the nitty-gritty. We witness the aftermath of the fits of rage witnessed. The show opens with police sirens. Nat is in her home, oblivious to them as she is consumed with plans to open her own online fashion store. Her cohort Rosa calls to tell her the police are coming for them; they salvaged security camera footage. Adela, in a panic, thinks the sirens are meant for her as she is officially a squatter. She rushes to the rooftop and nearly steps off the edge (intentional or not) only to discover that Nat, still dressed to the nines, is being arrested. It is at that moment that she has the plan to get away and whisk her mother to the landlord’s home. Cut to Seve and family coming home and discovering an intruder in their home. We see that same morning that Emilio, the food critic, is alert & bound in a chair with Vera serving him his breakfast. She spent the overnight hours preparing & proving that she can cook a non-vegan dish. While trying to serve the food critic his own testicles, he gets away from her only to have a heart attack and die. As this complicates her situation, she runs to Marga’s house for aid. Marga is seen cleaning up the aftermath of the party, which witnessed Roberto’s deception and ultimate rousting.
There are still others to keep track of. Tina isn’t worried about Roberto; it seems as we see her asking a friend if she had seen her mother and grandmother about. And Megan, after being detained by the police the night before, is caught by Lu moving out of the flat. Megan states that they have nothing, no job, no life together; the city sucked them dry. If she must start over, it has to be from home. Lu is far from furious at this point; she is truly wrecked by the loss of Megan, all due to her mistakes. Next we see Victoria. She is still in the bloody gala gown in a police holding tank. As she goes to be charged & fined by a judge, she passes Nat and Rosa in their holding cell. Rosa is wailing about going to prison, but Nat doesn’t match her worry. Nat calls Spanish justice a theatre of the absurd. Besides, she says, while others cling to faith, she clings to her sense of fashion style, and as long as she maintains that, she’ll be okay.
Everything does not seem okay for Vera & Marga as they clean up Emilio and get his body in pajamas to make him look like he died in bed. Then they scour the house for fingerprints. They part ways to lay low. But one last fit of rage hits Marga when she gets home. She takes a hatchet to one of her biggest art installations as she either faces life without Roberto, getting caught up in Vera’s stupidity, or both. Then we jump back to Victoria, who has a revelation. She visits Raul in the hospital. He’s battered by her hand, and yet they have a heart-to-heart. She holds his discharge papers as she is the closest thing he has to family, and as it turns out, the same holds true for her. Whether they like it or not, they are family, as shitty as it is. Seve is learning that as well, as Adela’s mother integrates into his family, making it a nightmare for him.
Who would have thought the story would delve into this plot point? Loreto, Seve’s wife, lost her mother to COVID alone in isolation. She sees her mother in Adela’s mum, so they cannot and will not cast her out. She is adamant enough to let the threat of divorce raise its ugly head. Boy, there is a lot in this installment. The news announces the death of Emilio as of natural causes, and Tina is still looking for her family. How does this conclude? Late that night, Marga is woken by a crash outside. She comes out with her rifle to investigate. She prowls the grounds only to shoot the boar Vera rescued. She calls Vera to return the favor and help her bury the evidence. Arrgh, one more crazy episode to go!
ESPERANZAS
The title translates to – HOPE. Is there hope for all these wrecked and lonely people? They all, each in their own ways, do get past their rage. They were, after all, just ordinary people, getting caught up in the mess they were in, or created for themselves. They just got a bit crazed in their desperation, and it passed over time. It had to, because if not, they’d all be psychopaths and they just aren’t that. So how do they end up?
Well, Marga, in need of some petrol for her car, pulls into a station only to discover that Tina is the attendant. Marga is out of sorts after she kicked Roberto out. Tina, pregnant and alone, is in need of some help & care. So, they strike a mutual agreement to live together at Marga’s. They will raise the child together. But a besotted and disheveled Roberto arrives at their gate. He begs for forgiveness, and the ladies decide to let him move back in as their BITCH. The ladies becoming roomies was enough, but subservient houseboy Roberto is the icing on the cake. For Nat, it is a bit more clear-cut. She, and her reluctant tagalong Rosa, serve their time and get out of jail. Nat, who helped jailmates with their sense of fashion in the prison, is not deterred from her passion once she gets out and becomes an influencer upon release.
Victoria became an icon for her trashy behavior on & off the screen and accepted her level of Z-grade fame like a trooper. We see her as a celebrity guest on a local game show, so she’s happy after her meltdown caught attention. Vera dodged her criminal escapades and rose to fame as well. She fell into money & acclaim as a TV chef. Megan & Lu did what was best, though painful for each of them. They broke up and went their separate ways.
And then there is Adela. She really took an extreme turn we never saw coming. Her main scenes always had her as a hot mess. She slept poorly, boozed her way through her problem, and never really faced it, other than getting her mother away to safety. Remember that? She ends up in a healing place, a commune that washed her stress away, which leads us back to the beginning of the season. Remember, the show opens up with all the ladies on mats on a perfect lawn trying their best to center themselves and meditate. I wondered whether it was a court-ordered therapy session as part of their penance for their crimes. It isn’t. They are there voluntarily under the assistance of Adela. She is out to help her friends move past their rage and embrace their lives. The notion is met with grumbles, but they are there, and they are moving to better things past their rage, for that is what you need to do.
And that is RAGE (Furia) from Spain via HBO International.
