A high-energy, Western-hued black comedy about two women who, marginalized by society but bonded by friendship, accidentally stumble into a whole mess of very thorny problems definitely not of their making but that they will ultimately untangle? Yeah, that’s right. You might just want to slip on your favorite Binging Britches for the Spanish series No Traces (Sin huellas).
The story starts in the middle, with Cata (Camila Sodi) and Desi (Carolina Yuste) gripping each other’s hands in the backseat of a taxi as it barrels down an empty two-lane highway in Alicante, Spain. Quique (Bruno Oro), their genial cab driver, is expressing his opinions on music until Cata asks him to step on it. Finally, they arrive at a garage, where Desi pays Quique directly from a large sports bag, which appears to be quite heavy and possibly filled with cash. Cata and Desi, hands clasped together, walk toward a lit doorway that reads Poliakoff Car Mechanics. Twangy music plays as they make their way inside the garage. The wan blue light from bare bulbs drains the color from most things. Three men emerge from the back—two walking and one bound to a rolling desk chair, his head covered by a sack. One man casually grabs a gun off a truck’s tailgate on his way by and tells Cata and Desi to be quiet in Russian accented Spanish. When she sees the bound man, Cata moans her husband’s name. What starts as a simple exchange—the bag for the man—will, of course, go entirely sideways.
But before we see what ultimately happens, we pop back in time to before all the trouble kicked off. Here, we watch Cata methodically getting ready for work and video chatting with her daughter and mother in Mexico, juxtaposed against Desi finishing a night of clubbing and making out with a woman. When Desi orders a shot at the bar, Cata knocks back a capful of mouthwash. Clearly, it doesn’t take a PhD in television studies to figure out that Cata is the upright rule-follower and Desi is the loosey goosey rebel. The two meet, grousing and arguing, at the front door of their apartment building in time to leave for their job as cleaners. As they’re loading up the car, the building super stops them to ask about several months of overdue building fees, which it seems Desi spent on a fancy new vacuum instead of paying. (The company they work for makes them buy all their own cleaning supplies, which is a very real and disgusting thing that happens.) Cata begs for more time to pay the money, but the man is less than sympathetic.
Then, when they get to work they find their company has suddenly closed. Just declared bankruptcy overnight and turned the employees out into the street without further notice, leaving all of them in the lurch. Desi and Cata are at a loss as to how they’ll pay their bills until an incredibly sweet cleaning job in a huge mansion, which lands in their lap as if by magic. There’s just one wee catch. When they’re cleaning the last room, they find a woman, who is very dead, shoved underneath the bed. Oops! And before they can even process their shock, they hear someone else in the house. In a panic, they decide to escape by jumping from the second floor balcony, but before they do, they stick their precious vacuum cleaner in a sports bag they find lying around to protect it from the fall. Once out of the house on the road again, they argue over whether to call the police. Cata wants to make an anonymous call, but Desi insists to them they’ll just be seen as a “fucking gypsy and sudaca pig.” But before they can settle their argument about whether to call the police, their car is rammed from behind by another car, whose occupants then begin shooting at them. Although they don’t know it yet, these are the same Russian brothers who they will soon be meeting in a garage with the sports bag that they will soon learn is filled with a whole bunch of cash. And that’s just the beginning of their problems. For example, because they cleaned so thoroughly, the only forensic traces left at the mansion— which turns out to belong to one of Alicante’s richest and most powerful families who also own the cleaning company from which they were just laid off—will implicate Desi and Cata in the crime. Cata’s good-for-not-much estranged husband will show up unannounced from Mexico. Desi’s ex-girlfriend who works as a cop will be assigned to the homicide investigation of the woman under the bed. An unwanted building project in the neighborhood where Desi’s semi-estranged family lives will also somehow be connected to all this as well.
There were points toward the end of the series where things got so twisted and turned that I was confused as to exactly who had committed which crime and how certain nefarious things connected to other heinous things. But, in the long run, it doesn’t really matter because all of the players were up to a lot of no good shit and they were all lying liar faces. On the other hand, I’m still slightly irked that I don’t have everything completely squared away in my mind. Is that my confusion? Or did the show fail to make all the connections?
Now, two working-class women in an action series where they’re largely surrounded by men? Are you holding your breath wondering how sexualized a gaze you’ll be contending with while watching this series? Well, breath easy, my friend, because the answer is absolutely none. This series is refreshingly free from all the sexualized stereotypes and tropes. Cata and Desi walk around in comfortable, regular clothing, befitting of their personalities. Even during an extended scene when they are in a place with actual sex workers, it is not played for laughs or ogling looks. No, people are treated with respect. Mmmm. Doesn’t feminism feel great in your lungs?! The focus of the series is on the women’s friendship and their journey toward greater independence, which I realize sounds odd to say about a show concerning murder most foul, blackmail, crossings and double-crossings, greed, and corporate espionage, but it’s absolutely true. Cata gave up a career in forensic medicine after she got pregnant (and her husband was a cad) and moved to Spain in the hopes of ultimately giving her daughter a better shot in life. Desi gave up on school when she couldn’t afford to live independently and pay for classes, choosing to work as a cleaner full-time instead. Both women, because of their ethnicities, are marginalized and disparaged by society, meaning they have to work harder to be seen or earn respect. The series takes all this and uses it to weave a story with humor and social consciousness about two women who are caught in a huge mess and are looking for their own kind of justice and freedom. And they’ll be the ones to save themselves. There are no saviors swooping in. No knights in shining armor. No one grabbing their glory at the last minute. These women will get shit done in their own way and in their own time.
Finally, there’s a very small moment early on in the series that I love for its absolute lack of subtlety. The two women need to sneak into a building that is crawling with police, and Desi says to Cata, “If only we were invisible.” Then, in the next shot, Desi and Cata are calmly walking into the building dressed as cleaners while no one gives them a second glance. It’s perfection. But I’m also so glad these women aren’t invisible to us. Instead they’re vital, whole, fantastic characters who are busy de-centering men and reimagining the way high energy, violent action stories can be told.
Overall Rating on the Chronically Streaming Pain Scale:
Chronically Streaming 