Aahana Swrup
‘Cash Queens,’ the French caper series, centers around a group of women who become notorious million-dollar robbers through a series of inadvertent events. The story begins with Rosa and her friends, Kim, Sofia, and Alex, who are all broke and struggling to hold on to their odd jobs. Therefore, when Rosa, a bank worker, realizes that the particular branch she works in seems incredibly easy to rob, she gathers her friends and concocts a plan. The group decides to disguise themselves in camo pants, ski glasses, and outlandish fake beards, so that they can pass off as men during the robberies. Nonetheless, what begins as a one-off Hail Mary attempt turns into a pattern once the life of crime begins to sink the women further into the deep end of danger. With both the town’s Mayor, whose wife, Chloe, is secretly colluding with the criminals, and local gangster Ezechiel on their tails, the robbers perpetually run the risk of getting caught. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Cash Queens Recap
Rosa and her friends live in the shady side of town in a project named Trevise. From her best friend, Kim, and cousin, Alex, to neighbor, Sofia, who is a single mom, everyone is facing some financial crisis or another. However, things come to a head for the protagonist when her husband’s embezzlement case buries her in debt, which ruins her finances. On the day that she discovers that she and her two children are expected to survive on 30 francs a day, she also makes another notable discovery. Her bank conducts routine drills to prepare the staff for possible robbery attempts. Interestingly enough, the staff are all told to simply comply with the attackers to ensure no one is hurt in the protection of insured money. Thus, Rosa realizes that for someone like her, who already knows the ins and outs of the place, robbing the bank would be an incredibly easy venture. Naturally, once the idea begins to settle in, she loops Kim in on her tentative plans.
Together, the duo comes up with the beginning of a plan. However, their misguided intentions are inevitably revealed to Sofia and Alex. While the latter is an architecture student, she is eager to join her cousin and her friend in the plan, the former refuses to entertain the idea. That is, until a misunderstanding at work gets her fired right as someone calls the DFS on her regarding her ability to raise her kids. Therefore, the single mother finds herself in desperate need of some quick cash, which compels her to join her friends on their illegal adventure. Finally, one more woman, Chloe, one of Kim’s richer clients, also ends up joining them on the job. She’s a depressed housewife who is lonely and willing to take big risks on account of her suicidal ideation. In the end, this dream team effectively carries out the robbery, stealing around 30,000 francs.
However, soon enough, things begin to get complicated. Rosa and Kim had stolen he guns from local gangster Ezechiel. As a result, when ballistics tells the police the same, the gangster grows interested in finding the people who did a bank job after presumably stealing from him. On the other hand, Mayor Michel Marionnaud’s upcoming re-election campaign leads him to put heightened focus on demanding justice for this case. To make matters worse, Sofia’s brother, Malik, is assigned to the case. Eventually, Rosa’s son, Leo, ends up becoming suspect number one on account of an eyewitness who mistakes the son for his mother due to gender bias. Consequently, Rosa realizes she needs a plan to help out her son and keep him from taking the fall for her own crime. For the same reason, she and her friends end up carrying out another robbery, as a way to signal to the authorities that they have the wrong guy. Although the group tries to hide its accumulated wealth from the multiple robberies, it ends up naturally attracting some outside interest.
Meanwhile, Rosa’s paths coincidentally cross with Victor Castel, the owner of the Castel bank. As such, the partners-in-crime decide to up the ante and target the highly secure bank for their next heist. This requires plenty of prep-work, including Rosa’s fake relationship with Victor to gain access to the bank. Even though the new mission comes with its fair share of challenges, the robbers emerge victorious on the other side, with millions to their name. However, with the high-profile job comes the unwanted attention from their adversaries. While the women plan on skipping town and starting anew, Ezechiel grows antsy about catching the masked criminals. Once he succeeds and learns about Rosa and her friends’ secret, he decides to use them to pull off his next job: robbing a coke-smuggling van.
Cash Queens Ending: Do Rosa and the Others Get Caught For the Robberies?
Rosa and her friends are far from professional criminals. Their venture into the world of bank robberies begins out of desperation and without much planning. For the same reason, they continue to make many mistakes along the way. At the first job, Sofia accidentally leaves her gun behind at the crime scene, which isn’t quite as bad as Rosa leaving her blood behind on the second robbery. Still, some quick thinking and everyone’s inherent bias against believing women might be behind the crime, allowing the robbers to escape notice. Nonetheless, their luck eventually runs out. On the night that they’re planning on leaving the town with their families, Ezechiel ends up finding them out, largely thanks to Rosa’s ex, Simon, who spills her secret to the gangster. This is how the women find themselves working under the local mob boss. Ezechiel causes further trouble by picking a fight with Marionnaud, which compels the latter to target the Trevise project for an upcoming gentrification operation.
In turn, the gangster learns about a big coke deal about to go down during the Mayor’s reinstating ceremony on the other side of the town. As such, he ends up assigning Rosa and the others to the task of stealing the cocaine from the van. However, the robbers end up coming up with an idea of their own. They’re sick of living under Ezechiel’s thumb, and more importantly, they refuse to let their neighborhood suffer the consequences of his actions. As such, they drum up a new plan. They reach out to the women all around their community, inspiring them to band together and rise up against Marionnaud’s absurd gentrification plan. Thus, on the day of the robbery, Rosa and the others find themselves with multiple decoys who help them bring their plan to fruition. In the end, once the robbers have got the better of Ezechiel and the authorities, they decide to escape to Portugal.
However, during the last leg of their plan, one of their own, Alex, manages to get shot. Initially, Kim offers to stay behind with her to get her medical help while the others run away in time. Nonetheless, everyone’s life is at stake when border patrol targets Kim’s vehicle. As such, a big car chase breaks out, where the odds don’t seem to be in the robbers’ favor. Even so, Rosa refuses to give up, at least on her friends’ safety. In the end, she decides to break away from the group and buy them some time against the cops by surrendering her own car to the authorities chasing after her. In some way or another, she has been the mastermind behind the whole thing from day one. For the same reason, she decides to take the fall for her friends, trusting them to look after her children in her absence. Ultimately, four out of the five robbers manage to get away with the crime, as Rosa’s fate remains up in the air.
Is Oualid Still Alive? How?
One of the more ambiguous aspects of the narrative emerges from the storyline surrounding Oualid, Sofia’s ex-husband. Shortly after the latter makes it to the news as her disguised bank robber self, her ex recognizes her on the TV screen. Therefore, he decides to cause some trouble for Sofia, knowing that he can extort some money from her by blackmailing her. Although the single mother initially believes she has no choice but to comply, her friends make her understand that she can stand up to her ex-husband. As such, she ends up setting a meeting with him at a fancy hotel, where the rest of the gang shows up in their manly disguises to intimidate Oualid.
However, this plan ends up backfiring on them when Rosa’s voice modulator fails in the middle of the confrontation, revealing her identity to Ouali. Naturally, with one clue unlocked, he quickly figures out the rest of the puzzle. Once he realizes that his ex-wife and her friends are the real robbers, he once again begins attempting to squeeze some money out of them through intimidation tactics. Yet, one fateful slip leads to a fall that cracks his skull open on the hotel room nightstand. In the aftermath, Sofia tries to make a quick exit from the hotel by stuffing her ex-husband in her suitcase and walking out. Nonetheless, her plan fails when another guest accidentally walks away with her suitcase.
By the time Sofia and the others arrive at the airport, they realize they can do nothing on account of the airport security. For a while, this marks the end of the storyline, with the suitcase stuffed with Oualid’s body dwindling out of narrative focus. That is, until the end credits scene makes a startling revelation. As it turns out, Oualid is not actually dead. He’s still alive, only sporting a non-threatening head injury. The show never explains the mechanics of his survival. Yet, it’s possible that he somehow escaped from the suitcase before it made it to the airport. Either way, his return to the land of the living doesn’t promise anything good for his ex-wife and her friends, since he has the power to reveal their secret to the world.
What Happens to the Cocaine and the Money?
Part of Rosa and her friends’ plan of rebelling against Ezechiel and the authorities stems from the robbery of the cocaine and the stolen Castel money. They convince the women of the project to help them out by promising to have Marionnaud out of the public office. As such, they manage to orchestrate a bait-and-switch to steal the millions of francs from Ezechiel’s lair. While decoy robbers make a play for the cocaine van, another group of women goes after the stashed money. A third layer of deception is added as the decoy robbers are left to be caught by the cops, while the real criminals run away with the stolen drugs.
In the end, Rosa and the others decide to torch the cocaine as a way to get revenge on Ezechiel and to also ensure safety for the community. On the other hand, the money helps them frame Marionnaud. Chloe uses a stash of the stolen money to pay for a bulk order of printed t-shirts, showcasing support for her husband. Thus, it doesn’t take long for the unusual cash payment to float on the authorities’ radar. As a result, soon after his mayoral win, Marionnaud gets arrested by the cops since the money that funded his personal expenses was found to be a match for the stolen Castel cash. Chloe plays the role of the oblivious wife, while her husband ends up paying for the crime.
Are Chloe and Malik Dead? Does Alex Survive?
During the climactic car chase sequence, many characters face near-death experiences that suspend their narratives in uncertainty. Alex, Rosa’s cousin, who gets shot during the cocaine theft, is one such character. Part of the reason behind the car chase stems from Kim’s impulsive decision to bypass the border patrol, which inevitably attracts unwanted attention. However, the longer Kim has to drive around to shake off the cops, the less likely Alex’s chances of survival become. From the backseat, the younger woman remains one push away from oblivion. Rosa realizes the same, which is partly why she decides to surrender herself, allowing the others an opportunity to run away.
However, Rosa isn’t the only one who makes such a sacrifice. Chloe, whose role initially keeps her away from the car chase, ends up joining the high-stakes pursuit with Malil. The latter gets an alert about the confrontation shortly after Marionnaud’s arrest. Therefore, to ensure she can tag along with him, Chlow handcuffs herself to the detective, leaving him no choice but to take her with him. In the end, she uses this to her advantage. When Malik gets too close to catching her friends, she intentionally steers the car off course. This ultimately results in a big accident. Although the series ends without an epilogue for the characters, it’s safe to assume all three of them make it out of the incident alive. Malik’s colleagues likely came to his aid quickly enough, and Rosa’s sacrifice would have allowed Kim to get Alex medical help in time.
