Abhiroop Das
Netflix’s ‘Two Graves,’ originally titled ‘Dos tumbas,’ follows Isabel Luque, an aged pianist whose life turns upside down when her granddaughter, Verónica, goes missing along with her best friend, Marta. As the years pile on, the case grows cold, but the protagonist refuses to give up hope. Ultimately, she is forced to take matters into her own hands, and what follows is a steep descent into a life devoid of morals and ethics. In the previous episode, Isabel’s desperate search eventually leads her back home, where her student, Beltrán, is revealed to be a key player in her granddaughter’s disappearance. However, before he can go any further, Isabel’s rage takes over, and she smashes his head wide open. With Pandora’s box opened, Isabel has to face the music, be that alone or with a like-minded company. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Isabel Reaches the Point of No Return
The second episode of the three-part miniseries returns to the cold open of episode one, but this time with complete context. Isabel rushes to get rid of all evidence of bloodshed, which includes getting Beltrán out of sight. However, she is interrupted in the middle of the process by Ceferino, a neighbour who is desperate to earn her attention. While he is here to help the protagonist with gardening, he expresses his need to use the washroom, where the body is currently hidden. Isabel is quick to shut him down, but Ceferino refuses to give up, and unbeknownst to either of them, Beltrán miraculously turns out to be alive. While the neighbor tries to offer her shared tickets for an opera, the teen musters up the final ounce of his strength to call up the police. However, with no strength left to talk to them, his efforts are a failure. By the time Isabel returns, Beltrán is already dead.
With a dead body in her hand, Isabel finds the only solution to be stuffing him into the freezer. This means emptying it of all the meat stored inside, and Isabel now has the additional responsibility of cooking all of it for the sake of appearances. On the television, a popular television show, El Tardeo, plays, and the host turns out to be Carlos Jaen, the celebrity who sexually abused Verónica on the night of her disappearance. While Isabel burns with hatred, she also realizes that she cannot achieve much on her own and needs more powerful allies to exact revenge. However, in that critical moment, she gets a phone call from the police station, announcing that her granddaughter, Lupe, has had a drunken episode. Upon meeting, Lupe reveals a series of truths: she has been faking all of her academic success stories, and in reality has been suffering from a number of addictions.
Lupe’s behaviour has its roots in the troublesome situation of her family, and to that end, she blames Verónica. When Isabel resists the idea, Lupe doubles down on her grandmother’s inherent favouritism, and how, in her obsession with Verónica, she has all but abandoned her youngest granddaughter. Isabel realizes that there is some truth to that statement, but is unable to pacify Lupe. The following day, she is paid a visit by investigator Zaera, who explains that Beltrán has gone missing. With his last known location being her home, coupled with his enigmatic phone call to the police, she is an obvious suspect, but the officer is quick to brush that notion off, given her age. However, Isabel realizes that it is only a matter of time before she is caught. This leads to her unexpected alliance with Marta’s father, Rafael Salazar.
Rafael and Isabel Form a Dangerous Partnership
Rafael’s illegal operations are an open secret, and so is the power he exerts in the region. When he learns of his daughter’s cruel fate, he laments the poor decisions he made as a parent, but soon that sorrow is supplanted by rage. With him on her side, Isabel hopes to nail down her primary suspect, Carlos Jaen. In return for this information, she also put him in charge of disposing of the body at her home, killing two birds with one stone. Meanwhile, Rafael abducts Carlos right at his doorstep, moments before he leaves for a vacation in Thailand. Ceferino continues to pester the protagonist, and ultimately she has to take a firm stance to get him off her back. However, the day is far from over, as a phone call from her son, Antonio, reveals that the search for Beltrán has, in turn, shed more light on Verónica’s disappearance.
Antonio explains that the police were tracking Beltrán’s laptop for leads when they discovered compromising pictures of Verónica and Marta, and with that, the two cases are now interlinked. These pictures are also sent to media stations, and the new development creates a public uproar. In particular, the chalet where the party was hosted on that fateful night becomes a headline, with the investigators searching for any leads they can get their hands on. Information about Verónica and Marta’s operating as sex workers affects both families hard, with Lupe struggling to deal with this new dimension of her sister that has come to light. Zaera, on the other hand, directs his search towards Rafael, hoping to smoke out any possible connection between him and the elites involved in this scandal, but to no avail.
A Third Party is Introduced Into the Fray
As news about Beltrán spreads, so do the finer details, and Isabel is alarmed when she hears his last phone call being broadcast on the radio. While most of it features his laboured breaths, the distinct sound of Ceferino’s whistles in the background makes it a threat to the protagonist. Before she can react any further, she is urgently called to meet Rafael, who announces his findings. While Carlos Jaen is unlikely to have committed the murder, he does bring up the presence of a third girl at the scene, who is described as having a birthmark on her forehead. Isabel agrees to look for the girl, but on her way back, she is stopped by Ceferino, who realizes that she is to blame for the teen’s disappearance. While he tries to use that as leverage to get intimate with her, he is rejected once again.
The protagonist then makes her way to the high school where she used to work at one point. She asks to go through Verónica’s student records under the pretense of rekindling her memory. With access to the database, she begins screening through her granddaughter’s peers and is quick to find a girl who matches the exact description, named Jamila Abdallah. She further learns that Jamila headed out with her family roughly two years ago, which makes her involvement in the larger plot all the more suspicious. With everything she needs in her grasp, she confidently makes her way back home, but is surprised to see the police present. Investigator Zaera informs her that an anonymous tip has directed their search for Beltrán to her place, and things get worse when a trail of wiped blood is discovered on the tiles. However, by now her freezer has already been cleaned up, so the police are unable to pin anything concrete on her.
Antonio Shakes up the Entire Narrative
Isabel promises to relay information about the third girl to Rafael but demands a visit to Carlos Jaen in return. Against his advice, she eventually comes face-to-face with the abuser, but is horrified to see his current state. All battered and bruised, Carlos is forced to go through the events of the night two years ago once again. This time, he is slightly more honest, detailing that Verónica and Marta had both willingly participated in sexual intercourse with him, but soon after, the former got sick, and he lost contact with them. This twisted account of the events sends the blood of the two family members boiling, and Rafael decides to end things. With all information squeezed out of him, Carlos serves them no purpose, and to that end, he is slowly, painfully crushed to death. Nauseated at the sight, Isabel is forced to retreat, but ultimately keeps her end of the deal and reveals what she knows about Jamila.
More trouble awaits Isabel, as she receives a phone call from her son, Antonio, who is at the L’Axarquia Hospital. It turns out, Lupe, her granddaughter, attempted suicide by drug overdose, but survived. At the hospital, all three family members unite, and tears are shed. Lupe explains that she cannot bring herself to reconcile with this new revelation about her sister, and that has been eating away at her. She says that she wants to be with her sister once more, and death appears to be the only way to do so. Although Isabel tries her best to comfort her granddaughter, the real twist in the scene comes from Antonio’s mouth. Anguished at his daughter’s present state, he reveals that Verónica is not dead. The confidence in his assertion, as well as the guilt on his face, confirms that what he has just revealed is not a sudden development; instead, it’s the unraveling of a long-standing secret. Isabel is left in shock, as everything she has done so far is put into question once again.
Read More: Where is Two Graves Filmed?
