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It’s always a bit disheartening when a thriller that has a sense of humor about it takes a turn to the more dramatic. Sometimes it works, but sometimes the tone change feels jarring. The second season of a Portuguese thriller is definitely more serious than the first. Is that OK or will viewers miss the first season’s irreverence?
TURN OF THE TIDE SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: In the Azores, Uncle Joe (Pêpê Rapazote) runs into his house and sees reports of the 9/11 attacks on TV. He says, “Oh, boy.”
The Gist: Joe knows that his nephew Eduardo (José Condessa) and his friend Carlhinos (André Leitão) are stowaways on a cargo ship headed towards New York Harbor. As the Coast Guard stops all ships coming into New York, the crew tosses over all contraband, and CG officers chase Eduardo on the deck, until he dives into the harbor. But he doesn’t get far, and he and Carlhinos find themselves in an immigration detention center in New Jersey.
It doesn’t go well there, as a fellow inmate that Charlhinos finds himself in a relationship with gets killed in a fight. Soon, the two of them are back on a plane to Portugal. Eduardo goes back to his old home in Rabo de Piexe and finds that it’s been demolished.
In the meantime, a hand is dug up on Joe’s property, leading to the discovery of the bodies of Arruda (Albano Jerónimo) and two others. Joe is brought in by the police, but they have nothing on him.
Also in the meantime, Silvia (Helena Caldeira) is working dead-end jobs and is haunted by her dead father, Arruda. She’s also pregnant. She’s approached by Arruda’s brother Orlando (José Raposo), whom she hasn’t seen in at least a decade, and told that she’s in charge of the criminal operation her father left behind, if she wants it.
Prior to that, Orlando and some of his thugs went to Joe’s house; Orlando’s purpose is to exact a price for Arruda’s death. What ends up happening is that Joe pays Orlando off with the cocaine that he’s been keeping for Eduardo, from the stash that Eduardo was planning to sell with Carlhinos, Silvia and Rafael (Rodrigo Tomás). When he and Joe and some hired muscle go to Orlando’s hideout to get the cocaine back, Eduardo sees Silvia and realizes she is the key to getting hold of that coke again.
Photo: LENA WAN/NETFLIXWhat Shows Will It Remind You Of? During the show’s first season, we called Turn Of The Tide “Breaking Bad meets How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) meets Outer Banks,” and that holds in the second season.
Our Take: Augusto Fraga started Turn Of The Tide as a bit of an irreverent show about four friends scraping by in a poor village, trying to sell a stash of cocaine that washed ashore, but ended its first season as a much more serious thriller. It starts the second season in the same serious mode, with only hints of the irreverence we saw in the first season. We’re not sure what’s better.
The first season was about the four friends in this unlikely situation, working against Arruda, who wants a piece of the action, and the cartel that stashed the haul to begin with. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot of hope in the first episode of the second season, especially when it comes to Eduardo’s guilt over dragging the sensitive Carlhinos into his scheme.
But now that things have gone more than sideways for all of them, the stakes are higher and everyone is much more serious. We can see that with Silvia, who takes charge of her father’s organization and more than confidently tells Eduardo that he won’t work with her to sell the cocaine, but he’ll work for her. She’s gone from someone who reluctantly went along for the ride with Eduardo and company to someone who is about to run the whole show, and we’re curious to see how this changes her.
We’re also curious to see how the two of them rope Carlhinos and Rafael back into this enterprise. As we see in a scene that takes place in Colombia, the cartel that is going to be looking for that coke is going to be dangerous and bloodthirsty. And there is also the specter of Inspector Frias (Maria João Bastos) and her dogged pursuit of the source of the cocaine that seems to be all over the region.
But we’re also a bit skeptical that this group can evolve into true kingpins, so we’ll be pleasantly surprised if Eduardo, Silvia and friends can become as ruthless as the people that will be after them.
Photo: LENA WAN/NETFLIXSex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Silvia and Eduardo are shocked when they see Rafael on TV; they thought he was dead.
Sleeper Star: Pêpê Rapazote is fun to watch as Joe, especially as he drifts in and out of English. It almost seems that when he speaks English, he uses a Southern accent, which is also kind of funny.
Most Pilot-y Line: We think that the voice over we hear this season is Arruda’s, but it also seems to be distracting and out of place given the show’s more serious turn.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite our doubts, we do think that the more serious turn for Turn Of The Tide will eventually work. It just might take some bumpy episodes to get there.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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