The Mess You Leave Behind – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

Your Dark Side

Episode 6 of The Mess You Leave Behind begins at the party as Raquel shuts off the music and kicks everyone out. She confronts German and wants to know exactly why he was texting Viruca. As German dodges the question, Raquel snaps and begins packing her things to leave.

As she gets in the car to go, she changes her mind momentarily and heads back in the house, covering up Viruca’s phone and hiding it inside another bag while wrapped in a cloth.

In the morning, Raquel heads back to her Mother’s house to stay there temporarily. Tere joins too for the time being, making sure she’s okay while German leaves a voicemail for her, admitting that he used to sell cocaine to Viruca.

In the past, we see German berated by his boss at work until Viruca approaches and asks him for the gear. German’s clearly a little edgy and doesn’t want to deal in the restaurant.

As they talk, the pair reminisce about the hot spring and how they used to bathe there together. In need of cash, Viruca pries into German’s affairs and tells him about Tomas and how he could help with his transactions given they’re “friends”. This puts the whole situation with the restaurant under a new light as German brings Demetrio into this whole debacle.

They’re both introduced to a man named Ferreiro who may be able to help build a resort out near the hot springs area. On the back of this important conversation, Demetrio gives Viruca a plastic wallet full of cash and pleads with her not to let them down.

Only, let her down is exactly what she seems to do. The woman fails to show when she’s supposed to and with no money or license, the pair are now seemingly indebted to some very powerful people. German finds Viruca that evening and confronts her about the money, which she claims to have passed on to the right people. Their conversation is cagey and awkward to say the least, and it’s difficult to know if she’s telling the truth or not.

In the present, Raquel checks her Mother’s cupboard and finds a single vial of morphine left. She finds this suspicious, especially given her Mother’s condition. After mulling it over at the beach, she suddenly receives a call from Roi pleading with her for help.

Eventually Raquel drives back and picks up the shaken boy by the side of the road. He admits that Iago was completely out of control at Nerea’s, snorting coke and drinking. Only, things quickly took a turn for the worst as all three of them began kissing and undressing.

Roi stopped midway through and found a webcam recording them all. It turns out Iago was planning to put it on Raquel’s computer and report her for stashing child pornography. And it gets worse.

Roi admits that it was him, Iago and Nerea that sent her the video and blackmailed her originally. She’s understandably disgusted and refuses to help Roi when he asks her to try and track down Viruca. He believes she was murdered but Raquel doesn’t want to listen any more and kicks him out her car.

When she returns home, Raquel finds the house completely ransacked but Viruca’s phone is still where she left it. It’s clear now that someone is after it, and worse her dog has gone missing too. When German shows up, he admits to helping her Mother pass away. It was her wishes and he felt awful doing just this. He was the one who gave her the box of morphine. Raquel is disgusted.

Only, that ‘s reciprocated soon after as the pair go in search for their missing dog. Raquel admits to having an affair with Simon and that it’s this that was used as a blackmail tool against her. As they look set to explode into a full blown argument, Nanook begins whimpering as they find her bloodied and in a bad way.

At the vets, they receive the bad news that their dog has passed away.

The Episode Review

Despite the shorter length, The Mess You Leave Behind delivers a rather average episode devoid of any real pace or tension – save for those moments at the end with the dog. It seems like Roi and the other kids were responsible for the videos and blackmail all along and to be honest, this feels like a bit of a disappointing reveal.

Now it all seems very obvious who’s responsible but the subject of Viruca’s death still looms heavily over what’s happened. Was this really a suicide or did someone kill her? Given the number of red herrings along the way, it’s difficult to say who could be responsible.

Now it seems likely that German was the one who killed Viruca (if she really was murdered) over the money he was borrowing for his big project. Whether this holds any weight though, remains to be seen.

One thing’s for sure, The Mess You leave Behind has started brightly but slowly started to dull into a more gentle, predictable rhythm which is a shame. Hopefully things will pick up for the final 2 episodes.