The Kingdom (El Reino) – Episode 5 “Bastards” Recap & Review

Bastards

Episode 5 of The Kingdom Season 1 begins in the past with Julio, Remigio and several other workers heading down to the youth center in the middle off the night. Tadeo tasks Julio with visiting a guy called “The Fish.” He wants to make sure the police don’t get involved and it seems like he could be the key to everything going on.

Back in the present, Candia heads in to see Remigio. While they talk, the wiretapping on the family continues, with Tadeo now the focus of this audio surveillance job. Tadeo seems to sense this too and as he heads in to see Remigio, he confirms that The Fish is safe. The symbol laid out on the table in salt is what gives this away, although the rest of their chatter is cryptic and not easy to decipher.

Thanks to Lamas discussing slang terms with his partner however, some things do become clearer klater on. Gravy means money, and it seems like this “gravy” is being used to buy fake documents to ferry someone out the country. But who?

Another clue comes from the “Blessed be the poor” statement, which seems to be a direct reference the temple. Given the different bible verses up on the walls, the detectives ask Candia for a search warrant, believing there’s dirty money hidden away there.

Well, these suspicions are confirmed when Tadeo heads to the temple later that evening. Lo and behold, behind the wall panel in question are numerous stacks of cash. Tadeo wastes little time scooping them up, re-screwing the panels back again and taking off. However, that’s not before leaving behind a solo screw on the floor.

Tadeo tries to bring Julio onboard with what he’s doing, claiming he’s looking after someone from the church. If Julio will help smuggle him and the kid out, Tadeo promises to reveal everything that’s going on. It’s an enticing offer, and one that Julio decides to take up.

As they drive, both Tadeo and Julio reflect on their past. Specifically, they  realize that they’re both bastards, giving the duo a poetic sense of irony to their plight.

At the temple, Elena stumbles upon the missing screw on the ground while setting up the chairs for the day’s congregation. While she contemplates what this means, Candia’s request for a search warrant ruffles some serious feathers at the office. Her boss demands her appearance in his office. It turns out her associates lied – there’s no informant and actually they bugged the room to learn about this money.

Candia essentially stakes her whole career on this, showing up with a search warrant for the premises. Only, Judge Larrain suddenly arrives with counter-papers, forcing them to give up the search and overruling the Attorney-General.

Meanwhile, trouble brews with Julio. An insider has leaked information about his past and that’s going to be aired this Sunday for all to hear. Emilio is determined to do damage control but Ana has a different perspective.

Julio believes it could be Osorio getting revenge – and he’s not far away given how closely we’ve seen him tied to the surveillance going on. Julio decides to beat them to it, holding a conference of his own to reveal the truth.

It’s done so in the most egregious way possible though, with a theatrical display in church of Julio acting like he’s possessed by a demon. It seems to work though, as Osorio smirks while leaving the temple. Things just got a whole lot more interesting.

The Episode Review

More details are revealed surrounding this crooked family as it seems like they’re using this religion as a front to launder money. It seems there’s a lot of dark secrets this family are keeping and Armando’s death is front and center for this.

Candia’s investigation hits a big roadblock though when the Judge gets involved, while the wiretapping adds an extra dimension to this story too. Right now it’s unclear exactly what the end-goal is or how Tadeo and this kid from the church play into the main story but there’s certainly enough intrigue with this to stick with for the time being.