Episode 1
5th January 2010, Malaga, is where we start with episode 1 of The Snow Girl. Amaya Martin, a six-year-old girl, goes to watch the local parade with her parents, Alvaro, a successful illustrator, and Ana, a doctor at the local fertility clinic.
The city square is jampacked with crowds coming in throngs to see the parade. It gets dark soon and rain starts pattering down. Amaya sits comfortably atop his father’s shoulders and soon spots a balloon. She wants one and Alvaro sets her down momentarily. He gets into an argument with the seller about how much he paid and Amaya spots a toy on the ground. She chases it and is lost in the crowd, not to be found that day.
Miren Rojo is an intern at the Diario Sur and a college student studying journalism. She watches the news of the girl on the tele and starts covering it through available means. Paco, the editor at the Sur, instructs his reporters to extensively cover the story and bring him regular pieces. Eduardo is a senior editor and Miren’s guardian in the absence of Miren’s mother, with whom he is close. He brings her along for the day to the police station. Belen Millan is the detective leading the investigation. Miren meets with her at the station. It seems the detective knows her when she mentions she “does not have anything on Miren’s case”.
Ana and Alvaro are poised to make a statement to the press about the disappearance. Distressed and inconsolable Ana appeals to the kidnapper to keep her daughter safe and return her. David Luque, a close friend of the family, helps in putting up flyers and Miren joins in to get more details about the family’s social circle. Ana and Alvaro’s parents are big shots. Paco Nunez, Ana’s father, owns a chain of hotels, also friends with Felipe Ramirez, the Urban Planning Councilman.
Miren gives her own card to Ana, if she ever finds any details. But it gets her into trouble. Belen and her partner, Chaparro, question a resident in the building where the police found Amaya’s yellow raincoat. Torres, the woman, reports that she saw two men outside in the doorway with the girl. One of them came in and put the raincoat inside. As Miren talks to Rosa, David’s wife, he gets a call from Ana and violently pushes Miren away. He threatens to sue the paper and Paco is livid. But Eduardo takes the fall for her and asks Miren to be more careful.
She is also advised to pick up her mother’s calls, who remains worried for her. The cops also meet with Juancho, the balloon seller, but do not find much from him. He is still a suspect, though. Miren is still traumatized by a personal tragedy that befell her two years ago. That has made her vulnerable to the male gaze and she is scared when she assumes a car of strangers following her when it is Eduardo. A vigil is organized for Amaya. The cops look for priors of any close friends and family members. David Luque has an interesting history of sexual assault on a little girl.
We jump around six years to 2016. Miren is not a full-time journalist at the Sur and gets a package with a VHS tape. We learn that Ana and Alvaro have separated and it is Amaya’s 12th birthday. The parents are called to the police station and the VHS tape reveals that Amaya is still alive and healthy. She can be seen playing with her dollhouse in the video.
The Episode Review
The fast-paced season opener sets up the story quite nicely. Miren Rojo’s personal involvement in the case will ensure that we have a dynamic investigation into Amaya’s disappearance. In such shows, it is always handy when the police have veiled competition from journalists or true crime buffs to solve the case.
This was merely an introduction to the universe, although it seems like the attention will be divided between Miren and the case itself. We have plenty of suspects from day one and many promising leads to pursue. There is another timeline that might see the storytelling jump back and forth. Too early to make a call in either direction but this seems interesting to say the least.
Next Episode |
|
You can read our full season review for The Snow Girl season 1 here! |
|
-
Episode Rating
(3.5)
Hi CJ, I think the movie was translated into English and that fact may have been lost in the metric to standard system of measurement somehow.
Did anyone else notice that the police said Amaya is “One foot, three inches tall”? Does that mean something different overseas than in America? Because I don’t know any five year old child who is only 15 inches tall.