Today's Episode
We watched it. Every episode covers the latest installment(s) of a different TV show.
Today's Episode
Ciudad de sombras/City of Shadows (PILOT)
For our last review of 2025, we check in on the pilot of Ciudad de Sombras (City of Shadows), the Spanish crime series based on the novel El Verdugo de Gaudí, set in Barcelona in 2010. The series opens with a public murder staged at a Gaudí landmark, pulling disgraced detective Milo back into the force while he’s still reeling from personal trauma and stuck with a new partner. On the podcast, we break down the hard-boiled tone, our crime-thriller comparisons, the show’s not-so-subtle promotion of Barcelona’s architecture and history, early reception, and our final rating.
Tune in. Welcome to Today’s Episode!
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast where we discuss the most recent installment of a different series every show. It is Monday, December 15th, the five-year anniversary of when Tom Cruise decided to explode on the crew of uh Mission Impossible 7. Yeah that went viral at the time. Um, and people fell into two camps. Some were Tom Cruise enthusiasts saying, Yeah, he's sticking up for he doesn't want his movie production to end. And the other ones were like, what a dick. So which one did you fall into?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I understood. I I think I was on his side because that was for dead reckoning. And yeah, that was again, that was December 2020. So COVID was still a huge thing.
SPEAKER_00:So you're on the side of Scientology. No, I didn't say okay. Dick Van Dyke also turned 100 years old over the weekend. That's impressive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because I remember last year he did that cold play video for 99. Yeah. But 100, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, but they celebrated it for a really long time. I think 101, he's gonna need a break. Like he's not gonna be doing anything. Maybe when he gets to 105, 200, you know, that's do you think he's still going to show up in anything? Do you I think he's gonna do more now? You think he's gonna do more now? No, I don't know what he's gonna do, but he Betty White, she did Hot in Cleveland. We never got a chance to review Hot in Cleveland. In fact, today's episode, Ciudad de Sombros, the pilot, which we're reviewing, is the last review we'll do this year. Next week, we're gonna come out with our best of, worst of episodes uh and shows. And collectively, I think we come out with 10 best, 10 worst of each category. Yep, five for you, five for me. And we've got a hundred shows that we've watched this year, over I think 300 episodes worth of content. It's interesting, you know? Well, what will do you know what you are going to name your best show right now?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like I already have my list set up. And should I just ask you what it is right now?
SPEAKER_00:No. No. Okay. All right. So yeah, back to Ciudad de Sombras. Uh, it's based off a book. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And it was uh the executioner of Gaudi or in uh Spanish Al Verdugo de Gaudi.
SPEAKER_00:And it Gaudi and it takes place in uh Barcelona, which I've been to once, a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01:Did you see any landmarks that you read?
SPEAKER_00:I saw some naked beaches. I saw a lot of naked beaches, and of course, there's um a million different like architectural feats, and uh the food is amazing, tapas are amazing in Spain, anyways. Um, but yeah, so this is the second series that we've done where a main character's name is Milo. Yeah, so I'm not interested.
SPEAKER_01:First one was All Her Fault.
SPEAKER_00:All her fault. That was the kid. That was the kid. Uh, I guess Milo is probably a more popular name in Spain, and he is going to be our detective that we're following. But it this takes place in October of 2010, right? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know that? I didn't know. Okay, well, it takes place in the past, and my question was like, this book isn't based off a specific set of murders, right?
SPEAKER_01:No, it was the the book was fiction, but have you ever heard of what a hard-boiled book is before? Yes. Okay, could you describe it? No, because I forget.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's like a crime thriller novel, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's a realistic crime novel that cynical characters, violence, and characters that are also morally ambiguous.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think that this guy's morally ambiguous. At one point in the episode, he says you need to hire a psychopath to find a psychopath. So I was like, okay, are you calling yourself a psychopath there? Or do you think that they everybody just thinks you're a psychopath because he is on probation? Our main character is on probation because he hit a cop, uh, his superior, as it turns out. And uh, and he's been only called in kind of similar to task. Task. Remember how task started, where Mark Ruffalo's character, he's called in by his boss and he doesn't want to come back. He doesn't want to run an FBI investigation, but he is kind of coerced into doing so. The reason why he doesn't want to do that is because he's dealing with his own trauma from his past.
SPEAKER_01:So is reminds me so much of Department Q.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, also Department Q. So, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. So Milo, he has his nephew's death, uh, suicide, uh, is what they call it. Um, we only see backflashes, they seem to be happy together. They show an image of his funeral where his nephew has a skateboard on top of his coffin. And that was just an interesting choice because I would think that that would lead me to believe that maybe he died while skateboarding.
SPEAKER_01:But um committed suicide. So is there any question as to like, is there a possible chance it wasn't suicide?
SPEAKER_00:That's that's what I mean, they haven't straight out outlaid that, like, because even Milo has just said, yeah, this is a suicide. But I think that he suspects something possibly could have happened differently. And that's where it's kind of similar to Untamed. Was that the Eric Bonner show?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The one that on the where he's also dealing with trauma, he's also stuck with a new partner, he's also having to run his own investigation.
SPEAKER_01:If you had to describe the series in one word, and there is a right answer because it seems like every article that's reviewed this has said it. Is it in Spanish? Because I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. It's just, but it starts with a G. Is that howdy?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so just Gauty? No, gritty. Oh, gritty. Well, I'm saying gouty because like every episode deals with these landmarks. Like, even every title is a different landmark in Barcelona. It feels like I'm watching a cleverly disguised, but not so much disguised version of them trying to sell people going and visiting these places. And how do you sell it best? You you conduct murders right on top of them.
SPEAKER_01:It's like it's like when you uh when you whenever you go to like Sydney in Australia. I remember I traveled there once and there was always this channel that would play like movies, like American movies, but it always like that had Sydney at least in some part of it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And they're even appealing to the American audience because the partner that he gets stuck with, Rebecca, they're like, she's from Madrid, but she also stayed time in the US. And then they never go back to it. I was expecting her to splice in some English every once in a while, and I was really sad to find out that she'd passed away in real life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she passed away back in August this year. She was 42 due to cancer. This is her final role.
SPEAKER_00:I thought it was one of two final roles that she did.
SPEAKER_01:I think that I think it's supposed to be her final one, but the episode had a note of remembrance, right?
SPEAKER_00:It may have, but again, I was mostly interested in what I was watching. I didn't even realize it was the second character until I was looking up names, and I was like, wow, that's that's sad. Um, the way that the show, how do we segue back into the happiness of the show? I'll give you a Barcelona fact. Did you know that Barcelona was uh uh approached to um receive the Eiffel Tower first before France? Really? They said no, thank you. They didn't want it, no, in fact, France didn't even want it. Yes, because of costs, and also because some artists said this is gonna be ugly. And it's funny that a city so filled with uh Anthony Gaudi's uh work and like it's just crazy stuff where like even in the first episode here, it's called what? Um La Padrera Casa Mila. Right? I haven't been there, but uh it's got this facade that has no right angles, and so it's undulating, and you get to watch that for a few scenes because they keep on visiting there because that's the place of the murder. Um, where am I going with this? Oh, okay. So yeah, they were like, we don't want your straight edge uh rightful tower. You stick to France, and so it only became like famous later on. Another thing that Barcelona has is all those beaches, but apparently many of them are man-made, and that happened after the 90s Olympics. And so we do see Milo, he has a tough first day back in the office, and he goes and takes a little swim. Right. That was I was gonna say, doesn't he end up using the beach in the right? So I think they're showing off the landmarks, they're showing the the things you can do, like swimming.
SPEAKER_01:See, that's it. Barcelona has been on my top list of like places I would like to visit.
SPEAKER_00:You've been to Spain, you've been to Madrid, you just haven't made it to Barcelona down there. Okay. Um, yeah, so let's start off the episode. It begins with a man on fire. Right. We should also say that there's been city of fire, the city is ours, city of God, now we have city of shadows. In fact, I think there's city of bones, and then you say shadow and bones, and then city of shadows. He's part of the shadow bones. Uh-huh. Um, and so as I said, Gowdy uh he built this thing. It was one of his last, I think, designed architectural feats. And um, and and so everybody who has ever been to Barcelona who's seen this thing would know it instantly when they see a man being driven there. This is a CEO of a construction company. He's been starved for five days, and he has motor oil and gasoline poured on him, and then he's set on fire. And the person who did it, who wears a motorcycle mask in this episode, then releases the video of it. I guess he uploads it on YouTube or something, and uh, and he also puts a bit of graffiti right outside.
SPEAKER_01:Do you actually see like the body when you see the video? Like do you actually see? Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And Milo, you see it through Milo's eyes. He decides to watch that thing more than once. Um, I mean, he is in charge of the investigation. He gets called in, like I said, similar to Rufflow's character and task. And the difference is that like half the squad, or everybody knows what he did. Everybody knows the last time he was in there, he punched Singla. That's the name of his superior, and that that guy is going to be up his grill the entire time and does not want him there. And also they're sticking him with Rebecca, this newbie. However, she doesn't have the trope that most new rookie characters get, which is that they're inexperienced. Right. She's not like that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so no, this is this just is this is just so much like Department Cube, because it starts off with a gruesome murder, and then you have the main character, and like we said, he's kind of like Milo in this case, but then he also gets someone that's supposed to be new, but that is in that that is experienced as well.
SPEAKER_00:That like isn't bad that Rebecca is so uh, I guess, like strict. She's like, Rebecca, I'm not here to make friends, Gurito. That's her name. Like in at first, I thought it was Gorillo, like Frank Gorillo. Um, but no, it's gorido. And uh she is she's already got like a full out thought process as to who conducted this murder. Like she's watching the footage with Milo again. They're both visiting and retracing the murderer's steps, but she already has like a fully fledged formed plan of like who this killer is probably like he's not just doing it for fun. This was an artistic setup. He's probably got some personal vendetta against whoever he's doing this to, and he's going to do it again. Right.
SPEAKER_01:It reminds me a little bit of like Hannibal. I know the killers that they would often uh do it usually wasn't just the fact that they would kill someone in the in those shows, it was or that show, it was like a big thing that they it was always the presentation of the murder.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And so that's why it's going to be at all these different gouty landmarks. That's why the next episode is also labeled, I I forgot what it was called, but it's just another really fancy building, right? And so I'm assuming that's where the other murder happens. At the end of the episode, what happens is another rich dude who is Scrooge McDuckin' it, like he is forking money into his bag as he's leaving a place.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, literally, like not with a fork, but like he's he was actually taking money, like you see tons of it.
SPEAKER_00:He's just grabbing the stuff and say I think that's what they think rich rich people do is that they just transfer money from one place to another. But he leaves his office with a bag full of money and he goes downstairs into the garage and he picks up a turtle, like or something, uh, a stuffed animal for a kid. He gets into his car, and then very similar to what we see with Dexter Morgan, where he injects someone with knockout juice. Yeah, um, that's what happens to him. He's driving along and uh and from the backseat, always check your back seat, people. Um, someone nabs him and and sticks this uh this knockout uh formula into his veins, and I guess he's gonna be starved as well. But they say, I take that back because they say they found a new body. So either that happened in the past, but but what it does is it proves that Milo and Rebecca were right that this guy is going to be a serial killer, and that really annoys Singla because by the end of the episode, he has uh flamed on um uh on Milo's character. He's been like, You think you want to keep this investigation going? Like it's the same argument you heard from Untamed, where he's like, I'm not ready to wrap it up yet, and all the park wants to do is end things and make people feel safe.
SPEAKER_01:But with Rebecca, because obviously this is supposed to be like an ongoing thing until they catch the person, with Rebecca, it's usually in these shows like not the first person that they suspect. They don't really have any suspects.
SPEAKER_00:It's a very small cash show, despite everything. Like you do uh our main two, and then you meet the boss who uh hired him, you see Singla, and then you see the psychiatrist. But other than seeing the uh motorcyclist helmet that which he always has on, we don't know if it's a girl or a guy. It's probably a guy because he's able to haul the guy, the the his victims uh up some stairs and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so between all the themes, because it seems like they're juggling a lot, it's like Milo's personal trauma, but then you also have like Barcelona's social divisions and the procedural.
SPEAKER_00:No, so one thing that it does is that uh you keep on getting these splice clips of its history as well. So I talked about how it shows off the architecture, it shows off the beaches, but it also likes to show off the past. It's like this is us from the 1920s, this is us from the 1980s, this is us now. Oh, is that why they were the same place? Yeah, I think it wasn't really photos, it was like live action, kind of like what you would from a projector, um, where it was like spinning, you know, you get that like little dot in the corner and it's it looks old timey. It reminds me a little bit of how like El Eternata, it was all about the culture and trying to show off, even though it was like the sci-fi dark, um, yeah, dark sci-fi alien invasion thing, it was still being like, well, look at the beauty behind uh uh Argentina and everything that's going on here. Barcelona, the same thing. It's just they're capturing um maybe the sentiment, even though there's a dark story around it. But but speaking of the dark story, one of my favorite scenes because of how crazy it was was his going to therapy. Because obviously Milo has this issue, and within the first day, he has to go to therapy.
SPEAKER_01:Department Q, I'm telling you, like this just seems like there's so many beats they took from it. Uh, just talking about Barcelona really fast. It's been called a love letter to Barcelona, and they're not going to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00:That's the exact wording they used for the Argentinian like series El Etronata. Like they said it's a love letter. It's always a love letter. And you're saying it's never not a love letter, it's never a hate letter.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, and also, yeah, the uh like the creators are talking about how you were supposed to learn about Barcelona along the way.
SPEAKER_00:So everything's like, I'm more interested in the department cue references because that's where we get to to break down. The show follows certain tropes and it takes away from other ones. I like that it's only 38 minutes. I was able to really like understand everything that happened in one fell swoop, and uh it's digestible in in that way rather than just like a really, really drawn-out first 90-minute episode where you're just kind of bored through half of it and you're just being introduced slowly through characters. But at the same time, because of that, you have to introduce so much trauma to this Milo guy in the first episode. His therapist is going at it like a speed run. Like it's crazy, you know what? You go to therapy. I haven't been to therapy, but like whenever I think of therapy, they let the person be the one to bring up the trauma first to lead. Not this lady, not Judy Gage Gage. The first thing she asks him is, Why did you punch the guy? And so he's he starts off by saying, Well, I I punched Singla because uh I was I I was angry, and um, and it's just a temper thing, and uh he's stupid, but like I shouldn't have done it, and I'm trying to get better. And then she was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh then you also have a nephew that killed himself, and he was like, Yeah, my nephew killed himself, and then she's like, and your marriage was destroyed because of that, right? And he was like, Yeah, that that happened too. And then and then she followed that up with, and your dad, then he had schizophrenia, right? And he like beat you, and he was like, Yep, that that's me in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna ask what you learn about like the events surrounding his suspension prior to the first episode.
SPEAKER_00:You get a lot of information that you're able to write into a book, and I guess they had to cram it all into one section. Just filled, like, but it was also funny because it was like he he was probably fine going into that therapy session, but leaving it and having just people just like rip that band-aid off every single personal trauma you've ever gone through, and then having to watch a man on fire for like 20 minutes straight just burn, and then having to go to the place where it happened and diagnose exactly whose mindset, like that is not a healthy lifestyle. No wonder he wanted to take that break um in the pool. And and then he almost got fired later on. So, yeah, this terrible day for the guy. He ends up yelling at Rebecca and he's like, You are a freaking spy. You are telling all our, like, you're the one who told Singla that we have this theory that it could be a serial killer. We knew he wasn't going to like that. We should have waited. And she's like, I'm not gonna lie. And he's like, Well, then you're a spy. And then he leaves. And I like that scene because again, it doesn't show that she's inexperienced, it shows that she doesn't give a crap about anything except for the case. Whose side are you on in that scene? Oh, Rebecca's totally. Okay, so but he but I understand that Milo is just like beaten down.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I mean, because my my question is it seems like that therapist has has the idea that like you confront the patient almost with like true.
SPEAKER_00:Or maybe she is like Hannibal and she's trying to drive him towards something bad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Hannibal again. But uh, I I wanted to ask because you've you brought up the fire scene uh a couple times. Is that the only time that like a death happens in the TV scene? No, I told you at the end of the episode, the guy with the money, the screen. We're right, we're right. But I meant more like kind of action scene. Uh in the first episode? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. All right. So this is definitely then supposed to just be focusing on that case.
SPEAKER_00:I was wondering if it was supposed to be like a case by week thing because there's it is a case by week because next week we're gonna be tackling this new rich dude who got hurt, but it's all, I think, the same serial killer. I think it again, it's a it's based off a book. The book isn't about a dozen different cases. I think it's about one specific book.
SPEAKER_01:But there are four books that come out. In fact, I think most recently the fourth book was called Molotar, and I think it came out in 2023, late 2023.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things that I was originally a little skeptical about is like how they were able to break into this really famous monument and like go up to the top, string someone up and light them on fire, film it, get down within like 15 minutes and have no one see you besides like one guy who films it too. And the way it makes a lot more sense when you look at what happened to the Louvre.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, I was gonna bring up Lupin, but you're talking about the actual like loop. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And how they were able to map out uh in like 15 minutes, they were able to steal, they didn't have much security that was watching. And like I've been places, like famous landmarks where I I look in the different times of the day, in the middle of the night, like you will get instances where things just clear out. Like if you're in Washington, DC and you're seeing like the Washington Monument and stuff like that, there's not gonna be a lot, or at least there wasn't 10 some years ago when you when you're a kid and it's uh and you're seeing something in the middle of the night. Like there's not gonna be a lot of security. Yeah, this was obvious.
SPEAKER_01:This was like early 2010s, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, this is 2010. Maybe that's why they pulled it back then, because there were like less cameras, less because the only clues that they have is that they have footage of the van the guy was driving, which just says something like, make Barcelona pretty, and also the fact that he made a a G symbol with graffiti on the ground, which they assume to oh, that's what you meant by gritty?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, no, no, no. I think I meant. But but like the G is supposed to be a connection to Freemasons there. And so they're gonna look at all these like Masonic uh I forgot how you say the word, but like uh Freemason societies and try to figure out if one of them has a vendetta against rich people.
SPEAKER_01:So okay, they don't uh know how they actually did it because I remember like one of the things about Lupin was I understand that these are two like completely different shows. Yeah, you're From the antagonist perspective in Lupin. Oftentimes I remember like the first scene was that he broke into the Louvre, but the show didn't show any like way as to how he actually did it. He just suddenly would usually be in it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I that's not exactly what I remember. What I remember is that he like they rolled out the red carpet and then he went into a um really exclusive rich person event where he like masqueraded as a guy. They changed his Wikipedia page. Yeah. It wasn't this, it wasn't that just going straight up because this is one of those places it reminds me of kind of like San Juan and how they would have the castles there and how even in the nighttime you could go up and just like walk around the castles. Like these aren't areas that would normally be anything other than um just tourist locations that someone could walk around even without a ticket.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I mean that that makes more sense. But with Milo, I do have a couple uh characters that uh have always left the force or been kind of hard-edged, and I wanted to see from different TV shows, like just kind of get your opinions on them as like similarities and differences. So the first one I have was Vic Mackey, the shield.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, like we haven't seen him do anything um like against the law. Like he's not too, he doesn't have this ego about him where he's like, I'm better than everyone. It's more just like I'm just really upset with things in my life.
SPEAKER_01:What about Rustin Cole, with which was uh Matthew McConaughey and True Detective?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, Matthew McConaughey's performance is like two-parter there because he comes in and he does the interviews and he's nothing like his like older half, maybe if you're talking just about his younger version, but McConaughey's character was also a lot more, I think, kind of like Rebecca, more than um than Milo. So then Woody Harrelson, is that is that any more like Milo? Milo's not really offering too much in the first episode, to be honest. Like he is following along with what Rebecca's saying. He's getting into uh a bit of a TIF, uh turf war or whatever Singla. Singla's pissing him off, and so he might get punched again. But I think in the end, he'll probably offer more as the investigation goes on. He'll show why he's necessary to it. But yeah, no, Rebecca's really the one who's leading charge here. She doesn't like 10 minutes. She doesn't like 10 minutes. She already had the theory even beforehand, and it just seems like, yeah, she she just wants to get this done with and catch the guy as quick as possible.
SPEAKER_01:Are the police depicted well on the show? Because usually with American shows, especially now, they try to hint at like some type of corruption in the police department.
SPEAKER_00:So far, not really corruption as much as just this like uh anger that that's focused, but and the idea that they would promote someone stupid that he doesn't like. Um, I do have a couple fears of the show that it's going to just turn out to be a moral lesson. Like that'll be the entire run, is just that these CEOs are scummy. You'll get like a squid game, evil guys, you know. When I saw him loading up cash into the thing, either he was paying someone off right then and there, I would assume that's where they're going with it, or he just transfers money like that all the time. And like there's one note CEO guys who are on the face because of their PR team, liked by the city. And so, but like once they do a little bit of scratching, deep dive, they'll it's not gonna be a deep dive at all, but like they'll be able to determine that these guys had a connection to why the killer was happening or why the killer decided to make such a big deal about their deaths. Um, you would think that the killer, if they wanted to make uh some sort of statement, would say it more than just with a graffiti G. But uh, and then there's that, or they'll weigh too heavily on the sadness, the guilt, the PTSD. Because like if that weighs down a show too much, we've seen in in most crime dramas, like the PTSD character just like suffer with it and it's it gets a little long and tooth after a while. So what would you give the show out of 10? 6.5 out of 10. 6.5. Is that mostly because nothing's wrong with the episode? And I've been to Barcelona, but I would I elevate it because of all the Barcelona cool stuff.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, is that mostly because of the cinematography?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it'd be a five out of ten as far as just a crime show right now. I do find it interesting how they burned a guy alive in the first couple scenes. Um, and then I also found the stuff with the uh flashbacks um of of the city, which were which were pretty cool. It's not enough to be like La Casa de Papel. The plot isn't like super intriguing, it's just we're gonna run after the serial killer who's killing people in an interesting fashion.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, we'll we'll see where it goes. It's gotten mixed to positive reviews. I know that the reviews came out, yeah, but the review gave it two and a half out of five stars to pilot, and they said that's interesting, but it also is stumbling and not a good look for the rest of the series. However, like on Spanish uh articles, which are gonna be most of the people reviewing it, the show has gotten good reviews. Leisure Bite said it's a solid crime show. And then uh yeah, the series was shot at the end of 2024 in Catalonia, Spain, and primarily Barcelona. So uh DM Talkies gave the series three out of five stars and says that it covers a lot of ground, and then El Paez said it will alienate those seeking lighthearted entertainment. It was weird to me because again, City of Shadows and it's supposed to be gritty because it's based on a hard boiled detective series, but they also said that it was interesting at some parts as well. So overall, it's gotten good reviews. Cool, cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it rounds out our 100th show of the year. Next time you hear from us, it's gonna be our worst of first. Worst of, yes. Worst of uh 10 worst episodes of the year, 10 worst uh shows shows of the year as well. Uh, thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. Bye. Bye.