Five years after the last great plague epidemic, Seville has managed to recover. Overcome the plague, and after repeated criticism received in his debut for his dark photography, The plague returns to Movistar + this Friday with a second season more bright and colorful. «Yes, I can feel guilty for not thinking about the people who were going to consume the first season with their cell phone, on a bus, in broad daylight. But the feeling that I have, in a dark room and with good sound, is that the series is well like that, ”says Alberto Rodriguez , co-creator and director of the series, during a break in the filming of the new chapters. «The first season was filtered by Mateo's vital anguish and in the second all that is gone. The disease has also disappeared and everything has become light , not only in a visual sense, but also spiritual. Peripecia is the most important thing in this second season », adds the filmmaker about the plots designed by the other creator and screenwriter of the series, Rafael Cobos .
"In the first season, apart from the epidemic and what it means as a metaphor - that the greatest threat to humanity are the people themselves - one of the protagonists was the city," says Cobos. «In the second season we wanted to keep the city and the time, but tell something else. I was very clear that it could be interesting to make a much brighter series, to illuminate plots of both the city and the way of thinking of the man we had not seen in the first season. And this resulted in a more active, more muscular, more action and, why not, more exciting series, ”explains the screenwriter, who also acts as a showrunner in this installment.
The plague is set in the sixteenth century, when Seville is one of the most prosperous and populated cities in the world thanks to the monopoly of trade with the Indies. However, the government is unable to feed its inhabitants. Faced with social unrest, La Garduña is born, a criminal organization that takes control of the city. «The wonderful thing about La Garduña is that it is a reality that existed, but the historical material was burned. This allows us to be more literary and make La Garduña the mafia broadly. That is why there will be more action: they will face the institutional government and the conflict is quite juicy, ”says Cobos.
And Mateo ( Pablo Molinero ), the protagonist? After traveling to the New World and living with an indigenous family from Tierra del Fuego, he decides to return. Meanwhile, Valerio ( Sergio Castellanos ) has been threatened with death by La Garduña.
To recreate both the city and the era, the art director of the series, Pepe Domínguez , has built a set of four-meter mobile buildings that can be transformed, as necessary, into streets of the noble or popular neighborhoods. As he explained to Papel during a visit to the shooting, «in Seville there is nothing left of the 16th century, everything is from the XVIII and Baroque; it is in Utrera where we have found the place to develop our spaces ».
Hyperrealism and dirt from the first installment remain a defining element of production. On the ground, full of mud, you can barely walk. Kilos of decomposing vegetables, which the production team renews weekly, serve to show the garbage that should be on the streets at that time. During the visit of this newspaper, an extra load an eviscerated deer that in each take must cover so that the flies do not devour it. " The shit is still there , it's the only thing that hasn't changed," Miller jokes in this regard compared to the first season.
In Seville, capital of the production, there are the two ships of art and costume equipment that occupy about 1,500 square meters . In the first, which could go through a gigantic rake, more than 70 people work to build all the objects that populate the series. From floats and barges, to paintings, statues or weapons. Furniture, lamps or beds in the rooms. But also tiles, floors or interior walls. «We split into decoration and construction. And all the crafts of the time are combined with the new technologies to obtain the best result: painters, carpenters, leather work, joinery, blacksmithing, textile ... Everything handmade is imperfect and that is what we are looking for », Domínguez comments, that in order to obtain the most complicated pieces, such as stained glass or bars, it has an experimentation area called by the laboratory team.
Meanwhile, the costume building, in which 30 people work, is divided into the sewing workshop, the setting area or the fitting room, where they dress the entire cast. «In total we have 1,800 suits . 1,500 rent them, mainly to Peris and Cornejo, to dress the 2,000 figurants, including 200 children. In addition, we have hats, headdresses, shoes ... », figurine artist Fernando García lists in front of endless clothes racks with noble and servant clothes, petticoats and dresses of prostitutes, garments of soldiers and skins of different tribes. The remaining 300 characters correspond to the main characters. "We have about 80 actors and the 15 protagonists wear tailored suits of noble materials such as silk, cloth, velvet or linen, which are embroidered by hand," says Garcia about his work with the director of this area, Lourdes Fuentes .
Realism is also a mantra for the costume team. Thus, it is possible that a single Teresa dress ( Patricia López Arnaiz ) has four different finishes, from more to less clean, for different situations. Or the existence of the setting table, where they break, wear or stain clothes. "Yesterday we recorded on the riverbank, so, since it is stained with mud, they are recovering it in the laundry room," he says of the reverse process.
After spending the first season dressed completely in black, the aforementioned Teresa is a good example of the new color palette. «Mourning and gravity are left behind because there is an opening of the character out, he has completed the internal cycle and the color appears. It is very symbolic », says in this regard the actress who this season will look yellow, red and white .
As for history, as Cobos explains, The plague will continue to dialogue with the present: «Economic corruption within political corruption, that marriage between money and power and all the perversions that entails, we live in the current era. Much of the documentation we have used to talk about La Garduña are examples of current political corruption . You will see a direct translation between current events and plot milestones, ”among others mention Barcenas or article 155 of the Constitution .
Between reality and fiction, a character emerges: Pontecorvo, new assistant, today we would say mayor, of the city of Seville. Like his alter ego, the Earl of Puñonrostro, this decorated soldier in Flanders will infiltrate the underworld to know his destiny and subdue the underworld. According to the actor who interprets it, Federico Aguado , "disguises himself as a beggar to know the ins and outs of the city and finds something that continues to occur in the 21st century, and that is that the mafia and power go hand in hand ." A truth that the plague wants to bring to light.
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