Empty Rooms – Episode 1 begins with Daniela Robles (Ana Claudia Talancon) giving Rodrigo Lobo (Yago Andreu Sandoval) a goldfish for his birthday. After quickly naming it and entering her with several fun fish facts, he’s picked up by his Emiliano Lobo (Sebastian Martinez). On the exit, there is a brief goodbye to Ramon ‘Moncho’ Gomez (Silverio Palacios) with an invitation to the party later. Emiliano also makes certain he understands the importance of keeping the big boss happy.
Yolanda Cuenca (Shani Lozano) is nowhere near as excited as Quique Gomez (Damian Alvarado) or Moncho by the invitation. She even goes as far as to claim Emiliano only invited them to keep up appearances.
Elsewhere, Emiliano introduces Rodrigo to the future site of the largest amusement park in South America. He also gifts him an official soccer ball, along with tickets to a prestigious soccer camp. Emiliano will receive a call from Javier Serrano (Ruben Zamora) as Rodrigo spirits away to test his new gift. This conversation reveals that he and Javier are partners with literal millions to lose if the theme park deal goes sideways.
Javier’s conversation is soon interrupted by Mateo Campos (Sebastian Guevara), who has just returned from an outing with his father, Mauricio Campos (Giuseppe Gamba). Mateo’s immediate concern is making sure that his mother, Brenda (Valentina Zamora), has gotten Rodrigo’s gift. Despite being homemade, Paula Valleyo (Pau Menna) places just as much importance on her gift. Fabian Valleyo (Erick Elias) assures her that Rodrigo will love it.
Neither Lupita (Erendira Ibarra) nor Agustin ‘EL Charro’ Mejia appear as excited by the party and Lupita even refers to the Lobos as snobs at one point. Given that the Mejias are new to the area and have yet to make any friends, Charro deems it necessary. Despite the family’s short time in town, their older son Alex Mejia (Sebastian Dante) has apparently already started dating Lucia Lobo (Macarena Garcia, Romero).
Three hours before the party incident, Rodrigo eagerly races into Lucia’s room to share his new gift. This leads to him knocking her purse to the floor where a baggie of drugs is revealed. There is a brief argument before Daniela interrupts. Lucia manages to conceal the drugs and Rodrigo keeps quiet. A subsequent phone call with Chief Santos (Mauricio Isaac) reveals that he and Daniela will soon be starting an operation designed specifically to target whoever’s been supplying the local high school. At the same time, Emiliano sends Moncho in search of a replacement pump for the bounce house.
At just two hours before the supposed party incident, guests begin to trickle in. Carla Robles (Regina Blandon) and David Matamoros (Erik Hayser) are amongst the first but before their arrival, Carla is adamant about keeping the news of her pregnancy private. Fabian and Paula are greeted warmly by Daniela before she proudly shows him off to the others as her ex-psychiatrist. David has a strange encounter with Charro after he’s caught eyeing his wife. Despite a bit of joking, Charro makes it known that there will be consequences should he choose to go near his wife.
Emiliano only grows more and more strained while waiting for a call from his American investors. Charro’s constant inquiries about investing and Daniela’s reminders about the ice running low do not help. Moncho is right in the middle of inflating the bounce house when he’s rushed off to get more ice. When the call does come in, it is immediately dropped due to poor reception. After quickly reconnecting, all turns out to be fine but this is when things take a dark turn at the party. It appears that the bounce house was not properly staked to the ground and an incoming gust lifts it into the air.
Chief Santos arrives on the scene to learn from Fonseca (Horacio Garcia Rojas) that the incident resulted in three deaths, Rodrigo Lobo, Mateo Campos, and Gabriel Mejia (Dhaniel Cardoza). Along with one missing girl, several others sustained injuries. The rest of the evening plays out in slow motion for those who lost loved ones. A later search party headed by Santos reveals that Paula is the missing nine-year-old girl. It’s suspected that she may have fallen in the river and been swept away.
The funerals play out over the course of the next few days and those affected try to cope in various ways. Like many others, Charro gives over to anger and tries to find a physical entity he can blame. Surprisingly enough, one particular tantrum at the police station leads to him learning that over the past 21 years, there have been 132 similarly documented bounce house cases from all over the world. These incidents have led to 28 fatalities and over 500 injured parties.
Brenda takes on a similar campaign that leads to her discovering that the bounce house wasn’t properly staked down. She and Javier share this news with the rest of the town right in the middle of mass. Shortly after seeing the footage, Moncho becomes the responsible party. He doesn’t discover this himself until Charro and an angry mob of residents show up at his house during dinner. Moncho is dragged outside and beaten for several minutes before Yolanda intervenes on his behalf. This only manages to make things worse.
By the time Daniela shows up with backup, Moncho’s house is a burning inferno and his children are trapped inside. The children are eventually pulled safely from the fire, but Daniela has to pull her service weapon to make this happen. Both Charro and Brenda are arrested. Emiliano will later visit Moncho and promise to do everything he can for him but judging by Emiliano’s demeanor, it appears he has no pity for the man. Daniela will tell Emiliano later that night that she will make it her life’s goal to see Moncho suffer for what he did.
The next day, Emiliano meets with David and makes him promise to look after his family. David suspects Emiliano is contemplating suicide and does his best to talk him out of it. This is when Emiliano tells him that it was his fault the bounce house was not properly anchored and the episode ends.
2024 The Accident Review
I must admit the series did have an interesting premise with the bounce house because I could imagine there are realistically all kinds of deaths related to the popular party items. Kids are probably smothered and trampled to death all the time in these types of attractions, yet this series chooses to focus on one of the most unrealistic possibilities. I don’t feel as if an adequate job was done with the translation either, but I can overlook this, being that the series is Spanish. Due to it being Spanish, it’s kind of hard for me to say much about the acting as well, so I’d have to rate the opening episode right in the middle with a 5 out of 10.
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