The Spanish Prisoner – Episode three begins at the height of Miranda Blake’s (Elen Rhys) current investigation. She and Max Winter (Julian Looman) appear to be pursuing a guilty man on foot which quickly leads to a boat chase. Although Max is thrown overboard and eventually drags Miranda along with him, it isn’t until the prey becomes the hunted that things take a bad turn.

The footage then goes back three days where Max briefly tells Miranda about Carmen Lorenzo’s (Tabata Cerezo) job offer in Madrid before they are called into Ines Villegas’s (Maria Fernandez Ache) office. After Nino Blanco (Enrique Arce) introduces himself, he wastes little time telling them all about his unsuccessful 20-year pursuit of illustrious conman, Ramon Silva (Antonio De La Torre). Nino apparently now has an informer and suspects Max and Miranda would make the perfect prey.

After spending the next few minutes learning about their target and conmen in general, Max appears all too eager to put his and Miranda’s aliases to the test. Miranda isn’t thrilled with the thought of posing as the exotic dancer, Helena. It turns out this won’t be a problem thanks to Nino coming well-prepared. Miranda couldn’t be happier with her cover ID while Max can’t help but feel a little gipped.

Rachel New (Miranda) and Torsten Schmid’s (Max) first contact with Ramon will be at a highly exclusive automobile auction. Max doesn’t have a problem taking on the ‘Toy Boy’ persona and making a fool of himself at the bar, leaving Miranda to make excuses for his behavior with Ramon. This eventually leads to Ramon joining them at their VIP table during the bidding. Max ostensibly focuses his attention on the Auctioneer (Ruben Batalla) while Miranda weaves Ramon into her web. It takes a bit of clever negotiating but she gets him to agree to show them some potential properties.

Later that evening, Max seeks Miranda’s advice after learning that Joan Lorenzo (Carlos Olalla) has encouraged Carmen to take the job offer in Madrid, with or without him. Although she offers him solid advice, he misuses it and only makes things worse with Carmen, which makes things even worse between him and Miranda as well. The fact that he also purchased a lavish vehicle during the auction doesn’t help matters but at least they’ll have something flashy to drive to their meeting with Ramon.

As promised, Ramon shows Max and Miranda several properties but before doing so, he asks for them to meet him at a nearby village restaurant. It is here that he briefly asks them about how they met. Miranda begins to suspect that he is suspicious but isn’t fast enough to prevent Max from sticking his foot in his mouth. In addition to this, he makes another mistake about his background during one of the tours. Despite all of this, Ramon gives nothing away and even arranges for them to spend the night on the property that interests them most.

Blanco couldn’t be happier with the success of the operation and not only agrees to them spending the night at the villa but arranges for Ines to have the 10% down payment ready. Max and Mirada spend the entire day at the villa drinking wine, cooking lobster, and discussing Max’s undesirable results with Carmen.

Before Ines hands the deposit over to Max and Miranda, they meet with Blanco a final time to go back over the plan. With everything arranged, the operation begins and practically goes off without a hitch. Ramon does attempt to run after collecting the money but is just as quickly apprehended. Blanco is so thrilled that he offers Max a position in Madrid, which he seriously considers taking. This is until Miranda says something that causes him to realize that Blanco was the conman all along. After explaining everything, the footage returns to the boat chase.

Thanks to a lucky shot to one of the boat’s gas tanks, Ramon and Blanco’s boat eventually stalls out. It’s not long after this that Ines shows up with backup as well, revealing that she knew of the deception the entire time. Blanco and Ramon are eventually both arrested.

The episode pretty much ends with Max theorizing that he and Carmen just weren’t meant to be.

 

The Mallorca Files Review

The writing continues on a weak streak. It follows the same formula of most modern detective series. Some of the guest roles are atrociously acted. Ines is at times annoying and over-the-top.

While Max and Miranda aren’t so bad, the constant reminder that he’s a complete idiot and she’s the cure for polo was nearly enough to turn me off. I’d have to give the episode a 4.5 out of 10. On the plus side, the paradise setting is breathtakingly beautiful. For the most part, the camerawork is decent, just not in action scenes.

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