Scripted series based on true crime cases always take pains to give viewers ample warning that parts of the story they’re about to tell are fictionalized, including the use of composite and new characters. They do this because it’s hard to fit what are mostly complex cases with a lot of background history into a handful of hourlong episodes, so they need to make changes in order to give the story the dramatic impact they’re looking for. But sometimes that fictionalization shaves down too many of the case’s nuances. That’s what we see in a new Netflix thriller from Spain.
Opening Shot: We see news footage of Roasario Porto (Candela Peña) and Alfonso Basterra (Tristán Ulloa) talk about adopting their daughter Asunta (Iris Whu), the first child from China adopted in Galicia, a region in Northern Spain.
The Gist: Six years later, on September 21, 2013, we see Rosario and Alfonso at a police station. Asunta, now 12, disappeared an hour prior, which is unlike her to do. Rosario and Alfonso are now divorced and live around the corner from each other; because she’s in neither apartment and hasn’t called, her parents are really concerned that she’s been taken.
Later that night, two drunk men get in a car and drive away from a pub. They suddenly stop when they see the body of a girl on the side of the road. Civil Police agents Rios (Carlos Blanco) and Cruces (María León) are called in on the case, and when they view the girl’s body, it looks like she was bound and carefully placed in the spot where she was found. Some orange twine was hastily dropped nearby.
Because the girl is Asian, Rios and Cruces know its Asunta Basterra, and they visit Rosario and Alfonso to tell them. Rosario is in shock and Alfonso starts sobbing. Cruces learns that they own a house close to where Asunta was found; it belonged to Rosario’s late parents, and neither one of Asunta’s parents think she would go there.
As the detectives take the couple to that house, Judge Malvar (Javier Gutiérrez) arrives at the crime scene, but is called to the country house when Rios finds scraps of orange twine in a wastebasket. Rosario and Antonio are kept outside while Malvar and his people search the house. There seems to be evidence that Asunta was at the house, at the same time Rosario was there to pick something up; it was after Rosario came back from the house that she said Asunta went missing.
Between that and the physical evidence they show, Malvar starts to think that Rosario, with whom he studied in law school, had something to do with her daughter’s death. Once Malvar sees some CCTV footage that looks like Asunta is the passenger in a particular car, he orders the police to arrest Rosario, even though she’s at Asunta’s funeral.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Asunta Case is similar to a number of dramas based on true crime cases, though in tone it feels a lot like the Criminal series.
Our Take: The first episode of The Asunta Case, created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, Jon de la Cuesta, and David Orea Arribas and based on the real-life murder of Asunta Basterra, starts a bit slowly, but it doesn’t take long for it to get at the heart of what this case was about.
It may seem that the cops and Malvar have very little to go on when Malvar decides that Rosario should be arrested on suspicion of Asunta’s murder. But given the history of the real-life case this show is based on, there seemed to be ample reason to arrest and investigate both of Asunta’s parents. We just wish that the show’s creators laid those reasons out in a bit more of a linear fashion.
Given that Asunta’s parents were ultimately convicted of her murder, with Rosario committing suicide in prison in 2020, the show’s creators make a point of showing Asunta’s parents in moments when the police aren’t around. They’re mourning their daughter, asking their lawyer friend what to do, and in one case, strangely taking pictures of her coffin at the funeral home. We wonder if the limited series is going to progress by throwing doubts at how the investigation and trial proceeded, given how Asunta’s parents maintained their innocence throughout the case.
Either way, for now we just see a prosecutor and a group of cops eager to pin the case on someone, but what we hope to see as the series goes forward is a bit more of the evidence that leads law enforcement to suspect Asunta’s parents, along with the history of the couple that may have also contributed to law enforcement’s suspicion of the parents, as well as the evidence that led to their conviction.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Rosario is seen in the detectives’ car after she was gently led by them out of Asunta’s funeral. We then see “24 September 2013” and a ticking digital timestamp.
Sleeper Star: María León as Agent Cristina Cruces stands out to us because she gives Cruces a bit more empathy than we usually see from police detectives in shows like these.
Most Pilot-y Line: “Let me tell you something… Our species is due for a bit of extinction, right?” Rios says to Cruces as they drive back into town from the crime scene. The line seems to come out of nowhere.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Asunta Case is worth watching to learn about a case that rocked Spain back in the 2010s, but it feels like the creators are taking a very complex case and oversimplifying it, eliminating a lot of the grey areas that made the real-life case so fascinating to begin with.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
