I arrived quite late to the Silo hype train, and I really loved the first season. The entire cast was excellent. The production design, art design, costume design, and the overall worldbuilding were top-notch. But most importantly, the mystery and politics around the reason why all of humanity had been confined to a freaking silo was interesting as hell. The showrunners gave us relatable characters and took us on a rollercoaster ride of a journey along with said characters. They kind of dropped the ball in Season 2. By some stroke of luck though, Paradise arrived at the nick of time to triumphantly pull off a touchdown with the help of some amazing performances, spectacular storytelling, and some of the most prescient commentary on modern politics. And the more I thought about the Hulu show, for some reason, the more I hated Silo Season 2 for becoming a victim of the dreaded sophomore slump. However, after watching Billionaires’ Bunker, I have started to appreciate that Apple TV+ show, because I was hit with the realization that it could have been so much worse. So, yeah, let’s talk about the latest Spanish masterpiece on Netflix.
Alex Pina and Esther Martinez Lobato’s Billionaires’ Bunker—with the episodes being directed by David Barrocal, Jesus Colmenar, and J.M. Cravioto—starts things off through the perspective of Max, a rich boy who falls in love with a rich girl named Ane. They have a whirlwind romance, but a freak traffic collision ends up killing Ane, and Max goes to jail for involuntary manslaughter. He spends a major chunk of his time in prison getting punished for his sins; however, one fine day, he decides that he has had enough and begins to hit back at anyone who tries to bully him. Eventually, Max gets to walk out of jail, but that’s when he is stopped from enjoying his newly earned freedom by his own dad, Rafa. Why? Because a nuclear war is on the horizon, and Rafa wants Max to come away with him to a bunker meant for the affluent class of Spain. Ane’s family—Falcon, her father; Asia, her sister; and Mimi, her stepmother—are in the bunker already, which creates fertile ground for drama between them and Max, Rafa, Frida (Rafa’s wife), and Victoria (Max’s grandmother). The masterminds behind this high-tech facility are Minerva and her brother, Ziro, and they promise to keep these billionaires safe until things on the surface get better. Whether Minerva is as generous as she seems or if she has some ulterior motives is what forms the crux of the story.
As fans of the great Alfred Hitchcock, the writers of Billionaires’ Bunker go for the tried-and-tested “bomb under the table” method of revealing the show’s great mystery. It’s a bold move, but the issue is that after the revelation, they don’t do anything all that intriguing with it. If this was a regular group of people who were being confined to this bunker, then maybe the fact that they were being betrayed by Minerva would have affected me on an emotional level. But since all of the characters were uber-rich parasites of society who had given birth to kids with massive golden spoons in their mouths, it was tough to empathize with them. I tried to look at the whole affair through the lens of a dark comedy, where I should laugh at the insane levels of torture that these rich folks were being subjected to, but the tone never veered into that territory, so that exercise seemed pointless. What they did veer into was romantic-drama territory, and it was immensely cringe-worthy. Every time the characters talked about anything synonymous with love, affection, or lust, I felt repulsed. And as you might have noticed by now, by putting so much emphasis on the villains of the show (and the world), the writers really forgot to develop their heroes, i.e., the actual protagonists if you don’t count Max.
You see, after watching stuff like Delicious and An Honest Life, I am starting to notice an aberration in the “eat the rich” subgenre of movies and TV shows. Instead of taking notes from socialist and communist studies about class warfare, capitalism, oppression, and everything else that fuels protests and anarchy, it seems like writers are purposefully trying to portray those who hate the rich as vapid, misguided souls who are doing what they are doing just because they want to join the wealthy club. It makes sense why they are doing it—society is in god-knows-which-stage of capitalism, and everything from the news to social media has kind of brainwashed the general public into fawning over capitalists and seeing anti-capitalists as the bane of everyone’s existence. Hence, the lopsided focus on the villains and those who are supposed to be the heroes. You get some base-level understanding of Minerva and her crew’s motivations, but the showrunners never give the audience the space to relate to or empathize with them. That luxury is given to the characters who are mind-bogglingly privileged. Why? So that the audience walks away with the notion that the rich are unfairly hated because even these people—these people who suck the life out of everything they touch—have a soul. If you don’t think that sets a very dangerous precedent, I want to smoke some of whatever you’re smoking (not really, I’m not a smoker).
The money that has been spent on the production design, art direction, costume design, hair and make-up design, special effects, visual effects, CGI, and every single element that you see in the bunker is palpable. It doesn’t look, sound, or feel like a cheap show by any means. While the writing doesn’t do the actors any favors, they truly give it their all. Even in the most awkward sequences, you can sense how talented the whole cast truly is. What bogs down the whole thing is the storytelling and the pacing. I know that 8 episodes has become somewhat of a standard when it comes to “prestige, borderline trashy” television like this, but you really don’t have to stretch your material if it can’t be stretched. It’s good to try and emulate the success of Silo and Paradise; however, what’s the point if your story has barely enough substance to justify a short film, let alone a feature-length film? This week’s Black Rabbit had the same problem—just a cascade of self-indulgent but emotionally empty creative choices one after another. Since we are in the era of “let it run in the background” television, I suppose stuff like Billionaires’ Bunker will become a “hit,” but is that really the kind of legacy that creators are striving for nowadays? Has the urge to be memorable become a rarity? If so, there are some dark days ahead of us. If it’s not clear already, don’t watch Billionaires’ Bunker; go and watch Silo and/or Paradise.
