Billionaires’ Bunker is one of those series that, till the very end, was not able to decide what it wanted to say. At times, it wanted to tell the story of a bunch of anarchists trying to wage a war against the capitalistic society, then it drifted into recounting the scandalous affairs of the elites, and then, without warning, it transformed into a romantic saga. The problem was that they were not able to do any of these things with conviction, and the storyline, and the subplots in general, felt lackluster. So, let’s find out what happened in the series and why the billionaires were being held in a bunker.
Spoiler Alert
How did the billionaires end up in the bunker?
I believe that if the makers had delved deeper into Minerva’s (the antagonist) ideology and her motives behind building the bunker, rather than putting all the focus on the interpersonal relationships, the series would have left a much bigger impact. I think that the backstories and the dynamics shared by the various characters were not intriguing enough to keep viewers hooked for 8 episodes. There were times when the actions of the various characters seemed absolutely frivolous, with no depth or greater motivation to them. A mother saying that her romantic side prevailed over her maternal instincts was among the many things that I found quite absurd. Nonetheless, let’s come back to how it all started and why Minerva built the Billionaires’ Bunker in the first place. Minerva had realized that in a capitalist society, every individual had the illusion that they could climb the ladder of success and reach the top of the food chain. But the rules, the laws, and every other aspect of society favored only the rich and the powerful. These elites made sure that a poor man remained poor his entire life, the only difference being that people were given a false hope that they could turn the odds in their favor. Minerva and her younger brother, Ziro, had had to go through a lot in their childhood. Their mother, who was a single parent, abandoned them, as she felt that she wasn’t fit to be a mother. The social services took Minerva and Ziro in, and their lives changed completely after that. Minerva realized that knowledge was the only weapon she had, and she needed to study really hard if she wanted to make a place for herself in society. So Ziro and Minerva excelled in academics, and they made sure they secured good jobs. Minerva, who had studied civil engineering, worked with a construction company. She built a high-speed train system that could endure the scorching heart of the desert. She was proud of her creation, but she realized that where she earned only around 5000 euros a month, the company made a fortune off the entire project. She realized that she wouldn’t be able to earn that amount if she didn’t take some risks in her life. That’s when she decided to pitch a plan to the billionaires of the country. She decided to build a bunker that could withstand a nuclear attack, or gave the impression that it could. The entire project was financed by the billionaires themselves, as Minerva knew how to manipulate them and make them aligned to her perspective. As political relationships between various nations worsened and tensions increased, Minerva decided to use the situation to her advantage. She gave the billionaires the impression that the world stood on the brink of World War 3. To make sure that her narrative was believable, she went to great lengths. She made sure she had performers all around the city who were seen leaving with their suitcases. The billionaires were blindfolded once they got on the helicopter since Minerva didn’t want them to know the exact location of the bunker. Once they were inside the bunker, Minerva showed them what she wanted to. Inside the bunker, she showed them fake news. Using an AI (named Roxan in the series), she made them believe that a nuclear bomb had been dropped very near to their location; she even used special effects inside the bunker to make everything seem realistic. Minerva had hired a filmmaker to depict a false image of what was happening in the outside world. As a result, the billionaires were scared to death, and Minerva knew how to take advantage of their paranoia.
How did Ane die?
Guillermo Falcon and Rafa’s family had shared a very close bond for a very long time. Guillermo’s elder daughter, Ane, was in a relationship with Max, Rafa’s son. They both knew that they were meant for each other, but then an unprecedented tragedy changed their lives forever. Max and Ane were 19 when they met with an accident in which the latter ended up losing her life. Max was drunk, and his father had told him to not drive in that state, but he didn’t listen to him. Max lost control of his car, and Ane succumbed to her injuries on the spot. Rafa arrived at the scene, and he asked his son to run away from there, as his first impulse was to save his son from the law enforcement authorities. I believe that Max’s lawyer would have been able to prove that he wasn’t responsible for the accident, had Rafa not had a change of heart, and testified against his son. In the first few episodes of Billionaires’ Bunker, he told his son and his family that he let his conscience prevail over his paternal instincts, but that was not the truth. Guillermo had threatened him into testifying, and Rafa knew that if he didn’t do that, then the former would eventually kill his son. I have to say here that at times I couldn’t decipher the motivations of the characters. Rafa blabbered something about how he was threatened, but still he knew that it was the right thing to do, which completely went over my head. Nonetheless, Max was put behind bars for three years, and his time there completely changed him as a person. The day he walked out of the prison, he was taken to that bunker, and he had to face Guillermo and his entire family. Max had loved Ane with all his heart, and with great difficulty, he had managed to let go of the past. But now he had to face Ane’s family i.e her father and younger sister, Asia, and he knew that it was not going to be a cakewalk.
What were Rafa and Guillermo hiding from each other?
Rafa and Guillermo were keeping a lot of secrets from each other, but during their stay in the bunker, they all started spilling the beans. Rafa’s wife, Frida, had had an affair with Guillermo for the last 2 decades. In fact, she was so head over heels with Guillermo that she didn’t want to see her son after he killed his daughter. Apparently she couldn’t stand to see her lover so depressed, but she didn’t care if her son lived or died. That was the kind of woman she was, and quite proudly she stated that she was a better lover than a mother. She broke up with Rafa at the beginning of the series, and on top of that, she told him that she never loved him. Frida’s mother, Victoria, was another weird character. She had been diagnosed with cancer approximately 12 years back, but she never took her illness seriously, as her motto in life was to seize every moment. All these people were of questionable character and dubious moral standing. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that they didn’t have any moral standards, and they just gave in to their sexual inclinations whenever they wanted to. Guillermo ill-treated his second wife, Mimi, and she even caught him getting intimate with one of Minerva’s employees, Ingrid. So once Mimi broke up with her husband, she got intimate with Victoria, Max’s grandmother. It was revealed that Rafa had a role to play in Guillermo’s first wife’s death. Rafa had told Marta that Guillermo was an extremely untrustworthy man who had been having multiple affairs. Marta had been suffering from depression and anxiety because of what Guillermo put her through. After talking to Rafa, Marta took her own life, and Guillermo didn’t know about Rafa’s involvement in it until they came to the bunker. Rafa, I believe, wouldn’t have told him had he not gotten to know that Frida had had an affair with him. Actually, Frida lied to Rafa and told him that she had an affair with her yoga teacher. It was Max who went and told his father about Guillermo. Now, Max also wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t gotten triggered by Frida’s actions and words. Max got to know that Frida had gotten intimate with one of Minerva’s employees named Yako. When he went to talk to her mother, she told him why she didn’t come to meet him in the prison. Max wanted to make his mother pay for her insensitivity. So you see, it was almost like a chain reaction, where one revelation led to another, until all the characters began exposing each other. In the process, the trust they once shared started to crumble, and their relationships were torn apart.
How did Minerva rob Guillermo’s company?
Minerva had plans to make the billionaires feel that they were standing on the brink of an imminent threat. Her ultimate goal was to take over their assets and strip them of their fortunes. She encountered certain problems on her way, but the AI program created by her brother made sure that everything proceeded as per her plans. Minerva lost her lover, Julia, at the beginning of Billionaires’ Bunker, and I felt that somewhere Ziro wanted Julia to not be a part of the entire plan. In flashback sequences, we saw that Ziro got a bit uncomfortable whenever he saw Julia and Minerva together. When things started getting a little out of hand inside the bunker, Julia realized she wouldn’t be able to take it. Ziro killed her, as he knew that they couldn’t risk her leaving the bunker. Meanwhile Oswaldo, a close associate of Guillermo Falcon, was constantly trying to contact him. Minerva made use of Roxan, the AI, to create a digital clone of Guillermo. The digital version had a chat with Oswaldo, who told him that they had an offer to buy an 18 percent stake in a company named Telixa. Guillermo had been wanting that for a long time, and so Minerva gave the go-ahead, and Oswaldo went and did what was asked of him. Minerva realized that she could create a fake narrative and manipulate Oswaldo into making a deal on behalf of the Falcon Industries. Minerva set up a few shell companies and made Guillermo’s digital version tell Oswaldo that he wanted to acquire a specific Unicorn (a young company that is worth over a billion dollars). An elaborate arrangement was made by Minerva, and Oswaldo walked right into the trap. Minerva went to great lengths to take advantage of Oswaldo. Oswaldo went to Thailand to acquire a company named Nexusthai. He visited the fake office, bought into the lies, got manipulated rather brutally, and transferred a sum of $900 million to Minerva’s account. Oswaldo did realize at the end that it was all a scam, but by then it was a bit too late. Minerva had sent her best performer, Ingrid, to woo Oswaldo and make sure that he let his feelings prevail over his prudence. Guillermo had no clue that he had been robbed, and all his time inside the bunker was spent focusing on solving his personal issues.
Was Max able to escape from the bunker?
Mimi, Guillermo’s second wife, needed to be put on dialysis after she suffered liver failure. The bunker had only limited resources, and Asia, who was a medical student, was trying her level best to keep Mimi alive. Mimi was a good woman, and her life had been completely ruined by Guillermo. Max and Asia decided that they needed to take their chances, go out of the bunker, and find the equipment needed to put Mimi on dialysis. They found out that there was a medical facility nearby, and they felt that they would be able to make it there. Max knew that since Minerva and her employees kept strict watch on them at all times, they needed to put on a fake show. So Max came up with this plan where they would pretend that they were in love so that nobody would ask questions if they spent a lot of time together. Little did Max know that Asia had feelings for him, and she was not putting on an act just for the sake of the management. Asia, from the beginning, pretended that she hated Max, but the reality was she was smitten by him. She knew that it was difficult to make people understand that she had fallen in love with her late sister’s partner. But it was the truth, and she had no control over her feelings. Though they encountered some minor roadblocks, Max and Asia’s plan was a huge success. They were able to shut down the security system and find an emergency exit that could lead them out of the bunker.
Though Mimi passed away even before Max could escape, he still decided to leave the bunker and check what was happening. Asia couldn’t hold back, and she expressed her emotions just before he went out. Max reciprocated her feelings and told her that he too loved her, but he had kept his feelings to himself as he didn’t know what she felt about him. Though we didn’t see Max leaving the bunker, I believe he would be able to go out and learn the truth.
Why did Minerva have Oswaldo killed?
Oswaldo, after realizing that the girl he met (who in reality was Ingrid) was a scamster, felt numb for a moment, and then he took the hasty decision to turn his private jet around and go back to Bangkok. He saw the mother of the girl he had met on a billboard, and he realized that she was an actor. He felt that something was off, and so he went and checked Ingrid’s Instagram account. He was shocked to find out that the account had been deleted. He landed in Bangkok and went to the office from where the Nexusthai company was operating, and he was dumbfounded to find out that there was nobody there apart from the cleaners. He called Guillermo, and that’s when he realized that all that while he was talking not to a real man but a digital version of him. He asked Guillermo what he used to call him in college, and obviously the AI didn’t have an answer for it. Oswaldo called the Economic Crimes Unit, but before his call could connect, Ingrid and Yako, who were still in Bangkok, attacked and killed him. Oswaldo was the only man who had figured out that the word “Roxan” had something to do with the entire scam. That last loose end was eliminated by Minerva, though I think that Oswaldo’s death will have repercussions in the future.
Will Max come back to save Asia?
Well, Max was just moments away from knowing the truth, and I believe that Minerva would try her level best to have him eliminated. She clearly had the resources to do so, and it would be a task for Max to save his life. Max had promised Asia that he would come back for her, and I believe that he was not somebody who would give up so easily. Meanwhile, I think that Asia would do whatever it takes to know Minerva’s secret from within the bunker. Maybe she too forms a team consisting of people who had doubts about Minerva’s intentions. Max, even if he has to risk his life yet again, will come back for Asia. He was not like Guillermo, who would not live up to his promise. He had found love after a really long time: life has given him an opportunity to be happy again, and I don’t think he will let that go.
