Directed by Daniel Burman and Marik Hodara, Maledictions follows the story of a two-time governor named Fernando Rovira whose life goes into a spiral after his daughter Zoe gets kidnapped by his trusted assistant, Roman Sabate. Roman had been with Fernando for more than a decade, and he knew about certain secrets that no one else was. So let’s find out what happened in the series: why Roman kidnapped Zoe, and if Fernando was able to catch him at the end.
Spoiler Alert
Did Fernando intentionally hurt Roman’s mother?
Roman Sabate had kidnapped Zoe Rovira, and for a very long time nobody could understand what he was up to and why he would do such a thing. In the second episode of Maledictions, we got to know that Roman had first arrived at Fernando’s place after his mother had met with an accident. He had decided to work as the assistant of Fernando, who at that time was a federal judge. Roman’s mother was being treated by Dr. Alberto Capardi, who happened to be one of Fernando’s closest friends and allies. Little did Roman know at the time that the accident was planned just so that Fernando had some leverage over Roman. I don’t think that Fernando knew the extent to which Roman’s mother would get hurt, and I also failed to understand why he chose that particular strategy when he knew how it could prove to be an issue for him. Basically, Fernando and his wife, Lucrecia, couldn’t have kids, since the former suffered from infertility. Lucrecia wanted Roman to be the biological father of her baby, as she felt that he had all the qualities she would want in her kid. Ideally, she should have gone outside Argentina so that the media didn’t catch a whiff of it and make it a national issue. Fernando was going to kickstart his campaign to become the governor of his state, and he knew the kind of unnecessary controversy that would be created if people got to know about it. But still he caved to his wife. The series never really gets into the detail of how that entire accident was planned and why nobody thought about the repercussions it could have. But clearly Fernando had a role to play in the accident, which Roman got to know at a later stage. Roman confronted him in the third episode, and he told him that Dr. Capardi being there, at a nearby medical facility, on the day his mother met with an accident was not just a coincidence.
What did Fernando and his wife want from Roman?
Roman didn’t have any clue that, apart from being the federal judge’s assistant, he would be expected to do anything else for him. Fernando told him that he and his wife couldn’t have babies, and after thinking a lot, they had decided that they wanted somebody else to be the biological father. They made it look like they had made an impromptu offer after they saw him and got to know the kind of man he was. But in reality, they had set a trap, and they were just waiting for him to walk into it. I don’t think that, at that time, they had any sort of hidden motives other than the fact that they wanted him to be the biological father. Roman didn’t agree at first, but Fernando knew that he would give in eventually. Lucrecia was a very beautiful and sensitive woman, and it was impossible to not like her. Roman felt bad for the couple, and he was humbled by the way they treated him. They went out of their way to make sure that he was comfortable, and that meant a lot to him. Also, the kind of trust they put in him made him feel overwhelmed. So, eventually, Roman gave in, as Fernando had expected, and Lucrecia gave birth to a girl, who they named Zoe. For the longest time, Zoe didn’t have any clue that Roman was her biological father. Lucrecia didn’t want to hide that fact from her, even though she knew the kind of consequences her revelation could entail. Apparently, a man named Tucumano broke into Fernando’s house with the intent to rob the place. But he didn’t steal anything; instead, he fired two shots at Lucrecia and killed her. Just before dying, Lucrecia told Zoe that Roman was her biological father, and so when Zoe was kidnapped, she confronted Roman and told him about it. For the longest time, nobody questioned how a robber broke into a place but left without taking anything. Fernando loved his wife, but Lucrecia’s death made Roman question his intentions. Any prudent man wouldn’t have bought the story that was being pushed, but somehow Fernando never found anything strange about it until he met Dr. Capardi, who urged him to open his eyes and look at what was happening behind his back.
Did Fernando murder his wife?
Fernando went from federal judge to governor, and he even won the reelections just after Lucrecia’s demise. As stated earlier, it was not very difficult to understand how Lucrecia’s death had helped Fernando during the reelections. There was a motive on his part, and so Roman felt that he was the one who had her murdered. But it was not so. Fernando might have made some bad choices, but he loved his wife and his kid. Also, he never had anything against Roman until he kidnapped Zoe.
Fernando met Dr. Capadri, who had gone behind his back and told Roman everything to do with his mother’s accident. Fernando didn’t understand why he would do that, and so he went to meet him. That’s when Capadri told him that he knew that he was going to run for president, and he was setting up a coalition that would support his candidacy. Capadri felt that his political ambitions would be ruined if that happened, and he was also a bit hurt by how he was not informed about the entire situation. He felt betrayed in a way, as he expected that Fernando would join hands with him and keep him in the loop. Capadri was just looking out for his interests, and it was him who asked Fernando to look into Tucumano. Fernando didn’t understand what he meant at that time, but I believe Capadri was also quite sure that it was the former who had his wife killed. Fernando got to know that Tucumano’s official address was the same as his right-hand man, Vargas. Vargas might have been working for Fernando, but he had sworn allegiance towards Irene, Fernando’s mother. We got to know in Maledictions episode 3 that it was Irene, Fernando’s mother, who had Lucrecia killed, as she didn’t want her to make it public that Fernando was not the biological father of their child. Irene didn’t say it, but she took credit for making Fernando win the reelections. Irene believed that Fernando didn’t have it in him to make it big in politics without her. She told him that things never fall into place on their own, somebody has to pull the strings and make it happen. After Fernando realized that his wife was killed by his mother, he went to her bedroom, late at night, with the intention of stabbing her to death. Irene was awake, and she told her son upfront that he didn’t have it in him to kill anybody. Also, she stated very clearly that instead of resenting her, he should be thankful, as she had cleared his path and made sure that his political career was a success. Probably Fernando could never understand his mother, but he knew that what she had done was not right. More importantly, this was not how he wanted to do things. Yes, he wanted to win the presidential election, but he wanted to do it on his own terms.
Why Did Fernando Let The Water Bill Pass?
A Water Bill was going to be introduced in the Senate, and Fernando did not want it to pass, though he showed public support for it. The bill aimed to stop mining activities in the Aguas Dulces region. Even before Fernando had become the governor, he had struck a deal with a man named Cristian who ran the Mapple Corporation. They were supposed to extract lithium from there, but the amount of water needed to make the entire mining operation profitable would have caused a severe shortage in the region. Also, an analysis of the kind of impact the entire operation would have on the environment had indicated that the operation would pose a serious risk to the ecosystem. Fernando had made sure to cover his tracks so that he could pretend he had nothing to do with Cristian’s firm and that he was not reaping any kind of benefit from the operation. But Roman had found documents at the mining site through which he was going to prove that Fernando was involved in the scam if he didn’t support the bill and let it pass. Irene was a ruthless pragmatist, and she asked Vargas to bring Zoe to her. She knew when Roman was going to meet Fernando, and she had figured out where he was hiding. She also knew that, though Roman was using Zoe to blackmail Fernando, he would never lay a finger on her, because he loved her. Irene was also the grandmother of the little girl, but she had no feelings, no affection for her. She felt that for people like her, attachments were like weak spots. She loved her son, and she knew how, at times, her relationship became her weakness. So she told Roman to hand over all the documents that he had procured that could potentially link her and Fernando to the mining operation. As expected, Roman gave in, as he didn’t want Zoe to get hurt.
But what Irene didn’t expect was that after everything, her son would go against her. Fernando couldn’t kill his mother, because his conscience didn’t allow him to do so, but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t make things right. Fernando made sure the bill was passed, and then he went on an interview and expressed his views rather openly. He declared that he was going to run for president, and that Dr. Capadri would be his running mate. To Irene’s horror, he accepted that Roman was Zoe’s father, and that she would be living with him indefinitely. Cristian made it public that he wouldn’t make any investments in Argentina, but Fernando made it clear that progress and development couldn’t come at the cost of destroying the environment. Irene was pulling her hair out while her son was making the revelations on national television. She felt that he was a fool who didn’t know how things worked in politics. According to her, he had ruined her years of work, and he had made the worst possible decision. But deep in his heart, Fernando was proud of himself, as he knew that he had finally become the leader that he always wanted to be. He wanted to lead by setting an example and showing the country that politicians could be honest too.
