The Crystal Cuckoo’s ending was about Rafa and Gabriel paying for the crimes that they had committed and covered up over the course of several decades. The town of Yesques had become synonymous with random disappearances, but nobody, not even the police, could figure out who was behind these kidnappings. That’s because a member of the police itself was involved in the cover-ups. That’s right, police officer Rafa was in cahoots with the perpetrator, Gabriel, and was saving him from any kind of harm because he had been indoctrinated to do so by his uncle. When Rafa was just a child, Gabriel took him under his wing and exposed him to the crimes against women that he committed on a regular basis. Initially, Rafa was horrified by the fact that Gabriel had possibly killed Magdalena Ferrer, but as time went by, he suppressed that memory.
However, when Gabriel killed his own wife, Luisa, and Rafa spotted the necklace around her neck, which was the same one that Magdalena was wearing when she died, he put two and two together and finally confronted his uncle for being a murderer. But since Gabriel insinuated that he wasn’t Rafa’s uncle but his father, Rafa was unable to take any action against him. To make matters worse, while seeking an outlet for his complicated feelings about Gabriel, Rafa raped and murdered Silvia, a girl he was having an affair with, which weirdly enough made him relate with Gabriel. Hence, when Miguel (Rafa’s friend and Magdalena’s brother) figured out that Gabriel was a serial killer and decided to kill him, Rafa chose to kill Miguel and bury him in the woods. As a result, when Clara—a medical resident whose life was saved by the heart that was donated by Miguel’s son, Carlos—came to Yesques to spend some time with Miguel’s wife, Marta, and his other son, Juan, she got kidnapped by Gabriel. Did that spur Rafa to rectify his mistakes? Let’s talk about the finale of The Crystal Cuckoo to find out.
Spoiler Alert
Gabriel died
When word started to spread that Clara had been kidnapped by an old man, Rafa immediately knew that Gabriel was at fault. So, after Gabriel had transported Clara to his cabin in the woods, Rafa called Gabriel to confirm if the rumors were true or not. Clara was semi-conscious at that point, and she caught some of the words that were exchanged between Gabriel and Rafa. She didn’t know Gabriel was talking to Rafa, but she heard him refer to Rafa by his nickname, Eaglet. Meanwhile, back at the station, as Rafa was figuring out how to protect Gabriel from the repercussions of the mess that he had made, he got a call from Marta, who told him that she suspected that Gabriel was behind all this. This reduced Rafa’s chances of sweeping Gabriel’s latest crime under the carpet. He killed Miguel to save Gabriel. What was he going to do now? Kill every person who suspected that Gabriel was a serial killer? As Rafa was contemplating this, Juan arrived at the station, and, surprisingly enough, Rafa told him that Gabriel had been spotted. So, without giving it another thought, Juan decided to raid Gabriel’s cabin, and, believe it or not, Rafa supported his decision. In the meantime, a disoriented Clara managed to free herself and ran into the woods. Gabriel went after her, and, despite being a geriatric cretin, he somehow managed to keep up with Clara.
Yeah, Clara was injured and discombobulated, but still, it was shocking to see how pure evil can push the human body beyond its natural limits. Gabriel not only caught up to Clara, but he was about to kill her as well. Thankfully, Juan and Rafa showed up, and the latter gunned down Gabriel, thereby bringing his reign of terror to an end. While Juan stayed with Clara, Rafa rushed to Gabriel’s cabin and secured the phone that he used to talk with Rafa. Therefore, when the police and forensic team arrived, they put the blame for all the disappearances on Gabriel, including that of Silvia. Now, I’m sure you are wondering why Rafa chose to kill Gabriel instead of protecting him again. I think that the irrational and sinister side of Rafa’s brain was planning to take Juan to the cabin, kill him and Clara, and let Gabriel live out the rest of his life on his own terms. But the rational side of Rafa’s mind told him that since so many people not only knew that Gabriel was in Yesques, but also suspected that he had kidnapped Clara, a cover-up would be impossible. On top of that, I suppose he felt that Yesques had suffered for too long because of Gabriel, and the town needed to be freed from his uncle’s dark shadow. Eventually, sense prevailed, and Rafa chose to be rational and just. Well, almost, because Rafa still had to pay for killing Silvia and Miguel.
Rafa Died
In the ending of The Crystal Cuckoo, as Clara prepared to leave Yesques and return to her home in Madrid, Rafa paid her and Marta a visit. The noose around his neck was starting to tighten, because the police had figured out that someone was bringing medication from France for Gabriel. In addition to that, the search for bodies around Gabriel’s cabin had unearthed Miguel’s body, which had been buried there by Rafa. Sure, the authorities wouldn’t have traced those two things back to Rafa, but the guilt of doing such heinous things was eroding his soul. So, I think he wanted to be confronted by them. He didn’t do anything to push the conversation between them in a direction that’d allow any one of them to figure out that he was helping Gabriel all this while. But call it fate or something else, the topic of Rafa being Carlos’ godfather came up, and it was revealed that Rafa used to call Carlos “Eaglet.” That ignited Clara’s memory of being in Gabriel’s cabin, and she remembered her captor referring to someone on the phone as Eaglet. Even though it was a stretch, Clara took her chances and accused Rafa of being Gabriel’s partner-in-crime. She had seen videos of Carlos doing a ritualistic dance that used to be performed by Rafa, which he had learned from Gabriel.
Rafa was already on the edge, and he let the mask drop when Clara connected all of these dots. He confessed to all the crimes he had committed, and, without a hint of hesitation, Marta told Rafa to kill himself. Rafa was unable to do it, and the show heavily insinuated that it was Marta who took the gun from him and killed him. The narrative that was presented before the police was that Rafa confessed to the crimes he had committed. Then he tried to kill Clara because she was the one who had figured out that Rafa was Gabriel’s aide. That’s when Marta lunged at him, and while they were fighting, the gun went off, and Rafa died. Once the police accepted that story, Clara finally got to leave for Madrid. On the highway, Clara encountered a wolf, and they kind of smiled at each other. So, what did that mean? Gabriel and Rafa used the wolf as their sigil. They were even referred to as “lone wolves.” Meanwhile, wolves aren’t creatures that go around raping their own kind and killing other wolves just because they can. So, it’s unfair to associate these natural predators with human predators and tarnish that animal’s image. And since Clara helped in repairing the beast’s reputation by exposing Gabriel and Rafa’s real faces, which they hid behind a wolf mask, I guess the wolf showed up to thank her. If there’s any other interpretation you have in mind, something that’s rooted in Spanish culture, feel free to let me know.
Meaning of Crystal Cuckoo
While everything in The Crystal Cuckoo was pretty self-explanatory, the one thing that kept bugging me was the title. What did it mean? So, it’s heavily implied that Gabriel raped his sister and Rafa was a result of that. We know that cuckoos are known for laying their eggs in the nests of other birds and letting them take care of their babies. This baby would be bigger than the mother who had been forced to adopt it and would eat into the share of the food the mother had reserved for her biological babies. Hence, the mother’s actual children would die, and the cuckoo’s baby would reign supreme. If you take a literal approach to translating this phenomenon of the cuckoo, Gabriel laid his seed in Rafa’s mother’s nest and forced her to give him the love and care that she would have given to a child born of passion, not hatred. Metaphorically speaking, the cuckoo egg that was being laid was hatred. Instead of giving an innocent child a proper upbringing, Gabriel filled Rafa with malice. What did Rafa do? Did he exorcise the demons in him? Nope. He passed them down to Carlos, his godson. That kid was already suffering from his physical ailments, and then he supposedly dumped a bunch of hateful thoughts and imagery on him.
As per Carlos’ girlfriend, Maria, the accident that killed Carlos wasn’t a simple accident; it was suicide. If Carlos had lived, it’s possible that he would have passed Gabriel and Rafa’s teachings down to another generation. However, he chose to kill himself. Since he died, his heart was transferred to Clara, who brought Yesques’ cycle of violence to an end. So, does that make Clara the crystal cuckoo? Because although she had the heart and spirit (the seed) of a poisoned person in her chest, she managed to transform it into something positive. With Rafa and Gabriel gone, maybe Yesques will enter an era of love that’ll liberate the women in the town and teach men to hold themselves accountable. If that sounds like a muddled explanation of the show’s title, blame it on the makers because they didn’t shed any light on that topic. I mean, it sounds cool. But just because something sounds cool doesn’t mean that it has substance. Therefore, yeah, maybe I have managed to crack the code of the crystal cuckoo, or maybe I haven’t cracked anything at all because, well, there is nothing to crack here. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the miniseries. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
