How would the transition be for someone with zero emotional quotient if they woke up one day and felt every emotion all at once? Well, that’s pretty much the story of Netflix’s The Gardener. After a car accident and a severe injury to his head, Elmer stopped feeling any emotion. His mother, China Jurado, who’d lost her leg in the accident, learned to cope with the unexpected change and taught Elmer to always think that he was special. From teaching him how to fake expressions to constantly reminding him that there was nothing wrong with him, China believed she did her best to provide her son a quality life. But there was a catch: China used Elmer’s condition to commit murders on request. She desperately wanted to buy the house she grew up in in Mexico, and she took a hefty sum from her clients to fulfill her dream. Things drastically changed when Elmer gradually figured out that he could feel emotions again, and he wondered if he was not special anymore.
Spoiler Alert
Why did China want Elmer to undergo the operation?
We gradually discovered in The Gardener that Elmer had developed a benign tumor, and it had resulted in him experiencing emotions for the first time as an adult. The doctor advised operating on it before it turned cancerous, but Elmer was not sure if that was something he wanted. As someone who’d never felt a thing, love had changed his mind. He thought he would rather die early and experience what it was to be in love than live a few more decades as a heartless man. But China was not happy with her son’s decision, especially because the woman he’d fallen in love with was their target. Their client had offered them a large amount of money, and after this one assignment, China believed they would no longer need to kill anymore. But Elmer refused to hurt the woman he was madly in love with. He attempted to distance himself from Violeta, as his mother had said it was the only condition under which she’d consider rejecting the offer—but he couldn’t follow through. Violeta had turned his monochrome world into a Monet painting, and he could not imagine living without her anymore. Elmer focused most of his time on gardening and the rest on going around town with Violeta.
China was envious; Elmer never had a friend growing up, and naturally, he was completely dependent on his mother and had never questioned her decisions. But the minute he started to feel emotions and realized that his mother would rather fulfill her dream of buying a house in Mexico than let her son live life on his own terms, he distanced himself from China. Killing Violeta had become extremely personal for China, so she decided to do it herself. But she soon realized that she was letting her emotions take over instead of thinking logically about the consequences. China figured out that love never came without a cost, and one day Violeta would surely break her son’s heart; after all, he was a killer, and their garden was essentially a decomposition island. She was relieved when she noticed that Elmer was not spending most of his days with Violeta. The young teacher had a dark past, and it often came in between her relationship with Elmer.
Violeta was accused of murdering her former boyfriend, and it was his mother, Sabela, who’d paid China to eliminate her. While it seemed Violeta was innocent and it was all just a grand misunderstanding, we eventually find out that she had indeed killed her abusive ex who refused to let her live in peace. But thankfully her best friend had vouched for her and told the police that Violeta was with her at the time of the murder, and since there were no witnesses, she was thought to be innocent. But every now and then, Sabela reminded her that she had to pay the price of her son’s death, and on days like that, Violeta preferred being with her friends who knew the whole truth than with Elmer. Her friends didn’t think Elmer was the right guy for her. They felt he was too clingy and could be possessive just like her ex, and they advised her to leave him. She considered their advice and left him, only to realize that she was still in love with Elmer.
Why did China attack Elmer?
Just when China thought Elmer had come to his senses and she could use his angst to make him kill Violeta, Elmer’s emotions got in the way. He was ready to kill Violeta when they met the first time after their breakup. But when she expressed that she loved him, Elmer couldn’t stick to the plan anymore. Elmer figured that the only way to fix their problem was by killing Sabela and stealing her jewelry so that his mother could use it to buy the house. Elmer was driven by emotions, and as a result, the killing did not go as smoothly as he would have preferred. Instead of making Sabela “disappear” by burying her body in the garden, he ended up stabbing her and had no choice but to make it look like a robbery. He handed the jewelry he stole to his mother and begged her to leave him alone.
Meanwhile, the next morning, when Violeta was alone, she figured out that Elmer was the one who’d killed Sabela. She’d found Sabela’s earring stuck in his pullover, and her friend had informed her that she’d seen Elmer outside Sabela’s house the previous night. Violeta packed her belongings and decided to leave, when all of a sudden a man knocked her out. He carried her to a nearby forest and attempted to shoot her, but thankfully she managed to run for her life. In self-defense, Violeta bashed him with a rock, immediately regretting her actions. Even though she’d decided to end her relationship with Elmer that morning, he was the only one she knew who could help her with her problem. Elmer readily agreed to meet her and placed the man, Orson’s body, in the car and pushed it off a slope, and the car ultimately crashed. He had left the jewelry he had stolen in the car to make it look as if Orson was the robber who’d killed Sabela and attempted to run away with the stolen stash, but met with an accident on the way.
Elmer was disappointed and heartbroken when he learned that his mother had sent Orson to kill Violeta. When he returned home, he demanded that his mother burn all the money he’d made by killing people to prove that she cared more about him than the cash he brought her. Elmer knew that his mother wanted him to go back to his old form because he was easier to manipulate. She’d always cared only about her dreams and not what her son was going through. He realized he didn’t have a choice but to abandon her and live his life on his own terms. But China was not ready to let that happen, so she knocked him out.
Why did Violeta decide to leave town?
Violeta had no idea that she had been dating a professional killer. She’d tried to run away from him, but as fate would have it, she ended up asking for Elmer’s help after she got herself in a bloody mess. He not only admitted to killing Sabela but also to all the eleven jobs he’d taken. He explained that Violeta too had been a target, but he could not kill her because he’d fallen in love with her. Elmer wanted her to know she’d changed his world completely when she kissed her. Elmer dropped Violeta off at the spot she’d left her car. He knew this was the end of their relationship; after all, there was no way she would want to spend the rest of her life with a killer. Violeta perhaps cursed herself for always choosing the wrong men to fall in love with. Her friends had always pointed out how she attracted problematic men and that she must be extra careful when falling in love. But once again she made a mistake she had no control over. She loved Elmer’s simplicity and his dedication towards her. The thought that he too was possibly an obsessive man had crossed her mind, but when she distanced herself from him, she figured that maybe he was all that she’d wished for and that she must give him another chance. She begged her friends not to tell the police that they’d seen Elmer at Sabela’s place on the night of the murder. She’d stated that he could not be involved in any way, because if his secret came out, she too would go down with him. At the end of The Gardener, Violeta decided to leave the town and settle somewhere else. The haunting memories attached to the town were weakening her a little every day, and she felt she needed a change to get over all that she’d been through. Her friends supported her decision, and with a heavy heart, they bid her goodbye.
Will Elmer ever feel emotions again?
After China had knocked out Elmer, he was hospitalized, and as a result, the doctors had operated on his tumor as well. This was exactly what China had wished for; she tried to achieve her desired result with her son’s consent, but when he decided to ‘betray’ her, she realized she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. When Elmer came to his senses, China realized that her son remembered what had transpired the night he was brought to the hospital. He despised her and refused to engage with her. China believed that since hate was the last emotion her son had experienced, that was all he was holding onto. Sometimes she felt he was only pretending to be angry at her, because he ended up staying with her and dedicated himself to beautifying his garden. While China’s dream of moving to Mexico was yet to be realized, she was glad to have her emotionless son back. Maybe Elmer would have accepted the life he was forced to live if he had not met Violeta at the very end of The Gardener season 1. He remembered her, but could he recall the way he felt when he was with her? Was Elmer only pretending not to experience a plethora of emotions in the hopes of fooling his mother and ultimately living the life he had wished for?
Will The Show return with a second season?
Throughout The Gardener season 1, detectives Torres and Carrera were busy untangling the mystery at play. They were assigned to investigate missing persons cases, and even when they realized that it was possibly homicide, they chose to investigate further instead of handing the case to the homicide department. Carrera wanted to leave a mark before she retired from her job, and she believed the case she had at hand would prove how efficient and effective her investigative skill was. Torres was just happy to tag along with her, and the two had a brief affair as well. It all began with the disappearance of a swimmer. Carrera could not shrug off the feeling that there was something bigger at play. The way the swimmer had left his belongings (in an extremely orderly fashion) at the shore even though he was not a very well-organized person in real life, and the fact that his body hadn’t been found made Carrera assume that he didn’t drown to death. When another disappearance case cropped up where she found a gardening tool at the scene, she started to connect the dots. The victim was Mon, and he was last seen having a heated exchange with Violeta. Interestingly, Violeta was accompanied by Elmer, who claimed to be innocent, but of course, there was something about him that made Carrera suspicious. She also noticed the wife of the swimmer visiting Elmer’s nursery, and that was when she thought that maybe it was all connected. The easiest way for a gardener to dispose of bodies was by using the corpses as manure for their plants. She suspected that they had created a decomposition island, which resulted in their good quality and unique plants.
Carrera was eager to nab the criminals, so she decided to trespass into China’s property and take pictures of the plants in the nursery under UV light. If spots appeared on the leaves, it would suggest that there was a buried corpse underneath who was once a smoker, and that would essentially prove her theory. The judge granted permission to search the property after Carrera submitted the photographs as well as an expert’s opinion on the matter. But to her surprise, when she reached the property, the garden was gone. Carrera and Torres were humiliated by their precinct head for not passing the case onto the homicide department and making fools of themselves. As it turned out, when Carrera was taking pictures at China’s garden, China had seen her, and she’d figured the police were investigating them. With the help of Orson, she removed all the corpses and dumped them in the sea. Just when Carrera and Torres had given up hope, nature nudged them to not give up.
In the end credits scene of The Gardener, we witness how the sea brought the corpses back to the shore, which meant that they would reopen the case and they had enough evidence to suspect the mother and son. Hopefully, Carrera and Torres will be allowed to work on the case, and who knows, maybe they will catch the killer duo in action! In the final scene, Violeta had returned to her old town, and she met Elmer. She wanted his help to kill a man; perhaps she had once again gotten herself entangled in some problem, or maybe someone from the past continued to bother her. It also indicates that death was not something Violeta was afraid of. Just like Elmer, she too at times thought that it was best to kill those who caused trouble. Will Elmer take the job, and will it bring back his feelings for her? Will this be the reason why Elmer will end up going to prison? We’ll have to wait for The Gardener season 2, to find out the answers to our questions.
