The Portuguese Netflix original Turn Of The Tide tells the story of young fisherman Eduardo, who dreams of moving to America, and his 3 close friends. The show is set in the Azores and dives into the struggling lives of these younglings until a stash of cocaine worth millions of dollars falls at their feet. Eduardo is raised by his father, who has now gone blind and needs surgery. Eduardo manages to get his hands on these drugs, and what follows is a series of misfortunes, all because of the ambition of this one man (and his friends). I don’t think Eduardo’s intention is to become a part of the underworld; he’s simply trying to get himself out of this messy situation so that he can lead a full, happy life, by himself, somewhere far away. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into the first season of Turn Of The Tide.
Spoiler Alert
What Does Eduardo Plan On Doing With The Drugs?
As the man of the house, Eduardo feels burdened by his father’s blindness as well as his own lack of opportunity. Eduardo and his friends, Rafael and Carlinhos, are fishermen. There’s also Silvia, who is Rafael’s girlfriend and simultaneously Eduardo’s love interest, a pink-haired mermaid stuck between the duo. One fine day, a boat struggling to handle the high tide drops a ton of coke in the middle of the ocean. This is Italian cocaine, and the two dudes who’ve dropped it off are Francesco and Gianluca. When cocaine washes up on the coast without warning, Eduardo uses his brain and realizes there’s more where it came from. He asks his friends to join him when he sees the news and what the package is truly worth, but they’re too busy snorting it themselves. Still, he manages to get a hand on the whole thing all by himself, and this is when everything changes. While this seems absolutely bizarre, all four of them realize this is an opportunity like no other to live their lives as they wish to. So, the trio joins Eduardo in his plans to change their worlds forever.
Shockingly, as soon as the plan is put into motion, Silvia drives into Gianluca while Eduardo and Rafael are in the car. First, they try to cut up the body, but it’s too terrifying for the gang, so Silvia comes up with the idea of putting the body in a freezer and then dumping it in the ocean. More importantly, they realize they’ve hit a foreigner and know that telling the police would put them in real danger.
At the same time, Arruda, Silvia’s father, finds out about the drugs and Eduardo specifically. He’s always been a bit of a snake, a lifelong criminal who thinks he can buy love with trinkets and buy respect with fear. He can’t stand the idea of someone in the Azores, especially a young man like Eduardo, landing on so much coke and him not getting a cut of it. But Eduardo wants to keep the drugs for himself and his friends; he knows there’s no chance Arruda would ever treat them fairly. In a twisted way, when his own daughter overdoses on cocaine and lands herself in the hospital, Arruda decides to take advantage of the situation and get closer to Silvia, even getting her a gun for her birthday.
But at the same time, Rafael is left in the dirt as he confesses their secrets to her dad and then gets brutally killed by him at sea, with Ze, Arruda’s driver and perpetual victim, being the only witness. While all that was happening, the Italian boss, Monti, showed up in the Azores sniffing for the cocaine. He used his contacts to track it down and ended up at Eduardo’s doorstep, threatening the life of his father unless he was taken to the stash. As Eduardo, his dad, and Monti sail to the island where the kids hid the cocaine, they pass by Rafael’s boat, and it’s clear that he and Arruda were moving the drugs. That was the last time the best friends ever saw each other, even though Eduardo didn’t find out till much later that Arruda murdered Rafael.
Who Kills Arruda?
When they finally get to the island and Monti sees that the cocaine’s not there, he threatens to shoot Eduardo, forcing his father to knock the Italian out and throw him into the sea. The pair rushes home, and Eduardo packs up and makes a run for it, with his father already knowing this is probably the last time they’ll ever see each other (his dad having had surgery before this was a good thing). Eduardo’s dad decides to send him to his uncle Joe’s because the threat of the Italians is too large. Eduardo’s dad soon ends up dead, murdered by Monti with a flare gun. At the same time, a detective named Frias has come close to finding out the truth as well. She’s always been just a step behind, and she’s going to catch up soon.
Before Eduardo heads for Uncle Joe’s, he’s got a plan. Arruda’s gotten to be too much of a problem, and he can’t just ignore him, so he seeks out the help of his friends. It’s an elaborate charade where Bruna, another of their friends, has to come to Silvia, begging for Arruda’s help. Once cocaine is mentioned, Arruda will come to their friend, Ian’s house, ready to act like the scary mobster he sees himself as. But here’s the catch: there’s no problem at all, and their friend, Ian, just has to mess up his own house to make it look like he was roughed up by some Scandinavian drug dealers whom he promised to sell two kilograms of cocaine to before he came up short.
Arruda hid the cocaine in a farmhouse after he killed Rafael, and since the Scandinavians are paying a good price for it, he’s happy to play along and transport it to them. The deal actually could have gone pretty smoothly if Silvia hadn’t betrayed him after Ze told her about how Arruda murdered Rafael in cold blood. The three friends arrange for a second truck filled with sacks of flour and sugar instead of cocaine, and then swap the two en route to the deal. This leads to a massive shootout, but Arruda makes it out alive, murdering Ze by throwing him off the top of a lighthouse along the way. Also, he knows now that his own daughter betrayed him.
The friends finally get to Uncle Joe’s with the cocaine, and the grumpy old man allows them to stay with him, only to regret every second of it. Uncle Joe’s a former convicted criminal who got deported from America and now lives alone. While they’re there, Eduardo ends up confessing his feelings to Silvia, and they get together, though she’s apparently still “not his girlfriend.” At one point, Carlinhos makes his way to a payphone and calls his mom, missing her, and this is when he finds out that Eduardo’s dad has died. The news breaks Eduardo, and he tries to grab the car keys and rush back home before Uncle Joe stops him and tells him they’re safer staying back.
Eventually, though, Arruda and his men track down the kids, and they show up with guns, demanding the cocaine. A brutal fight ensues, with Uncle Joe taking out Arruda’s men with a grenade, and Eduardo finally saving Silvia’s life by stabbing her dad with a harpoon. Obviously, the incident leaves him shaken; he’s never taken a life before, but Silvia consoles him, and this danger makes them realize that the only way they’ll be safe is if they get away to America.
Eduardo’s always wanted to go to America, ever since he was little. His Uncle Joe was his biggest inspiration in that regard, much to the disappointment of his dad. Joe entertained young Eduardo with all kinds of stories of things he was unfamiliar with, even promising to send him ketchup from America, which seemed exotic to him back then. Uncle Joe never managed to send that ketchup, though; he ended up in prison before that could happen, but his biggest regret was probably the fact that he couldn’t get Eduardo’s ailing mother to America so she could seek lifesaving medical treatment.
Eduardo opens up to Silvia about his mother after he’s killed Arruda. He tells her about how much she meant to him and how excited he was when she finally let him sleep in the bed next to her the last night that she was alive. He bitterly regrets not opening his eyes to check on her, even though there’s no way anyone could say it was his fault. But America’s the only escape he can see now, and he’ll grasp it with both hands.
Does Eduardo Make It To America?
This is where Feliciano comes in. Feliciano and Uncle Joe go way back, and it’s clear Feliciano both respects and fears the man from how he immediately vacates his office chair for him when he walks in. Feliciano runs a tuna canning factory, and Uncle Joe has decided this is the perfect way to sneak the cocaine into America, with Eduardo and his friends stowing away on one of Feliciano’s cargo ships as well. He’s even had special business cards printed for Eduardo to set him up as a big businessman in the States.
Before that can happen, though, things go very wrong. Eduardo goes to his father’s grave in the dead of night, but this is just what Frias had expected, and he gets arrested and taken in for questioning. But it’s okay; the friends had planned for this, and the three of them give very neatly choreographed answers to all the detective’s questions, leaving her frustrated. The lawyer Uncle Joe provided for them makes sure the kids aren’t pushed too hard, especially when the detectives try to use a picture of Eduardo’s dead dad to pressure him. The kids are released, but then the cops raid Feliciano’s factory and arrest Uncle Joe, though they find nothing there. At this point, Eduardo’s free, and he can finally make a run for it.
But just when things start to look a little better, crisis strikes again. Carlinhos, Eduardo’s very gay friend, had gone to see a priest in the middle of all of this (specifically because of the earthquake). But the priest ended up in the hospital from an overdose, thanks to Carlinhos (yikes). Later, Carlinhos goes to see this priest but is kidnapped by Monti, though Eduardo saves him because he knows exactly how to get rid of Monti. He connects with Frias again, asking her to meet him, while inviting Monti to the same place. He tells them he’s going to give them all the drugs, but this is obviously a lie. Eduardo ends up deceiving both the detective and Monti and finally escaping with his two remaining friends, Carlinhos and Silvia.
At the end of Turn Of The Tide, it’s revealed that Silvia, who stays back on the Azores, is pregnant (Rafael or Eduardo? Probably the latter). Joe, who is captured by the police, is let go because he’s got no drugs on him, but his nephew’s been kind enough (or unkind) to tell him where he secretly hid the stash. But while Eduardo and Carlinhos make it to America, Monti’s still missing and could show up at Joe’s or Silvia’s at any given time. Eduardo’s internal conflict will continue, and now that he’s the reason his dad died, it’ll be something that may haunt him later. The end of the season saw him and Carlinhos sitting on a container ship and smiling as the horizon brought them into view of the American coast. Will happiness find them here? Guess we’ll find out next season.
