The Portuguese Netflix original Turn Of The Tide is a thriller that is desperate to thrill. To me, that’s the best way to describe this crime thriller set in a remote town in the Azores. The show follows 4 misfit kids, Eduardo, Carlinhos, Rafael, and Silvia, all eager to transform their mundane small-town lives and move to America. I say kids, but they’re fully grown adults who have likely lost the chance to do anything special with their lives. Or at least that’s how they feel until a ton of cocaine washes ashore on their little picturesque island. Eduardo is the biggest dreamer of them all, and soon enough he uses his brain for the first (and only time) to procure this coke so that he can make enough money to get to America. What follows is a season of pure chaos, which ultimately reminds us that Eduardo dug a massive hole for himself and his friends that has an irreversible effect on their lives. But this left us with an opening for the second season, with hope, hope that despite all the odds, he and Carlinhos will make it to America after all.
But this is not what happens. Season 2 opens with more pessimism, with Eduardo and Carlinhos getting caught trying to cross the border and then being sent to prison. Not only is this the worst start to the show, but it also makes it clear what direction it’s going to go in next. Season 2 begins with a death, and then what follows is more disappointment for Eduardo. This man really doesn’t know what he’s doing, huh?
What I appreciate about the second season is that it gives agency to the female characters, namely Silvia and the detective, who were both almost background characters in the first season. Silvia gets to be a boss lady this season; she also essentially replaces Eduardo as the leader of the drug deal gone wrong team. I like how Silvia knows what she wants way more than Eduardo does; she’s not impulsive. She’s deliberate, making her a much more interesting character to follow. Additionally, she’s got the ghost of her dad troubling her, and I guess that’s because Arruda is a character everybody liked and wanted to see return to the show. Though he was a villain, of course.
On the other hand, Detective Frias has a bigger role to play too, because we get to see her personal story a bit more. We are shown more of her relationship with her daughter, and it’s a more private take on her life. This makes her motivations feel a bit more well-rounded. But speaking of motivations, at the end of the day, this season returns to the same situation that the group was in in the first season. Despite a different story, new character introductions, and more work for some of the old characters, at the end of the day nothing has actually changed, which makes the whole thing feel like a waste. Additionally, there’s a new female character, Ofelia, who is like the boss woman of the drug ring. She’s almost a feminist voice who teaches Silvia that trusting men is the worst thing she could do, but her ultimate downfall (spoiler alert) is because of a man she trusted.
Season 2 of Turn Of The Tide is only 6 episodes long but still feels bloated by random storylines. There are some conversations in the middle of the show that feel lethargic and like they have no reason to be there. This is what makes the whole show feel a little bit too long and like there was no reason to add these things on. My favorite part of the show last season was definitely the landscape, and that hasn’t changed this time around. The second season also has some beautiful cinematography, with some picturesque scenes. But, while everything was lit very brightly and the music choices were popular, they were too obvious, and the lyrics were a little too exactly descriptive of the situation and very unsubtle. As I mentioned earlier, because of some of the filler bits, the pacing feels way too slow at some points, but also annoyingly frantic when it’s trying to convince us there is some kind of action happening, though it’s generally just a big fuss that leads nowhere.
At the end of the day, there’s nothing new in Turn Of The Tide, season 2, but if you liked the crime thriller back when it premiered, then you’ll be eager to find out what’s happening next. As a standalone, the show doesn’t deliver much that’s not seen before and gives us the same old tropes, with some interesting action sequences. The main characters are worth keeping track of, but the finale leads us to believe there’s room for another season, which I’m not a big fan of, because this is the kind of show that should’ve already ended. The ending of this specifically makes it feel like there was nothing else to do, so they added an extra layer of anticipation for the sake of it.
The Azores are beautiful, and I’m glad I found out about them through this show, but apart from that, Turn Of The Tide is a show we’ve seen a million times before, packaged in different languages. The 6-episode second season could’ve been way more interesting, especially given what we saw in the first season, which was quite exciting and felt a bit fresh. Additionally, these drug-related shows are getting to be a bit of a drag, reminding us that everything at the end of the day is a PSA for drug addiction. I give Turn Of The Tide season 2, 2.5 out of 5 stars.
