Apple TV+’s newest six-episode dramedy, Land of Women struggles to strike a balance between grounded and goofy.
The hardest task a dramedy faces is blending two genres harmoniously—making them feel like they naturally belong together. While Apple TV has previously nailed this formula with shows such as Shrinking and Acapulco—Land of Women feels like two members of an orchestra playing from entirely different sheets.
Land of Women opens with Gala Scott (Eva Longoria) strapping cash to her body as she explains to the audience that she’s not “some drug dealer’s side piece”. She continues to tell the tale of how her seemingly perfect life came crashing down.
Two hitmen show up at Gala’s wine-tasting event to collect on a $15 million dollar debt her husband, Fred, racked up without her knowledge. They threaten Gala using her daughter, Kate (Victoria Bazúa), and her mother Julia (Carmen Maura) giving her 24 hours to pay them back.
After Fred runs away from the situation, Gala is forced to pick Julia up from her nursing home, and Kate up from boarding school in order to escape to Spain. They reach La Muga, Julia’s hometown where she grew up with her now estranged sister. Kate and Julia believe it’s just a girl’s trip, but soon realize there’s more to it.
For the most part, the series initially remains grounded. The dramatic elements of the show work for each character as they have their separate arcs while continuing to have a lot of screen time together. Gala uses her wine expertise to help Amat’s struggling winery, Julia revisits her reminiscent formative years, and Kate grapples with her identity, supporting her family, and her desire to return home to her life in New York.
All of these force various interactions with the folks in La Muga. The biggest and best part of this is Amat (Santiago Cabrera). The interactions between the trio and Amat are the heart of the show. This is where the comedy works best. This aspect of the show offers such a natural style of humor that blends in with the plot. While it isn’t quite a laugh-out-loud show, it does offer moments of fitting levity.
That’s what makes the relationship between the three women as excellent as it is. They’re the engine that keeps this show going in the low moments. It works especially when the show dives further into their backgrounds through brief flashbacks that add much-needed depth to the show.
Carmen Maura is also a natural standout as Julia, who despite not being the main character does receive the most characterization. While Kate, and especially Gala do get their chance to shine—it’s apparent from the moment she appears, the show’s real star is Julia. Carmen Maura nails the feistiness of this witty, lively older lady while also delving deeper into what she left behind in La Muga.
The show starts to suffer at the mid-way marker as the goofiness of the plot kicks in. The premise feels like it’s trying to be a lighthearted Ozark, but the issue with that is lighthearted Ozark doesn’t quite merit uprooting this grounded comedy. Sadly, that’s exactly what the show does.
The two hit men, Hank & Kevin couldn’t be any less intimidating if they tried and the show misuses this as it doesn’t even play this duo for any good laughs. The show completely changes the style of its humor for worse trying to make these two worlds fit together. Imagine Marv & Harry from Home Alone, now tone down their banter, remove any comedy and you get Hank & Kevin.
In such a short series juggling between various arcs for each character, it’s impossible to add back a plot like this and survive. And survive it does not, as every single storyline falters under the weight of time constraints.
This would be acceptable if the show nailed this plot line but it is easily the weakest part of the series. It feels like the show used Frank’s debt only to force these women into this plot but realized halfway through that they had a mandate to make the henchmen a bigger part of the show.
The tone of these storylines feels worlds apart. It feels like they’re attempting to smash together two shows—one far more interesting story to tell than the other. The truth is, Land of Women would’ve been much better off focusing on its initial offering as a drama and saving the henchmen and debt plot for potential future seasons.
The one thing Land of Women boasts that many shows of this type fail to capture is production quality. The show captures the natural beauty of Spain on the exterior while on the interior, it features some simple yet vibrant sets that help make the show stand out visually. The technical quality of every Apple show is always immaculate which is refreshing in a time where it feels like multiple streaming services couldn’t care less about that aspect.
It’s hard to say Land of Women is one good show and one bad show combined. There’s a potential world where both of these shows are fantastic, but it’s clear that the silliness of this show simply didn’t mesh with the grounded aspect of it all. Adding to that is that the goofy plot took away from the drama at hand, it forced the storylines to become far more compact than it could handle and squeeze in from a gas to a solid. There was no breathing room left for this show to thrive.
Land of Women created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, and Paula Fernandez is set to premiere on Apple TV+. The show stars Eva Longoria as Gala Scott, Victoria Bazua as Kate Scott, Carmen Maura as Julia Xatart, Santiago Cabrera as Amat, and Gloria Muñoz as Mariona.
Land of Women premieres Wednesday, 26 June on Apple TV+
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