In line with his previous series La Casa de las flores, the Mexican Manolo Caro recounts in Someone Must Die (Alguin tiene que morir) the explosion of a wealthy family, this time marked by homophobia and Francoist Spain. A rich isolated home, a family with buried secrets and an explicit title… You'd almost expect the miniseries Someone Must Die to be yet another Agatha Christie-inspired police investigation. If the décor and atmosphere correspond to the codes of the genre, the whodunit, the context is quite different. In 1954, the Falcóns arranged the marriage of their son Gabino, back after 10 years of exile in Mexico. Problem: the young man is accompanied by a ballet dancer, which goes badly for his entourage and especially for his father, a senior Francoist official hunting down the "deviants".
Troubled course
The Franco period is still a very sensitive subject in Spain today, but the director was able to account for this period of tensions, fears and repressions. From "re-education" jails to the stilted salons of the bourgeoisie, denunciation and the clutches of the regime are never far away. Dealing with homosexuality, taken at best at that time for a disease, proved to be a complex but successful bet. Faced with the classic effeminate figure of the dancer, the journey of a childhood friend of Gabino Falcón is much more interesting. Son of a bourgeois with an unavowed inclination, he tries somehow to maintain a façade consistent with his class, even if it means using gratuitous violence to cover his tracks. Special mention to Ester Exposito for her role as a not-so-innocent fiancée. 
The soundtrack, populated by cellos and harpsichords, reinforces this atmosphere of suffocation of the characters, prisoners by their natures and by conformism. Certainly, the latter correspond to archetypes (the matriarch, the servant, the prodigal son, etc.) and it is easy to guess their trajectories. Some developments seem forced, almost wanted to meet the specifications of the platform. However, the brevity of the series and a mastered acting retain the interest of the audience, just enough to arrive at an explosive finale. Like the pigeons slaughtered incessantly by the protagonists during the three episodes "Arm / Play / Fire! ", the Falcón prevent each other from flying, until only one solution is imposed: someone must die… But who? Someone Must Die is a series with strong words and context. Classic in form, it does not escape some shortcomings. But it is easy to lend itself to the game of the Falcón, ace of trigger and manipulation.
