HBO’s 30 Coins: Guerra Santa (Holy War) Review
*This Review Contains Full Spoilers*
On this week’s episode of HBO’s 30 Coins, Guerra Santa (Holy War), Father Vergara (Eduard Fernandez) seeks to escape a warzone while coming to terms with Santoro’s (Manolo Solo) power and Paco (Miguel Angel Silvestre) and Elena (Megan Montaner) go through relationship highs and lows as the coin makes its way back to Elena.
While last week gave us greater insights and more shocking revelations, this week we kind of just go back to square one and catch up with the fallout of everything. Father Vergara is currently on the run and hiding in a war-torn Syria, but it’s not far enough to escape Santoro’s grasp. Director Alex de la Iglesia does a great job subtly showcasing Santoro’s growing presence in basically gaslighting Vergara and making him believe there’s no hope. From showing a new broadcast of Vergara helping the cause to Santoro mimicking Elena’s voice to get Vergara to reveal where he is, which was incredibly creepy, it doesn’t to matter how far or where Vergara goes – Santoro won’t be far behind. Even Vergara talking to Elena in a nightmarish version of the village doesn’t go past Santoro and he doesn’t have much better luck where he is anyway. Currently, he’s captured by a group of soldiers and being prepared for execution, so it looks like he’s going to need more than God’s grace to get him out of this situation.
As for Paco and Elena, their respective relationships are going in two different directions. Paco and Merche’s (Macarena Gomez) relationship is ready to totally fall apart. Although Paco is blaming his lackluster feelings towards their relationship on Merche pushing him into politics and Merche believes his feelings stem from her being unable to have children, but we all know the real reason is that he loves Elena. Again, like I’ve said time and time again, the soap opera love triangle is one of the weakest parts of this series and it’s kind of bumming that most of this episode is consumed by it. I will say that the performances from Silverstre and Gomez are really solid here and there is some good emotion that does make you care a little bit, but it’s still just kind of bland compared to the overarching plot.
Even Elena following Roque (Antonio Velazquez) to Paris to be with him and have very graphic and passionate sex isn’t all that interesting. Honestly, when we’re with Elena and Roque you’re just waiting for Roque to reveal that he has the coin and terrify the hell out of Elena. When it finally does over dinner at a fancy looking restaurant, things really get going. Although another controlled man invades the restaurant and shoots Roque in search of the coin a security guard eventually rips the necklace giving the man superhuman power off. So, it looks like whoever is sending these strong henchmen, likely Santoro, won’t be able to do it again since they don’t have the necklace anymore – although there could always be another one. Regardless, the ordeal leaves Elena heartbroken over Roque’s death and even more distraught with the coin finding her and not being out of this mess yet.
The biggest reveal though comes in the final moments of the episode as Angelo (Cosimo Fusco) make a big return. Throughout the episode, there’re these two female government agents that come to investigate all the strange stuff that’s been happening in the village lately. As a whole, their presence doesn’t really add anything to episode, and they act just as a vehicle to get to the final reveal of the episode. The second Antonio (Javier Bodalo) started screaming and running through the streets that a new priest was coming; you could feel something wicked coming their way. Of course, it ends up being Angelo and it seems like the greatest evil this series has to offer has finally made a homecoming.
This week’s episode doesn’t offer much new and rather showcases the fallout that’s not always interesting to last week’s big reveals and turning points. It certainly ends on the right note with the coin slowly finding its way back to Elena and Angelo making a big return, but it’s definitely one of the weaker episodes thus far.
Mooreviews 