Five friends, once inseparable classmates, reunite for a yearly trip that always feels like a new adventure. This time, the gathering carries heavier weight: one member has been diagnosed with cancer. The opening is tender, with the group shaving their heads in solidarity, a moment that lands with unexpected gravity before revealing its true heart. The premiere marks a bold blend of drama and comedy, a testament to enduring friendship and the vitality of living fully. The series introduces Daniel Sanchez Arevalo as a filmmaker embracing a more feminine perspective for the first time, and it premieres on Netflix this Friday, the 23rd.
Bring five women back to life on screen: Itaso Arana, Maria Rodriguez Soto, Mariona Terés, Mónica Miranda, and Genoliv van Dent embody distinct personalities yet share a powerful bond that the trip will illuminate. Arana and Rodriguez Soto give life to Sara and Carol, the traditional pair with family responsibilities who still wrestle with courage and self-doubt. Arana explains, “Sara is deeply empathetic, caring, and loving. She balances romance with mischief, and she’s always teetering on the edge of truly living.” The charm lies in Sara’s contradictions, which enrich the narrative and invite exploration. The journey changes her, reshapes her self-conception, and reveals how resilience can reshape a person’s outlook.
Three other actors portray Leo, Alma, and Olga, the trio representing freedom, modernity, and inner complexity. Alma dreams of motherhood with her partner, while Leo wrestles with a sharp wit and a stubborn reluctance to confront emotions. Miranda, the most enigmatic, appreciates Alma’s vast inner landscape but notes that she seems to inhabit another plane, making connection difficult. Terés describes Leo as funny yet prickly, a character who often bottlenecks feelings until they overflow. Yet Leo is also fiercely loyal, a balance that keeps the group grounded. Van den Brand highlights Olga as the freest of the quintet, allergic to commitment but intensely protective and upbeat, even as she holds an intractable stance that can create friction.
Their journey becomes both physical and emotional as they agree to a rule: cancer never becomes the topic of their conversations during the trip. They aim to recapture their reckless adolescence, chasing a dream that has always hovered at the edges of their lives. The experience threatens to unmask vulnerabilities more than ever before, exposing the hidden layers within their friendships. The suspense deepens as the narrative plays with the audience’s curiosity about which friend is sick, a secret kept until the final act. Remarkably, the actresses themselves discovered the reveal only as production commenced, a detail that adds an extra layer of authenticity and avoids condescension toward the sick character. This choice becomes one of the series’ salient strengths, according to Rodriguez Soto.
Deluxe Secondary Characters
The creative force behind the project rests with Daniel Sanchez Arevalo, who crafted and directs The Last Row (note: not The Last Row, as some have misread). After years writing for television, this series marks his first turn behind the camera for a full season, bringing a fresh feminine lens to the storytelling. The multi-faceted project also emerges from a desire to explore a predominantly female narrative, a natural extension of Arevalo’s broader artistic experiments. He reflects on previously pursuing similar terrain in a novel, Alice’s Island, where the main characters were women, and notes this adaptation represents a broader foray into audiovisual storytelling.
Joining the five lead actresses is a deluxe cast that reinforces how secondary characters illuminate the center’s dynamics. Actor Anthony of the Tower—one of Arevalo’s favorite collaborators—returns alongside Javier Rey, Macarena Garcia, Michelle Jenner, Carmen Machi, and Melina Matthews. Rigoberta Bandini even makes a cameo as herself. While the emotional weight rests with the core circle of friends, these supporting figures are crucial for understanding personal histories and the subtler currents that shape the group’s choices. In life as in art, the people closest to you help define who you become, and the series leans into that truth with warmth and humor.