Abhiroop Das
Co-directed by Carlos Moreno and Claudia Pedraza, Netflix’s ‘Fugue State 1986,’ originally called ‘Estado de fuga 1986,’ centers on the friendship between Jeremias Salgado and Camilo León, two students of English literature in Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. However, their dynamic and individual personalities are far from linear. While Jeremias is a crossword maker, English tuition teacher, and a Vietnam War veteran, León is an aspiring writer with a tormented psyche. As the two bond in their love for stories and the morbid, León quickly realizes that there is something deeply wrong with his friend. Things come to a head when Jeremias walks into San Marzino restaurant one evening, only to ruthlessly massacre dozens of people.
Worse, León wakes up the following day with no memory of what transpired the night before. Thus, both are intertwined in a mystery with no clear answers in sight, and only a trail of blood to follow. As this Spanish psychological crime drama series delves into both the outer and inner lives of Jeremias, it introduces us to the company for which he writes crossword puzzles. There, he encounters Lucia Castro, a friendly coworker whom he seems unable to shake from his mind. Before long, thought turns into obsession, and she unwittingly finds herself embroiled in the dark series of events that are about to follow. As the show is partially based on a real-life massacre that claimed 29 lives, each and every character in Jeremias’s story gains a new layer of narrative relevance.
Lucia Castro is an Invented Character Whom Jeremias Has a Crush on
Lucia Castro is a fictional character penned by writers Alejandro Convers, Antonina Kerguelen, Felipe Useche, and Ana María Parra solely for the narrative of ‘Fugue State 1986.’ While Jeremias Salgado serves as the dramatized counterpart of the real-life mass shooter, Campo Elías Delgado, Lucia is among the many created additions that help chart out the fictional origins of the Pozzetto massacre. She enters Jeremias’s life as a co-worker. While conversing with the press in Bogotá, Ana María confirmed that the show reimagines the days leading up to the massacre as a way of distancing itself from other adaptations. Lucia is likely a part of the gallery of characters who both flesh out the world and provide more context about who Jeremias is.
Given that producer Mario Mendoza reportedly knew Delgado firsthand, it is possible that Lucia may be a narrative device inspired by themes documented in accounts of Delgado’s life. However, as of writing, nothing of the sort has been confirmed by the writing team. In the show, he works with a newspaper company called Periodico El Intervalo, where he writes crossword puzzles. Lucia is the boss’ assistant at the company, and over the course of several interactions, he develops a crush on her. In reality, there are no records of Delgado writing crossword puzzles, much less working with a news outlet of any kind. Similarly, Jeremias’s date-gone-wrong with Lucia at San Marzino is likely not based on any meal Delgado had at Pozzetto, the same restaurant that later became a site of tragedy.
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Lucia Castro Might Have Been Constructed as an Indicator of Jeremias’ Concealed Misogyny
Notably, it is possible that, as a crafted character, Lucia is meant to reference the two failed marriages that Delgado had in real life. He reportedly entered his first marriage in Argentina, sometime after completing his medical training in the Colombian Navy. The couple had two children, but the relationship ultimately fell apart. Delgado’s second marriage had the same conclusion. While the most apparent difference between these two events and Lucia’s arc is that she is never romantically involved, much less married to Delgado, her presence highlights his alleged misogyny and that of his fictional equivalent. It has been argued that Delgado may have harbored deep resentment toward women, citing the fact that many of his victims were women. To that end, it is possible that her character was conceived to explore these questions in deeper detail, without portraying Jeremias as a married man.
Given that Lucia is not modeled after any real-life victim in the Pozzetto massacre, her character moves in and out of the story with added flexibility, shining light on the deeper corners of Jeremias’s psyche. While he has a crush on her from the very beginning, he is unable to initiate any real conversations due to a mix of his antisocial nature and latent hatred of women. Before long, his attraction takes a perverse turn, wherein Lucia narrowly avoids becoming a target of his shootout. Given the physical and emotional abuse he inflicts on his mother, as well as his complete disdain for women at large, it is likely that Jeremias’s misogyny is formative to his psychological breakdown towards the end of the series. Lucia’s arc, as such, takes the role of a magnifying glass in the story, pointing out the underlying factors that went into Jeremias’s murder spree.
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