Upamanyu Biswas
The Mexican Netflix show, ‘The Accident,’ revolves around the tragic death of three children in a tight-knit community of well-off people. Their deaths ignite a series of mishaps that progressively lead toward a cycle of turmoil and violence, threatening to rip apart the existing bonds within the three families whose lives are affected. By the season’s end, Emiliano and his wife, Daniela, are fighting to keep their relationship alive while internal and external forces conspire against their well-being. Their daughter, Lucia, is also caught in a major scandal as she develops a bond with the son of a known gangster, Charro.
The story’s conclusion reveals how fragile the pre-existing communal ties between these three families are as they continue to be dictated by a sense of vengeance, further escalating their situation. Rather than moving past their pain together, each parent chooses a dark path, which inevitably collides with the others, resulting in more chaos. However, the final episode ends with a sense of poignancy, as certain characters realize that the only way to fight against the tragedy that has engulfed them is to reflect upon their actions and take responsibility. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Accident Season 1 Recap
Emiliano, a lawyer, and Daniela, a police officer, are preparing a massive birthday party for their youngest son, Rodri. They invite their friends, families, and parents of Rodri’s friends. As they all gather together in Emiliano’s backyard, the host is somewhat distracted as he is awaiting a call from an American investment firm to fund an amusement park’s construction nearby. During the event, Emiliano tells the house’s helper, Moncho, to handle the refreshments while he takes care of hammering the stakes for the bouncy castle. Emiliano gets distracted when the call from the Americans arrives, and he heads indoors with his fellow lawyers, Javier and David.
Rodri and his friends start playing on the bouncy castle while the other parents engage in small talk. Suddenly, a strong wind passes by the backyard, carrying the castle with it and throwing all the kids to the ground one by one. Unfortunately, three children – Rodri, Gabriel, and Mateo – die during the accident. The latter two are the children of Charro and Mauricio, whose wives are Lupita and Brenda. Mauricio and Brenda are divorced parents, with the latter living with her new partner, Javier. Following the death of the three children, an inquest is led by Charro and the surviving parents to find out who was responsible for the mishap.
Days after the funeral, Javier and Brenda review the footage of the birthday they recorded on their tablet. They find out that the stakes of the bouncy castle, which should have been pinned to the ground, were left lying around callously. Suspicion instantly falls upon Moncho, Emiliano’s helper, who was tasked with handling the hammering job. An enraged Charro burns down his home and threatens to have him killed. Moncho is arrested and imprisoned at the local police station, where he is questioned about his role in the incident. He maintains his innocence – an effort that passes in vain when he is killed by an assassin inside his jail.
The Accident Season 1 Ending: Who Killed Moncho?
For large parts, the murder of Moncho dictates the conflict at the heart of the narrative. By all accounts, the character seems convinced that he is innocent and not a child killer, as everyone has labeled him. However, the families who lost their children refuse to listen to reason or logic, letting their grief and vengeance dictate their mindsets. Charro, Lupita, Brenda, Mauricio, and Daniela are all convinced that Moncho should be treated with the utmost disgust for his mistake. In the case of Charro, he even wishes to murder him by any means possible to rebalance the scales of justice. Therefore, when Moncho dies, suspicion falls on everyone as his potential killer. It is only later revealed that his death is caused by none other than Lupita.
After Gabriel dies, Charro’s wife is hell-bent on taking some form of personal retribution against Moncho for the death of her son. Luckily for her, Charro is more than willing to oblige her request as he is apoplectic about the loss of Gabriel. He tasks a police officer on his payroll to handle the death of Moncho, but the plan goes astray when the officer is called to the hospital to attend his newborn child’s birth. Unwilling to settle with Moncho’s serendipitous escape, she hires a professional assassin by the name of Eulogio Pinto – also known as Barroso – to murder the man. Barroso utilizes subterfuge to enter the police station and poisons Moncho with a candy bar laced with arsenic.
Once Moncho is dead, Lupita believes that she has finally rid the world of her son’s killer, thereby restoring justice. Days later, she finds herself in a precarious position when Barroso contacts her again, this time demanding more money as a form of blackmail to keep her part in Moncho’s death a secret. Instead of being fazed by the proposition, Lupita uses it to her advantage, poisoning Barroso with an apple laced with toxins, similar to how he killed Moncho. She then plants evidence in his car, linking her husband, Charro, to his and Moncho’s murder. She plans to escape the police’s attention and her abusive husband’s clutches in a single stroke. Although she succeeds in doing so, it comes at the cost of killing an innocent man who had nothing to do with the children’s death.
What is Emiliano’s Verdict?
The narrative portrays the death of the three children to be directly associated with the unhammered stakes that were left lying on the ground during the birthday party. The blame for the careless mistake initially falls upon Moncho. But this turns out to be a ruse, as Emiliano is responsible for not properly pinning the stakes. His excitement and nervousness at receiving the call from the American investor led him to leave the task undone, resulting in the death of three kids, including his own son. At the season’s end, Emiliano stands trial in front of a packed court, where his friend, Javier, tries to defend his actions as an entirely accidental event. However, the judge sentences Emiliano to two years in prison for manslaughter.
Before he gets to his hearing, Emiliano goes through an intense period of mental and emotional turmoil for his part in the death of the kids. His guilty conscience ramps up even further when Moncho dies in the police station’s prison. Because Emiliano, Javier, and David were in the middle of a major business deal that needed everything to be in order, Emiliano is advised against taking the fall for the crimes. Although he is reluctant, he and David propose a deal to Moncho to take responsibility for the mishap, as he promises to take care of his children and wife by getting them whatever they need. Their act of cover-up ultimately blows up in their faces when Moncho is killed in cold blood. His death adds to the growing list of tragedies Emiliano feels responsible for.
The lawyer eventually decides to give himself up to the police, urging the prosecutor, Ulises Quijada, to punish him with the full force of the law as he feels remorse for his actions. However, when Lucia goes missing, Emiliano has to change his tactics and begin fighting for the things that matter to him, regardless of the judgment he might face from others. In the final moments, Emiliano is shown to be miserable yet content in his prison lock-up. Both he and Charro are placed in the same prison, although that is a fabrication by the latter to remain close to Emiliano. Ultimately, though, Emiliano’s real sentence is not the one handed to him by the judge but the one he has given himself. He states himself that his prison is his own guilt. However, it depicts that he has taken responsibility for everything that has passed.
Do Alex and Lucia End Up Together?
After the children’s deaths, a sense of unease and darkness encompasses the three families who lost one of their own. Emiliano’s daughter, Lucia, is hurt by the tragedy of losing her brother on his birthday. Similarly, Alex, the son of Lupita, wonders whether his family life will ever be the same following his younger brother’s death. The two characters are drawn to each other through shared grief and loss. They already had a flirtatious relationship before the accident. However, that bond grows even deeper after they pass through a harrowing period themselves. Their only challenge is their estranged parental relationships and Lucia’s increasing drug addiction.
Unbeknownst to Emiliano and Daniela, their daughter had been taking drugs recreationally for a long time. It started after meeting her first boyfriend, Nico, who is the main perpetrator behind the drug ring in the town. Near the end, Alex and Lucia run away from home and get stuck in a nightclub, owing to Lucia’s request. There, she overdoses on her drugs, and Alex tries to protect her before Emiliano arrives to save her. Later, Lucia manages to give up her addiction problems by availing the help of her parents and building a stronger relationship with Alex. The two form a relationship, providing a sense of comfort against all the troubles that have followed them thus far.
Does Yola Get the Visas From Emiliano?
The narrative digs into the class disparity between Emiliano’s friends and his helper, Moncho, by showcasing their differences in lifestyles. Moncho’s wife, Yola, regularly complains about the affluence of her employers, observing it as unnecessary excess. Her beliefs are further strengthened when her husband is unwittingly trapped and murdered in a ploy manufactured by her employer to get out of his own sins. She recognizes it as a sign of the poor being played as pawns by the rich folk. Consequently, she has no moral qualms about blackmailing Emiliano to protect her children’s future. She is, however, shocked when he adheres to his part of the deal by providing her with the visas and passports he promised.
Yola always thought that as long as she kept her mouth shut – owing to the deal she and Moncho made with Emiliano to keep his secret – she had a chance of extracting rewards from the transaction that could safeguard her children’s future. However, she believes he might renege on his deal just like her other wealthy former employers. Moncho’s death only adds salt to the wound even further. She takes no interest in inserting herself into the lives of the three families who bicker among themselves over who is responsible for the children’s deaths. Her only concern and need is for her children to have the best life possible. Therefore, the story’s final moments depict her fulfilling her goals with the help of Emiliano, who proves that he is not like Yola’s past employers, no matter how many mistakes he has made.
What Happens to David?
At the season’s end, David goes missing while his partner, Carla, continues to look for him by posting missing-person flyers across the town. No one seems to know what happened to him. Charro actually murders David in the amusement park’s land. Because the lawyer slept with Lupita, Charro’s wife, he committed a grave error that the gangster is unwilling to forgive. He decides not to punish him immediately by becoming a business partner instead. However, when the deal collapses and is brought back to life, Charro decides to exact his revenge by calling an unsuspecting David to the land, who believes that Charro has forgiven him. Once he is there, Charro shoots him in the head and orders the excavators to bury him under the land.
Therefore, while people are searching for David in the end, it is likely that his body will never be recovered because of the manner in which it is disposed of. Also, because David slept with a married woman knowing his wife was pregnant at the time, and the fact that he stopped Emiliano from giving himself up to the police out of pure greed, his death is almost marked with a sense of justification because of the seediness of his actions thus far. Instead of being a positive force, he only ended up making things worse after the children’s death, as most of his decisions can be directly linked to the escalation of affairs.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s The Accident Filmed?
