It’s interesting how even light, comedic murder mysteries can get pretty dark. If It’s Tuesday It’s Murder is a new Spanish series on Hulu that definitely fits in that “comedic mystery” category. But almost everyone on the show has secrets.
Opening Shot: A man opens a suitcase in a bathroom stall, takes off his blood-stained shirt and tie and dons a more casual outfit. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he says to the camera. After a beat, he turns back to the camera and says, “Or maybe it is.”
The Gist: “MONDAY.” The man changing out of the bloody shirt is Fabio Torres (Alejandro Garcia), and he’s the last one to board a tour group bus in Madrid that is headed towards Lisbon. The tour is being run by Cristina (Carmen Ruiz), who seems to have no problem detailing her marriage and divorce to the group as they drive to the Portuguese capital. On the way, they pick up the final member of the group, a well-dressed older man named Fernando Paredes (Pedro Casablanc).
Other notable tour members are Alicia (Inma Cuesta), who seems to be very curious about everything going on; Pura (Ana Wagener), who takes pictures of everything, and Daniel (Biel Montoro), a neurodivergent young man who is on the trip with his parents.
Because of a reservation screwup, Cristina brings the group to a rundown hotel that used to be a brothel, among other unseemly uses. Veering off the tour later that day., Daniel goes to the Museum Of Crime, and he ends up running into Fabio, Alicia, Pura and Fernando there, right next to the preserved head of Diogo Alves, a Spanish man who was Portugal’s most prolific serial killer. Daniel decides to call the group the “Famous Five.”
“TUESDAY.” When Fernando doesn’t come down to join the group the next morning, Fabio and Alicia go to his room; Fabio uses a credit card to break in. Alicia makes the horrifying discovery of Fernando’s body in the bathtub. The police investigator arrives, and he determines that Fernando died of a heart attack, but the rest of the “Famous Five” isn’t so sure, especially because of the marks on Fernando’s arm, and Alicia’s observation that the room hair dryer is missing.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Carlos Vila, If It’s Tuesday It’s Murder is in that “comedic mystery” category that encompasses shows like Only Murders In The Building and The Afterparty.
Our Take: The main idea of If It’s Tuesday It’s Murder is that the four tour group members are going to try to solve Fernando’s murder before the week is up and the group goes back to Madrid. However, everyone has secrets and their reasons for being part of this group, so their trust in each other is going to be tested. After all, these people are virtually strangers to each other.
We know that Fabio has blood on his hands, almost literally, and that Alicia is on this trip to investigate something or someone. Even the seemingly innocent-seeming Pura has things going on in Lisbon — namely someone she wants to visit who might not want to see her — of a bit of a darker nature. Given that Fernando told Pura that Lisbon was a city full of secrets, we know that he wasn’t there for a vacation, either.
So Vila and his writers have already baked in some intricacy into this mystery, even if the show itself leans heavily on character-driven laughs. The rest of the tour group, including a family who basically seems to hate each other, a selfie-taking Gen Zer who also seems to have some secrets, and two fortysomething women who are in town to debauch themselves before one of them gets married, will all contribute to the mystery, and probably all be considered suspects at one point or another.
But the structure of the show is more or less a classic mystery a la Only Murders. The mystery itself needs to have some logic and cohesion, as does the group of tour members who are trying to solve it, for the show to work as well as Only Murders did.
Performance Worth Watching: We liked Biel Montoro as Daniel because he does a good job of playing a neurodiverse person who may be blunt but he also has observational skills that few others have.
Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: As the four tour members speculate about why Fernando was killed, we see someone holding the music box that used to be in Fernando’s room.
Sleeper Star: Ana Wagener’s character Pura seems to be hiding the most, given the credulous of a persona she’s projecting to the rest of the group.
Most Pilot-y Line: There is occasional fourth-wall breaking by the tour group characters that makes little sense to us.
Our Call: STREAM IT. If It’s Tuesday It’s Murder is a funny murder mystery whose first episode does a good job of setting up who will be looking into a murder, and who might be a suspect.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.