‘The Gardener’ (2025) Netflix Series Review - Very Slow, Extremely Boring

Did you know that corpses can be converted into an excellent fertilizer for plants? If The Gardener (or El jardinero), a six-episode drama thriller, had stretched its story for two more episodes, it would have transformed me into a natural fertilizer. The word "Boring" might be an understatement. You would have to say "Boooooooorrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnggg" instead. Watching The Gardener is like riding a slow - very slow - carousel. You don't reach anywhere, and you also feel enervated. The Gardener is what you would call "an old wine in a new bottle." It's about a mother who thinks she's losing her son to his girlfriend. It's about a boy who wishes to grow up and, at one point, moves out of his mother's house after gaining new experiences. It's about a woman who attracts terrible men, and it's also about two police officers looking for a serial killer (there is an infidelity angle in the latter thread that yields dry results). The dish is stale and unoriginal, but creator Miguel Sáez Carral tries to add some spice to the material by making the male lead an unemotional, geeky gardener. Elmer (Álvaro Rico) suffers from a condition where he feels zero emotions. It all started after a car accident that made him a frigid robot and left his mother, China Jurado (Cecilia Suárez), with a limp.

The Gardener consists of an interesting idea revolving around a mother who slowly turns her son into a serial killer. There are also traces of sexual undercurrents between China and Elmer. The show, however, doesn't do anything with these suggestions. It slightly nudges us towards dark corners instead of becoming fully demented. Sáez Carral doesn't want to make the Netflix viewers too uncomfortable, and by playing it safe, he spoils all the fun. The dull characters only make matters worse. They don't seem to have a life beyond the boundaries of the camera. The characters stop existing as soon as they exit the frame. The actors, too, are confined within a narrow range. Like puppets, they do their job and go away. Everybody on the screen simply delivers the lines that are fed to them. There is no drama in the dialogue; the words have no flavor. The characters merely advance the plot - they almost feel lifeless. Suárez is an exception, probably because she has a presence. She is one of those actors whose face you don't forget, even if the film or the series itself is pretty forgettable. Catalina Sopelana, unfortunately, suffers the most here. Her Violeta is incredibly uninteresting, and she and her friends mostly talk about Elmer (or Violeta's other boyfriends). Anyone who believes in the Bechdel Test will be sorely disappointed by Violeta and her friends. But you don't need a test to feel dissatisfied with The Gardener. The flat filmmaking proves to be more than enough to produce this sentiment.

Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times