The Accident

The Accident is a 10-part Netflix series about five families who are close friends, relatives, and/or business partners when a fatal event occurs during a child’s birthday party. Set in Santa Cruz, Mexico, the series stars Sebastian Martinez (Pa' Quererte, Rosario Tijeras) as Emiliano, an affluent lawyer who, along with his partners, is excited about the prospect of landing a 40-million-dollar deal from White developers, or “gringos,” in the U.S. to build an amusement park in Santa Cruz. On the day Emiliano expects a decision, he and his wife, police detective Daniela Robles, played by Ana Claudia Talancón (A Circus Tale & a Love Song, El Galán. La TV cambió, él no), are throwing a lavish outdoor birthday party for their 8-year-old son, Rodrigo.

When Daniela tells Emiliano they are running out of ice, he rushes over to Moncho, his helpful gardener played by Silverio Palacios (The Thin Yellow Line, Welcome al Norte), and directs him to go to the store. Emiliano takes over the set-up from Moncho when his cell phone rings with the anticipated call, so he heads into the house to speak privately. While celebrating the good news with his partners, a strong gust of wind picks up and carries off the inflatable bounce house, resulting in the deaths of three children playing inside it. This tragic inciting incident leads to more than the families mourning their unimaginable loss. Over the next ten episodes, we see the fracturing of a once tight knit social network. At the center of the breakdown is the families’ insatiable appetites for vengeance and their obsessive need to hold someone accountable.

What is interesting to observe throughout the series is how quickly relationships evaporate and the individuals’ space for reason is extinguished. For example, the U.S. investors express concerns about the investigation’s potential to disrupt the project’s timetable and consider canceling their contract with the firm. To avoid this, Emiliano and his partners offer money to Moncho and his family to take the fall despite knowing he is not the true culprit.

Also exemplary of this fracturing and unreasonableness is Charro, a man who comports himself like a mobster by operating on intimidation. Before the accident, Charro, played by Alberto Guerra (Ingobernable, El Señor de los Cielos), observes a man at the party admiring his wife from a distance. Charro walks up to the man and says, “She’s so f***in hot, right? But if you mess with her, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.” So, when Charro learns through the rumor mill that Moncho is responsible for the accident, even his wife challenges him to “take care of it.”

On one level, The Accident is a story about class, as Moncho is blamed, beaten, and jailed for not staking down the inflatable. Thus, the initial response is levied at the person with the lowest rank in social class, the fewest resources, and the least perceived credibility. Contrast this with Charro, who is detained for severely beating Moncho and setting his house on fire with his kids inside, yet never sees the inside of a jail cell. His wealth, cocky confidence, and ever-present lawyer combine to ensure his detention never goes beyond the desk of the local sheriff.

On another level, The Accident is about the potential corruptibility of greed. Emiliano and his law partners are so determined to maintain their contract with “the gringos” that they offer Moncho and his family money for him to take the fall. The matter of his innocence or guilt is not a concern. Their goal is to simply end the investigation into the matter at Emiliano’s home and cover up his true culpability in the bounce house incident. So, greed distorts the law partners’ ability to do what is just. The irony here is they are the ones actually sworn to be defenders of the law and advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves.

The Accident also helps us see how grief can cloud perspective. Angry and grief-stricken over the loss of their children, partners cheat on their spouses because they can’t fix the hole left in their hearts, and opportunistic individuals take advantage of their vulnerability. Even the estranged parent of the sole surviving child returns home not to console her child, but to seize upon the media attention her child is garnering from her story of survival.

As the Santa Cruz police investigate, they reveal that bounce house incidents are not uncommon, and that children are injured and killed each year when sudden gusts of wind carry the inflatables away. Researchers documented 132 cases of wind-related bounce house incidents that occurred worldwide over a 20-year period. They found that people suffered 479 injuries and 28 deaths because the inflatables were not properly staked and reinforced with sandbags, and the weather not monitored for wind shifts, something researchers indicate is needed to ensure safety. These facts should have made The Accident a heart-wrenching story from beginning to end. We would expect, for example, this series to have a feel equivalent to that of Dandelion and/or Yarrow tea.

Dandelion tea is a tag COTC assigns to shows with difficult or heavy subjects. I am challenged to imagine anything more difficult than losing a child, yet this series evokes very little of this emotion. It should be yanking at the heart strings and leaving tear tracks on the face, but it does not. Yarrow tea is for shows with illness or that are set in hospitals. In The Accident, the children are at once playing and then gone. Their loss is sudden, not gradual. Their lives don’t linger over a period of time. In the absence of these elements, the show is left only with depictions of blame, anger, and fighting, making it more akin to a Masala Chai tag which signals toughness and competition. So, the show lacks the emotion fitting of the magnitude of this travesty, which is needed to connect with the audience.

Despite this, though, The Accident contains salient themes and ethnic representations that challenge the prevailing depictions of Mexican people in films made in the U.S. Indeed, what I like about this series is that it depicts Mexican families as educated professionals with large, sprawling homes and upscale lifestyles. This portrayal contrasts sharply with the films produced in the U.S. frequently depicting  Mexican families as poor, working class, and living in high density, violent communities in apartments too small to accommodate their large families.

The Accident teaches us about the price we can pay for rushing to judgment, something we are much more prone to do when experiencing the excruciating pain of loss, unbearable weight of guilt, and desperation. Reason gets clouded and distorted, and much like a rabid dog or any wounded animal, we do a disservice to ourselves and those we care most about. It is only when we come close to losing someone else that we return to our senses and realize what we have done and who we are in danger of becoming. Despite the missed opportunity to imbue the series with a compelling emotive element, The Accident’s thematic material and unique representations offer some appeal to those craving a Masala Chai-type story.