Now and Then Review: A Murder Mystery That Doubles As an Examination of Social Status

The series plays out like a sultry crime thriller, but what lies beneath its edgy, multi-perspective plot is a social drama about class.

Now and Then
Photo: Apple TV+

The bilingual series Now and Then relentlessly doles out one red herring after another, forming a Rubik’s Cube of clues as to what happened on the night that a celebration by the beach turned into a deadly falling out for a group of college friends. The series plays out like a sultry crime thriller, but what lies beneath its edgy, multi-perspective plot is a social drama that interweaves commentary about class and money, forces which drive its characters to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Alternating between 2000 and the present, Now and Then follows the lives of each of its main characters 20 years after the mysterious death of their friend, Alejandro (Jorge Lopez). Like a classic Agatha Christie mystery, the story scrolls through an archetypal profile of each of the seemingly duplicitous characters as they’re forced to reunite after receiving blackmail text messages demanding five million dollars for their involvement in Alejandro’s death.

Reluctantly reunited, the characters almost immediately attempt to piece together plans for how to deal with the blackmail. Pedro (José María Yazpik), who’s started a family with Ana (Marina de Tavira) and is in the midst of a high-profile campaign to become next mayor of Miami, snaps at Marcos (Manolo Cardona) and demands that his wealthy father fix everything, just as he did 20 years ago. Elsewhere, struggling single mom Daniela (Soledad Villamil) is, like Marcos’s college flame, Sofia (Maribel Verdú), unable to pay her part of the ransom, though their refusal to go to the police suggests that they have something to hide.

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The series quickly shifts into a high stakes game of intrigue as it becomes evident that the former friends are more than ready to exploit each and do whatever it takes to preserve their place on the social ladder. Whether they’re guilty of murder or not, it’s exhilarating to watch the lives of these cunning characters disintegrate as their sketchy pasts catch up to them. From Pedro and Marcos’s naïve belief that paying the ransom will close this chapter of their lives, to Ana, who, despite having an inheritance, staunchly refuses to pay, there’s the sense that these friends, who once dreamt about experiencing the world, have simply become trapped by both their current circumstances and their shared pasts.

Through the jumping between timelines, Now and Then conveys the characters’ loss of youthful idealism (for example, Marcos, a relapsing opioid addict, once dreamed of joining Doctors Without Borders). The deceased Alejandro, more than a burden of guilt shared by the five, represents this lost innocence, something that the series homes in on as characters yearn for the alternative futures that were washed away that fateful night on the beach.

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But while it may be Alejandro’s ghost that haunts the psyches of the former friends, it’s Sergeant Flora Neruda (Rosie Perez) who’s actually watching their every move. As the moral center of Now and Then, the calm yet wrathful one-woman investigator stands diametrically opposed to slicksters like Marcos and Pedro, who seem capable of doing anything if it means maintaining their station in society. Flora is singularly driven toward solving the case, and at the cost of personal happiness. Perez imbues the character with a cool, snarky affect that masks an obsessive pursuit for justice, even hinting at a personal vendetta.

What elevates Now and Then from its boilerplate plot twists and soap operatic backstories is the way in which it trains its focus on class. From the revelation that Pedro’s mother worked as a maid for Alejandro’s exorbitantly wealthy family and Pedro’s resulting insecurity, to the emotional abuse that Marcos suffered from his controlling and powerful father, the characters’ stations in life serve both as an underlying cause and effect to many of their pathologies.

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Pedro quickly learns, after being mocked by one of his campaign advisors for sounding like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, that it’s simply easier to be a slick politician who pays lip service to constituents than it is to craft an ambitious vision for the future. For all the tension that Now and Then whips up with anxious texts, wiretapping, and races against the clock, the most engaging aspect about the series isn’t its visceral murder mystery, but its depiction of the ways in which social status can doom people to avoidable and tragic fates.

Score: 
 Cast: Rosie Perez, Jorge Lopez, Manolo Cardona, Maribel Verdú, Soledad Villamil, José María Yazpik, Marina de Tavira, Alicia Jaziz, Alicia Sanz, Dario Yazbek Bernal, Jack Duarte, Miranda de la Serna, Željko Ivanek, Martín Fajardo, Steve Howard, Jimmy Shaw, Marita de Lara  Network: Apple TV+

Anzhe Zhang

Anzhe Zhang studied journalism and East Asian studies at New York University and works as a culture, music, and content writer based in Brooklyn. His writing can be found in The FADER, Subtitle, Open City, and others.

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