Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) Part 4 Review

There comes in the life of a series when it pushes its luck too far. Pushing episodes and seasons as if it's a requirement from the top rather than from the freedom of creativity of its creators and writers. Sadly, we've come to this bitter reality with "Money Heist Part 4". The whole season was mostly shallow with the actual heist inside the Bank of Spain coming to a complete halt just to obviously extend the very popular Spanish series into another excruciating Part 5.

In Part 4, the heist of the Bank of Spain continues with a very rough road ahead. Nairobi has been shot and needs urgent medical care while Lisbon has been executed during capture. Now the group must find their footing or else the heist is bound for total failure.

Since Part 3, we have seen a pattern with "Money Heist" as it tries to become more of a thriller than a drama series. Less emphasis is put into building the relationships between the robbers, the hostages and the government officials. Whereas Part 1 and Part 2 had fully fleshed out relationships, Part 3 and now Part 4 felt like it didn't know what it wanted to focus on. This also means that there is this encompassing sense of shallowness to the whole season overall. Worse, Part 4 is much worse than Part 3 as this time, the narrative behind the heist of Bank of Spain heist completely stops to further extend the series to another season. While there are still moments of conflict and drama this season, most of them feel forced and out of place at times. There were several instances that we actually laughed out loud on how ridiculous and illogical elements from Part 4 had become. It was also amusing to see how unlimited money (and the character of Marseilles) was the resolution to almost every dilemma our rag tag team had to face especially the Professor. Don't get us wrong though, Part 4 still had a lot of surprises in tow especially in its last three episodes but the quality of the show has definitely dropped compared to the excellent first two parts. Regardless, we wished they ended "Money Heist" with Part 4 already but instead this season feels like it is a very unnecessary and unsatisfying stepping stone to the conclusion of the Bank of Spain heist.

Rating: 3 reels






Why you should watch it:
- found its footing in the last three episodes

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the show is stretched to its limits just to extend to another season
- Part 4 feels shallow and unsatisfying