The Gardener is Netflix's revelation series, a Spanish show full of surprises and twists: but what does the season finale mean?
With The Gardener, Netflix's revelation series, we face an intimate and disturbing story that delves into the folds of identity, power and emotional manipulation. A story that, through its protagonist Elmer, takes us into a dimension suspended between childhood innocence and the suffocating weight of adult expectations. The end of the first season is configured as an apparent closure: a point of no return rather than a conclusion.
Elmer, fragility and manipulation
Elmer is the beating heart of the narrative. A fragile man, marked by a past never really faced, dominated by a maternal figure, China, who has built a golden cage around him. The garden in which he works is not only a physical place but the visual metaphor of an emotional prison. The meticulously tended plants become the reflection of his condition: alive but deeply controlled.
When, in the finale, Elmer undergoes brain surgery – imposed by China under the pretext of salvation – the definitive betrayal takes place. It is not just a surgical operation; it is an act of symbolic violence. He is deprived of the right to choose, to be ill, and even to decline. The blackout that precedes his awakening in the hospital is a black hole that swallows up every last vestige of autonomy. When he wakes up, Elmer is no longer the same. Not because he has changed physically, but because he has finally understood the weight of maternal manipulation.
China: mother, jailer, puppeteer in The Gardener
China is one of the most complex and disturbing characters of the season. There is no selfless love in her actions: everything is driven by the need for control, for the preservation of the “order” she has built. Her affection is suffocating; her sense of protection is toxic. In the finale, the mask falls definitively. It is not the mother who saves but the woman who possesses.
The scene in which Elmer, back at work, ignores her or answers her coldly is as silent as it is devastating. The lack of communication is total. It is precisely in that silence that we perceive the irreparable break between mother and son.
Violeta: the hope that returns with a deadly request
If China is the past and the prison, Violeta represents – or seemed to represent – the only way out. Throughout the season, her relationship with Elmer has been defined and punctuated by moments of tenderness, tension and misunderstanding. When she decides to leave, Violeta seems to be running away from herself, unable to deal with what has emerged.
Her return in the finale, however, changes everything. It is not a romantic reconciliation; it is not the happy ending that the viewer might expect. On the contrary, Violeta returns with a terrible request: she asks Elmer to help her kill someone. It is not important – at least in the symbolic context – who the victim is. What counts is the act itself. For Elmer, it is the definitive test. After a life in which others have decided for him, he is now called to make an irreversible choice.
How does The Gardener end? The explanation of the ending between unspoken truths and denied freedoms
The ending of The Gardener does not close the plots; it lets them flourish in obscure directions. It is an epilogue that breaks, rather than unites. But it is also consistent with the entire philosophy of the series: freedom is a painful process, made of sharp cuts, torn roots and truths that do not console.
Maybe growing up means precisely this: giving up caring for others to learn to choose, even when it hurts. Even when the only possible freedom is the one that destroys.