The Crystal Cuckoo, directed by Laura Alvea, takes us to the fictional town of Yesques, in Spain, where residents had been mysteriously disappearing over the past few decades. Most of the time they were presumed dead, as the police never found any evidence that could prove otherwise. Nobody ever thought that there could be a common thread linking all those disappearances, probably because there were large gaps between disappearances most of the time. But things changed after Clara decided to visit the town around 2024, as she had gotten a heart transplant, and she wanted to meet the family of the donor. What I would like to mention here is that the time jumps, the constant back and forth between two timelines that were seen throughout the narrative, didn’t help the series. I understand that it is a creative choice intended to increase the suspense, but in this specific case I don’t think it had the desired impact. That said, let’s find out what happened in the series and if there was a predator on the prowl who was behind all those disappearances.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Clara want to meet Carlos?
Clara was a medical student, and all of a sudden, when she was in the middle of an operation, she lost consciousness. Her condition deteriorated so much so that the doctors had to put her in a state of induced coma. She was put on a life support system, after which the experts realized that she needed a heart transplant. Fortunately enough there was a donor available, and so Clara was literally pulled out of the jaws of death. Clara wanted to meet her donor’s family, as she felt very overwhelmed by the fact that another man’s heart was pumping inside her. She felt that if she were able to talk with the donor’s family and get to know who he was, then probably she would feel at ease. It was a difficult task for her to find her donor, as in Spain the identity of the donor was kept anonymous. But Clara was determined, and so she kept investigating from her end until she figured out that a man named Carlos could be her donor. She contacted his mother, Marta, who was just not ready to talk to Clara. But then eventually Marta gave in, and she herself invited Carla to come over to her place and spend a few days with her. Clara went to meet Marta, and that’s when she realized that there was some mystery surrounding Carlos’ death. Clara met Carlos’ girlfriend, Maria, who very suspiciously told her that Carlos had taken his own life, and that it was not an accident, as Marta had told her. Clara also met Juan, Carlos’ elder brother, who was a cop who seemed like a decent man. Clara started snooping around, and she tried talking to a few people who she thought could reveal something about Carlos’ death. Clara met a writer named Ramos, whose book she had found in Carlos’ stuff. Apparently, Carlos was quite interested in knowing about the history of the town, and so he met Ramon quite often. Ramon told Clara that around 11 people had disappeared in the last 30 years, and it was strange that the police never thought that the incidents could be linked. Clara found herself in an unprecedented situation when a woman’s baby was kidnapped and a search party was organized to find him. Clara was in the woods when she saw a man wearing a huge bird mask and dancing in front of the toddler. Clara was petrified by the mere sight. She lost consciousness, and though the baby was rescued, the kidnapper wasn’t caught.
Who killed Miguel? And why?
Carlos’ father, Miguel, was a cop, and things went downhill for the family after Miguel, one day, disappeared without any sort of intimation. There were all sorts of stories made up about his disappearance, which we will discuss in the subsequent headings. Miguel didn’t have a very happy childhood. His father was an abusive man, and he made his mother and sister’s lives a living hell. One fine day, Miguel’s sister left the house, and Miguel never saw her again. Miguel was quite young at that time, but he never got any sort of closure, because of which his sister’s disappearance bothered him even after he grew up. He kept looking for evidence, but he was never able to find anything concrete. Miguel always suspected his good friend Rafael’s uncle, Gabriel, to be the culprit who had done something to his sister. Miguel was not wrong, but lacking any concrete evidence, it was difficult to make others believe in his theory. Miguel tried asking Rafael’s mother about Gabriel, and she told him that her brother wasn’t very good with girls. The truth was there in front of everybody’s eyes, and Miguel found it frustrating that he couldn’t expose Gabriel even after that.
But then one day, when a girl named Sylvia Luna, who worked at a local store, disappeared, Miguel just couldn’t stop his impulses. He went to Gabriel’s cabin and assaulted him. Gabriel had left town, but quite suspiciously, he came back during that time period when Sylvia disappeared. Gabriel confessed that he was the one who had killed not one but multiple girls. Miguel wanted to arrest him, but that’s when a twist came. Rafael, Miguel’s good friend and colleague, arrived at the scene and asked him to not kill Gabriel. Miguel, at that moment, thought that it was solely because Gabriel was Rafael’s uncle, but that was not the case. Rafael killed Miguel, as he didn’t want his uncle and himself to get exposed. Gabriel asked Rafael to leave town immediately and go on a vacation with his wife, as he knew that when the time came, Rafael should have a very strong alibi. Gabriel, meanwhile, buried Miguel’s body, and then for years nobody got to know what exactly had happened there. Moreover, the townsfolk spread all sorts of rumors about Miguel and tarnished his reputation. Miguel and Sylvia Luna had disappeared around the same time, and so the people started making theories about Miguel being responsible for the girl’s disappearance. In fact, they also spread rumors about Magdalena, Miguel’s sister, and it was believed that she had had an affair with an older man and ran away with him.
What happened to Miguel’s sister?
Through a flashback sequence we got to know that Magdalena, Miguel’s sister, did have an affair with Gabriel, and nobody apart from Rafael knew about it. So Rafael had not only killed Miguel, he also knew that it was his uncle who had murdered Magdalena. Gabriel had made Rafael promise him that he shouldn’t tell anybody about their little secret, and such was the influence of the old man on him that he didn’t speak a word to anybody. One day, Gabriel took Magdalena to his cabin, and probably he tried to do something with her that she didn’t want him to. That infuriated Gabriel, and he ended up smashing her head in. A young Rafael saw everything happening right in front of his eyes, and he was a bit traumatized by it. But Gabriel made sure that he had the kid in his control and that his secret did not come to light. Apart from Miguel’s sister, Gabriel had killed many girls, and even his wife. I believe that it was Gabriel’s wife’s death that made Miguel a bit suspicious about the man. Gabriel’s wife had apparently died in an accident when her house caught fire. She was unable to escape, and later her charred body was found inside. Miguel noticed how cool and calm Gabriel was after the accident, as if his wife’s death didn’t impact him even a bit. That was the point when Miguel started his unofficial investigation and later came to the conclusion that Gabriel was a serial killer.
I believe that Gabriel suffered from some kind of mental disorder. He got sadistic pleasure making the girls suffer, even somebody like Magdalena, who consented to getting intimate with him. After Gabriel killed his victims, he took their IDs and kept them as trophies. Looking at them gave him a sense of achievement that nothing else could. Moreover, Rafael was a cop, and so he made sure that his uncle’s name never got linked to any crime.
How did Gabriel get exposed?
There came a time when Rafael asked his uncle to just leave town . Unlike his uncle, who was a stone-hearted sociopath, Rafael felt guilty. He had also killed people and sexually assaulted innocent girls, majorly because from a very early age he was groomed by his uncle. Gabriel came back to town around the same time when Clara was visiting. The man was suffering from dementia, but that didn’t stop him from going on a killing spree and torturing girls. It was Gabriel who had tried to kidnap that baby at the beginning of The Crystal Cuckoo, but he had to leave the kid as Clara spotted him in the woods. Clara bumped into the old man once again, and she followed him. Gabriel kidnapped Clara and took her to his cabin in the woods. Before being kidnapped, Clara had informed Juan that she had spotted the man who she felt was the same kidnapper she had bumped into in the woods. Meanwhile, Marta got to know from the local people that they had seen Gabriel around the same spot where Clara had been kidnapped. Marta gave that information to her son, who committed the blunder of looping Rafael into the investigation. Juan, who was Rafael’s subordinate, had no reason to believe that Rafael had conspired with his uncle in the past and that he knew everything about Gabriel’s crimes. Clara managed to escape from Gabriel’s cabin, and the old man chased her as if it was some sort of game. Juan and Rafael arrived at the scene, and before Gabriel could say or do anything, Rafael killed him. Rafael had no option but to kill his uncle since he didn’t want the people to know about how, with his uncle’s help, he too had become a killer. The police found enough evidence from Gabriel’s house that he was the one who was behind the killings. The case was presumed to be shut, and probably Rafael would have believed that his secret would never come to light.
How did Rafael meet his end?
Back in the day, Gabriel revealed to Rafael that he was his son. I think that Rafael’s mother was molested by her own brother, Gabriel, which was why she chose to cut all ties with him. Gabriel was Rafael’s biological father, a fact that Rafael’s mother hid from him his entire life. Rafael started meeting his uncle secretly without even telling his mother. Gabriel groomed him and taught him to be a predator. He took him on hunting trips and often did things that he shouldn’t have in front of a kid. Rafael, when he was quite young, saw his uncle killing Miguel’s elder sister. For years, Rafael couldn’t remove that image from his mind, and I believe it did something to him internally. Rafale didn’t realize when he became a sexual predator. He had an affair with Sylvia, and then one day he raped and killed her. He called his uncle to help him out, and Gabriel reacted as if killing a person and burying their body was no big deal. Gabriel believed the cuckoo bird to be his spirit animal. Cuckoos laid their eggs in another bird’s nest so that those birds would raise their young pens. As horrifying as it may sound, Gabriel told Rafael that he had done pretty much the same thing with his mother. Though deep down, Rafael knew that his uncle was sick, he couldn’t control his impulses, and ended up becoming like him. After committing the crime, Rafael felt guilty, but he also took help from his uncle to conceal his actions. In fact, it was Rafael who had tried to groom Carlos, just like his uncle had done with him. Carlos started suffering from all kinds of mental health issues, which eventually led him to take his own life. Rafael came to meet Clara at the end of The Crystal Cuckoo, as she was going back to Madrid that day. When Clara was in Gabriel’s captivity, she had heard him talking to somebody and addressing them as “Eaglet.” During a conversation, Marta mentioned that fact, and that’s when Clara connected the dots. Rafael was burdened with his guilt, so it didn’t take him much time to break down and confess to his crimes. Marta, unable to comprehend how he could do that to her and all those innocent people, asked him to take his life. Rafael took his gun in his hands, but he couldn’t kill himself. That’s when I believe he gave his gun to Marta and asked her to kill him. Marta shot him, and then later made up a story in front of the police. There were no charges pressed against Marta and Clara, as the police found a suicide note from Rafael’s house in which he had confessed to everything already. It meant that Rafael had already made plans to take his life, but he couldn’t muster up the courage to do so.
At the end, Clara decided to go back to Madrid, but she told Juan that they could keep meeting and see where fate took them. Both of them were pretty attracted to each other, and they had found time to spend some intimate moments in between that chaos. I believe had Clara been living in the same town, Juan would have definitely asked her for a relationship, but the former had to go back. I believe Clara will continue visiting Marta and Juan in the future, as the tragedy brought her closer to people who she could now truly call family.
