While fans wait for the final chapter of international hit Money Heist to debut on Netflix, one question from Season 4 lingers: What was Palermo thinking?
Okay, that question could apply to a lot of Season 4 moments. But there's one, in particular, we're thinking about here. Seasons 3 and 4 of the thriller series focus on a heist at the Bank of Spain, bringing together the original crew along with new players like Palermo (Rodrigo de la Serna), a friend of Berlin's (Pedro Alonso). Palermo and Berlin planned the Bank of Spain heist together, but Palermo became a volatile force as the heist progressed, leading Tokyo (Úrsula Corberó) to take charge.
When Palermo threatens to quit the heist and leave the bank, the rest of the team decided to restrain him to a chair so that he couldn't cause any more problems. Unfortunately, they placed his chair right next to Gandia (José Manuel Poga), the ruthless and bigoted chief of security for the bank. So, in Episode 3, "Lección de anatomía"/"Anatomy Lesson," Palermo essentially helps Gandia escape, coaching him through the process of breaking his thumb so that he could slip his hand through the handcuffs binding him.
It's a shocking moment for the series, and when Collider was lucky enough to speak with the cast of Money Heist during a recent press junket, among the things we asked Rodrigo de la Serna and José Manuel Poga about was this point — specifically, why Palermo would make the choice to help Gandia.
According to de la Serna:
Well, I was going to say ask the writers, but the truth is that I think he was feeling desperate. He had to go back to being in command and I thought it was going to be more of a justification for it, but I think was just started was a desperate act of a leader that wants to be back in command.
Meanwhile, Poga had a slightly different interpretation of that moment; he's the one to play Gandia, he definitely saw where Palermo was coming from in that scene:
I believe that he wanted to see chaos and that's what he did. I don't think he thought twice about what it would entail to release a beast such as Gandia. There is some point in which Palermo regrets his decisions, but childish and arrogant as he is, he sticks to that decision. He wanted to screw up the situation out of spite, and that's what he did.
The repercussions of Palermo's choice end up being pretty seismic for the series, since Gandia, once freed, goes on to commit no shortage of atrocities, including shooting the team's beloved Nairobi (Alba Flores) in the head. The repercussions of that act will resonate throughout the rest of the series, which comes to a conclusion this fall in two parts — Part 1, consisting of five episodes, premieres on Friday, September 3, with the final five episodes of Part 2 set to be released on December 3, 2021.
Money Heist is streaming now on Netflix.