Rotten Legacy Review
Director: Eduardo Chapero-Jackson and Carlota Pereda
Date Created: 2025-05-17 23:07
1.5
Rotten Legacy Review: Netflix’s Spanish drama Legado, directed by Eduardo Chapero-Jackson and Carlota Pereda, featuring Jose Coronado as Federico Seligman, Belén Cuesta as Yolanda Seligman, Diego Martín as Andrés Seligman, Maria Morera as Lara Seligman, Natalia Huarte as Guadalupe Seligman and others. This series attempt to provide a drama that is full of family, power, corruption and hidden secrets. Unfortunately, it’s all apparently being confused with something interesting. With eight episodes of close to a full hour each, it is like a heavy meal that never quite fills.
Rotten Legacy Review
At the centre of Netflix’s Rotten Legacy are the Seligman family. Once legends and leaders, they are now plagued by scandal, betrayal and a crumbling empire. José Coronado as Federico Seligman, the returned father after having fought cancer. But instead of peace, he finds his children— Yolanda, Andrés, Guadalupe and youngest daughter Lara — entangled in greed, deceit and corruption.
The root of the conflict is Federico’s effort to reveal his children’s tawdry pursuit of the media in a tell-all interview. He’s trying to get shit stirred up once again, back to his self-righteous convictions. But the transformation would hurt their business, El Baltico, and opens themselves up to their competition moving in. So, the family, after endless quarrelling, tries to unite to preserve the family name. On paper, that sounds interesting, no? Sadly, the execution is a catastrophe.
The Rotten Legacy series is that its storyline is too packed. Too many characters with their own subplots and secrets to follow. There is Manuel, Guadalupe’s husband, who smuggles dirty money and constructs his house over mass graves. His play turns violent and even more sinister when dirty cop Vargas enters the scene.
Instead of ratcheting up the tension or eliciting further sympathy, these subplots simply muddy the waters. By the time you are finally beginning to wonder what drives one character, the series cuts to another political, journalistic or even war crimes subplot. It is as if we are not viewing several different shows stitched together, but one that does not stitch together or move along.
The political intrigue of the series is especially hard to keep up with. There’s blackmail, email hacks, withdrawals and backroom manoeuvres that would confuse a poli-sci student. The characters go on about mortgage bills, far-right government conspiracies and election strategies, but the show never reduces the situation to a neat definition. The assumption is that the audience is capable of untangling the convoluted Spanish political system and keep track of every turn, which is, to be honest, tiring.
Even the Rocio character, who is a political pawn, is shortchanged. Her collapse benefits some to earn income and power, but the psychological price is not given. It’s another twist for drama’s sake.
One of the ironies of the show is that it speaks so much about ethics and then your characters just go on betraying those principles. Federico, who delights in preaching to Tommy on being a stand-up guy, will cut underhanded deals and hurt people in the interest of saving face and his company. He’s no less immature than the kids he’s judging. Real life is messy, I suppose. But in fiction, and particularly in a TV show like this, we look for some kind of sense — some discernible emotional thread to follow. Rotten Legacy on Netflix simply does not have it.
Also Read: Secrets We Keep Review: Chilling Mystery That Grabs You and Doesn’t Let Go
If anything on this program is working at all, even minimally, it’s the Lara and Leon subplot. Leon’s brother, Bruno, was a war reporter who was ambushed and killed when he was reporting on corruption in the military. The government denied it and covered it up, and Federico played along with that lie. Lara, to her credit, is interested in helping Leon find out what happened.
This is a plot that is meaningful and emotional. We are introduced to Lara separating papers, questioning her relatives and standing up for what is right. It is the only segment of the show that is worth anything and has meaning. Only it is overshadowed by too weak plots, unfortunately. Leon’s agony, his relatives’ story of suffering and his struggle for justice could have been a great show alone.
The ending tries to tie up all the loose ends, politics, revenge, family soap and moral dilemmas, but it has little impact. There’s a killing, a fake hitman, a jail visit, a crooked warden, and even an aside about open marriages. It’s all just kind of a mess. The show tries too hard for depth, and ends up shallow. It’s a show that poses deep questions but doesn’t appear to be offering any honest answers.
Summing Up
The Spanish series Rotten Legacy wishes to be a sensitive, emotional, politically-aware family drama. It attempts to do too much. The plot is too complicated, the characters too unpredictable, the emotional scenes too sparse. If you enjoy slow-burn dramas with excessive plot reveals and don’t mind getting a little lost, maybe you’ll find something to appreciate here.
Also Read: Dear Hongrang Review: Dark, Emotional Kdrama with Hauntingly Beautiful Cinematography
