The global premiere of In the Mud (En el barro) on Netflix today marks one of the most significant events in the international television calendar. This eight-episode Argentine series arrives not as a standalone entity but as a highly anticipated spin-off from the critically lauded crime drama El Marginal, a show that redefined the prison genre with its raw verisimilitude and complex character studies. The new series plunges viewers into the parallel universe of a women’s penitentiary, La Quebrada, through a narrative catalyst of extreme violence and sudden solidarity. A group of female inmates, most of them new to the carceral system, survive a deadly transport accident, emerging from a river literally and figuratively baptized in mud, an event that forges them into an unwilling but necessary collective.
Under the stewardship of creator Sebastián Ortega and a creative team deeply rooted in the original series, In the Mud leverages its predecessor’s gritty aesthetic while undertaking the ambitious task of forging its own distinct identity. An analysis of its premiere reveals a production that is not merely an extension of a successful franchise but a deliberate thematic and cinematic dialogue with it. The series interrogates the established tropes of power, corruption, and survival through a gendered lens, employing a sophisticated visual language to explore how community is forged not on the fringes of society, but from its most elemental and broken-down spaces.
The Architectural Framework: From San Onofre to La Quebrada
The very existence of In the Mud is a testament to the new economics of global streaming and the international currency of Argentine storytelling. Its production framework and creative leadership reveal a calculated strategy to expand a proven universe while deepening its thematic concerns.
Production Genealogy: The “Ortega-verse” Expands
In the Mud is a major international co-production, marshaling the resources of Netflix, Underground Producciones (a division of Telemundo Studios), and Telemundo itself. This tripartite alliance signifies a substantial investment in Argentine talent and intellectual property, designed for a worldwide audience. The model builds directly on the success of El Marginal, which gained a massive international following after its acquisition and distribution by Netflix. The new series is explicitly positioned as an expansion of the El Marginal narrative universe but with a self-contained story that shifts the focus to a women’s prison. This approach is strategically sound, aiming to retain the loyal fanbase of the original while creating a new entry point for viewers unfamiliar with the Borges clan of San Onofre.
The ambition of the project is reflected in its physical scale. The production eschewed existing locations in favor of constructing its primary setting from scratch. Filming took place in a vast, decommissioned food factory in Buenos Aires, within which the entire La Quebrada penitentiary was built. This decision provided the filmmakers with a completely controlled environment, a self-contained world where every decaying wall and rusted bar could be meticulously designed and lit. The factory’s administrative offices were repurposed for production headquarters, creating a highly efficient, immersive filmmaking apparatus that underscores the project’s considerable budget and scope.
The Creative Lineage: Sebastián Ortega and His Auteurs
The series is anchored by the singular vision of its creator, Sebastián Ortega, a dominant figure in contemporary Argentine television and film. Ortega’s filmography—which includes not only El Marginal but also foundational prison drama Tumberos (2002), the true-crime saga Historia de un clan (2015), and the feature film El Angel (2018)—demonstrates a consistent authorial signature. His work is characterized by a hyper-realistic, often brutal depiction of criminal subcultures, a fascination with the fluid morality of marginalized communities, and an exploration of the ad-hoc family structures that form in extreme environments.
To execute this vision, Ortega has assembled a team that balances continuity with fresh perspectives. The directorial roster is a clear indicator of this strategy:
- Alejandro Ciancio is a key architect of the El Marginal aesthetic, having directed numerous episodes across its five seasons, as well as the related crime series The Secret of the Greco Family. His involvement ensures a consistent visual and tonal grammar, grounding the new series in the established universe’s unflinching realism.
- Mariano Ardanaz is another veteran of El Marginal and other Ortega productions, further cementing the series’ stylistic lineage. His work on dramas like Diary of a Gigolo also points to a proficiency with polished, character-driven narratives that may inform the more intimate interpersonal dynamics of In the Mud.
- Estela Cristiani, known for directing the series La viuda de Rafael and the youth-oriented musical drama Go! Live Your Way, represents a departure from the hard-boiled crime genre. Her inclusion suggests a deliberate intention to focus more deeply on the emotional arcs and complex relationships between the female characters, particularly the younger inmates.
This directorial blend is mirrored in the writers’ room, a collaborative effort between Ortega, Silvina Frejdkes, Alejandro Quesada, and Omar Quiroga. This team-based approach is a hallmark of Ortega’s Underground Producciones, fostering a workshop-like environment for narrative development.
The choice to create a female-centric spin-off with this specific creative team is more than a commercial decision to franchise a popular property. It signifies a conscious artistic effort to refract the established themes of El Marginal through a new prism. The world of San Onofre was fundamentally masculine, its conflicts and power structures defined by patriarchal hierarchies, from the familial gang leadership of the Borges brothers to the corrupt state authority of the warden. By relocating the narrative to a women’s prison, Ortega and his team are compelled to explore how these dynamics of power, corruption, and survival manifest differently. The conflicts are less likely to be resolved through brute physical force and more likely to involve intricate psychological warfare, shifting social alliances, and alternative forms of resilience.
The evolution is encoded in the show’s title. A shift from El Marginal (The Marginalized One) to En el barro (In the Mud) is a profound thematic statement. “Marginal” defines a person by their position relative to a societal center; it is a term of exclusion. “In the Mud,” however, suggests a more elemental and primal condition. It is a state of being debased and stuck, but also a place of creation and formlessness, evoking the primordial clay from which life emerges. This signals a narrative concerned not just with surviving on the fringes, but with the very construction of identity from the ground up. The series thus enters into a direct dialogue with its predecessor, posing critical questions: What does survival look like when the patriarchy of San Onofre is supplanted by a different, perhaps matriarchal, or simply more anarchic, system of power? How is community forged among women in an institution designed to atomize and break them?
The Inhabitants of La Quebrada: Casting and Characterology
The population of La Quebrada is a meticulously assembled ensemble that blends familiar faces with new blood, reflecting a sophisticated strategy to ground the series in its Argentine roots while engineering its appeal for a global market.
The Birth of “Las embarradas”: A New Sisterhood
The narrative engine of the series is the formation of a new “tribe” forged in trauma. The five women who survive the transport vehicle’s crash into a river become a unit, their bond sealed by a shared near-death experience. Their collective identity, “Las embarradas” (The Muddied Ones), is born directly from this violent baptism, a name that signifies both their debased status and their elemental origins.
The group is a cross-section of the carceral experience:
- Gladys “La Borges” Guerra (Ana Garibaldi): A character with a history in the El Marginal universe, Gladys provides the crucial narrative bridge to the original series. Previously a secondary figure, she is now elevated to a protagonist. As a woman with experience in the “tumbero” (prison) world, she is thrust into the role of a reluctant leader for the uninitiated survivors.
- The Neophytes: The rest of the core group is composed of inmates with no prior prison history, a classic narrative device that allows the audience to learn the brutal rules of La Quebrada in tandem with the characters. This ensemble includes figures played by international star Valentina Zenere (Elite), Colombian actress Carolina Ramírez, and Argentine stage and screen veteran Lorena Vega.
- The Antagonists: The primary source of conflict comes from the established “tribus” that already control the prison’s ecosystem. “Las embarradas” must resist being absorbed or destroyed by these pre-existing power structures. Key figures in this hostile environment include Cecilia Moranzón, played by the revered Argentine actress Rita Cortese, who appears to be a formidable prison matriarch, and Amparo Vilches, a character played by Spanish actress Ana Rujas, who has described her role as that of “a proper villain”.
Echoes of San Onofre and Strategic New Blood
To reinforce the connection to the parent series, In the Mud features the return of key characters from El Marginal. The cynical and deeply corrupt prison official Sergio Antín (Gerardo Romano) is a prominent figure, confirming that the systemic rot depicted in the men’s prison is endemic to the entire carceral system. Furthermore, reports indicate the return of original protagonist Juan Minujín (Pastor) and Maite Lanata (Luna), suggesting the potential for significant crossover plotlines that will weave the two series together more tightly.
Alongside these veterans, the production has made several high-profile casting choices designed to generate buzz and broaden the show’s audience. The most notable is the acting debut of María Becerra, one of Argentina’s biggest contemporary pop stars. Her role, which reportedly includes a much-discussed “steamy scene” with Valentina Zenere’s character and a contribution to the soundtrack, is a calculated marketing maneuver intended to capture the attention of her massive youth following and generate press coverage beyond the typical television sphere. The casting of Zenere, a globally recognized face from the Netflix hit Elite, and Spanish actress Ana Rujas, is a clear and deliberate strategy to bolster the show’s appeal in key international markets, particularly in Spain and across Europe.
Core Cast and Creative Team
The series is a major international co-production between Netflix, Underground Producciones (a division of Telemundo Studios), and Telemundo itself. The creative team is helmed by creator Sebastián Ortega, a leading figure in Argentine crime drama known for El Marginal, Tumberos, and Historia de un clan. The scripts were developed by a collaborative team including Ortega, Silvina Frejdkes, Alejandro Quesada, and Omar Quiroga. The directorial team features El Marginal veterans Alejandro Ciancio and Mariano Ardanaz, joined by Estela Cristiani. The series’ visual identity is shaped by cinematographers Miguel Abal, a decorated film DP, and Sergio Dotta, who also worked on El Marginal. The score is composed by Juan Ignacio Bouscayrol. The ensemble cast is led by Ana Garibaldi (Gladys Guerra), Valentina Zenere (Marina), Rita Cortese (Cecilia Moranzón), Lorena Vega, Marcelo Subiotto, Carolina Ramírez, and Ana Rujas (Amparo Vilches). They are joined by returning El Marginal actors Gerardo Romano (Sergio Antín) and Juan Minujín (Pastor), with special appearances by pop star María Becerra and actor Martín Rodríguez (Griselda).
The casting of In the Mud functions as a microcosm of Netflix’s contemporary global content strategy. It is not an incidental collection of actors but a meticulously engineered ensemble designed to balance local authenticity with international marketability. The foundation of this strategy rests on the credibility of its Argentine cast. The presence of revered actors like Rita Cortese, Marcelo Subiotto, and Ana Garibaldi, alongside the returning El Marginal players, grounds the series in its specific cultural milieu and guarantees the loyalty of the domestic audience and the original fanbase. This is the bedrock of authenticity upon which the global structure is built. The next layer is a bridge to a younger, international demographic. The casting of Valentina Zenere, a star from the global Netflix phenomenon Elite, provides a familiar signpost for a massive teen and young adult audience that may have no prior knowledge of El Marginal. Her involvement is a direct conduit to that viewership. The third layer is the “event” hook: the casting of María Becerra. Her acting debut is a news story in its own right, engineered to generate social media velocity and press coverage far outside the confines of television criticism, thereby pulling in a vast audience from the world of popular music. Finally, the inclusion of Spanish actress Ana Rujas in a pivotal villain role is a targeted move to enhance the show’s resonance in Spain, a crucial European market for the streaming platform. This multi-layered approach reveals a sophisticated understanding of modern audience segmentation, creating a “glocal” product designed to simultaneously satisfy distinct constituencies: the local loyalists, the global youth, the music fans, and specific international territories.
A Baptism of Mud: Deconstructing the Premiere’s Cinematic Language
The premiere episode of In the Mud functions as a powerful declaration of intent, establishing its brutal tone and visual grammar through a masterfully executed opening sequence and a deliberate construction of its world.
The Inciting Incident: A Study in Controlled Chaos
The series opens with the precipitating event: the transport of Gladys Guerra and other inmates to La Quebrada prison is violently ambushed, and their vehicle is sent plunging into a river. This sequence is a technical tour de force of controlled chaos. The direction employs immersive, handheld camerawork from within the vehicle to convey the escalating panic and disorientation of the inmates as water floods the compartment. This claustrophobic perspective is likely contrasted with stark, objective wide shots of the van being swallowed by the muddy water, emphasizing the finality of their descent.
The sound design is critical to the scene’s efficacy. The diegetic cacophony of the attack—gunfire, shattering glass, screams—gives way to a muffled, sub-aquatic horror. The soundscape becomes a terrifyingly intimate expression of the characters’ near-death experience, where the world is reduced to the sound of struggling bodies and the pressure of the depths. This approach, which uses heightened and often unpleasant atmospheric sound to induce anxiety and defamiliarize the environment, recalls the sonic philosophy of acclaimed Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel in works like La Ciénaga. The eventual emergence of the survivors onto the riverbank, their gasps for air breaking the aquatic silence, provides a powerful auditory and emotional release, marking their rebirth.
Mise-en-scène and World-Building: The Texture of La Quebrada
The prison of La Quebrada is established as a character in its own right, its identity shaped by its history as a converted factory. This industrial genesis permeates the mise-en-scène. The visual world of the prison is one of cavernous, decaying spaces, with a language of rust, peeling paint, and cold concrete. This man-made purgatory stands in stark contrast to the organic, primordial mud of the opening sequence, creating a world that is both ruthlessly artificial and actively decomposing.
The cinematography, helmed by Miguel Abal and Sergio Dotta, is essential in realizing this vision. Dotta’s work on El Marginal suggests a continuation of its signature aesthetic: a desaturated, high-contrast palette that emphasizes grit and texture. Abal, a veteran film cinematographer, may introduce a more composed, almost painterly quality to certain frames, creating a visual tension between raw, documentary-style immediacy and a more deliberate cinematic expressionism. The color palette is dominated by ochres, grays, and browns, visually reinforcing the central “barro” motif.
Following the tradition of landmark Argentine cinema, the camera’s gaze is intensely corporeal. The premiere is filled with haptic imagery: extreme close-ups on mud-caked skin, the rough texture of prison uniforms against the body, the sheer physicality of survival. This is not gratuitous but is intended to foster an embodied form of spectatorship, compelling the audience to feel the grime, the cold, and the texture of this world. This focus on the body as a landscape of experience—a site of pain, dirt, and abjection—is a key technique for shifting the locus of knowledge from the intellect to a more visceral, bodily understanding.
Pacing, Editing, and Score
The rhythm of the premiere episode is built on sharp contrasts. The kinetic, frantic energy of the opening crash gives way to a slower, more observational pace as the dazed survivors must decipher the complex and threatening social codes of the prison. This shift in tempo mirrors the characters’ own psychological journey from pure survival instinct to the dawning horror of their new reality. The score by Juan Ignacio Bouscayrol, known for his work on independent Argentine films, is crucial in modulating this tone. It is a minimalist, atmospheric, and often percussive score that heightens tension and unease rather than telegraphing emotion, a hallmark of contemporary prestige thrillers.
Thematic Resonance: Society in a Microcosm
Beyond its visceral thrills and technical polish, In the Mud is a series rich with thematic ambition. It uses the microcosm of the prison to explore complex social and philosophical questions, reframing the core concerns of its predecessor through a new, distinctly female perspective.
The Female Gaze in a Masculine Universe
The series fundamentally reorients the themes of El Marginal by centering the female experience. It delves into how women navigate a system of violence and control that is often architected by and for men. The narrative is deeply invested in exploring the formation of female alliances, the unique manifestations of power and hierarchy among women, and the specific psychological toll of incarceration on them. This thematic focus connects to a powerful current in contemporary Latin American arts, which increasingly confronts issues of gender discrimination and foregrounds narratives of feminist resistance. In its own brutal and confined context, the series examines the “new roles…that woman assumes in her decision to integrate herself into history”, even if that history is being written in a prison yard.
The Body Politic and the Body in Pain
The central, recurring motif of “mud” operates on multiple symbolic levels. It represents a forced erasure of past identities, a violent stripping away of the self that reduces the characters to a primal, undifferentiated state from which a new collective must be born. The physical act of being “embarradas” is a traumatic baptism that irrevocably binds the protagonists. The series uses the physical body as the primary canvas for its themes. The trauma of the crash, the daily threat of violence, and the struggle for survival render the body a site of profound pain and vulnerability. Yet, it is also the locus of resilience, adaptation, and ultimately, resistance. This aligns with artistic traditions that use the corporeal body to explore broader social and political struggles, where individual pain reflects a collective condition.
The series represents a significant thematic evolution from its predecessor, shifting its central metaphor from social marginalization to foundational resistance. This subtle but crucial change suggests a more profound and perhaps more hopeful, if brutal, vision of social change. El Marginal‘s very title defined its characters by their relationship to the social order; they existed on the periphery, and their struggle was to carve out power and meaning within that liminal space. They were defined by their exclusion. In the Mud, by contrast, begins with a literal and figurative collapse. The transport sinks, the old world is washed away, and the characters are returned to a primal state, covered in the earth itself. They are not on the margin; they are at a new ground zero. Their chosen name, “Las embarradas,” is not about being outsiders; it speaks to their very substance. They are “The Muddied Ones.” This invokes a creation myth, a new beginning from the most basic of elements. This resonates deeply with Latin American literary and cultural traditions where “barro” (mud or clay) is a substance of creation, but also of poverty, struggle, and the earthbound reality of the oppressed. This reframes the entire concept of resistance. In El Marginal, resistance was often a cynical, transactional power play. In In the Mud, the formation of the group is an act of pure survival that organically evolves into a collective identity. It is a resistance born not of ambition, but of a shared humanity discovered in the most inhumane circumstances. This echoes historical narratives of popular resistance, where new forms of solidarity emerge from the crucible of shared oppression. The series, therefore, appears to be making a more fundamental argument: that truly transformative social bonds are forged not by challenging a center from the margins, but are born from the complete dissolution of the old order—from the mud of crisis.
A Brutal, Promising Foundation
In the Mud premieres as a confident, cinematically sophisticated, and unflinchingly brutal series. It successfully inherits the gritty aesthetic and thematic DNA of El Marginal while decisively establishing its own distinct, female-centric narrative territory. The opening episode functions as a powerful mission statement, using its visceral inciting incident to lay the groundwork for a complex exploration of trauma, survival, and the forging of a new collective identity in the face of systemic hostility. The direction is assured, the production values are exceptionally high for the genre, and the ensemble cast demonstrates immediate and compelling chemistry.
While paying homage to its celebrated lineage, In the Mud is clearly not content to be a simple retread. By plunging its characters, and by extension its audience, into the elemental “barro,” it poses a more profound and urgent question. It moves beyond asking how one survives on the margins of a broken system and instead interrogates how a new world—with new codes, new loyalties, and new forms of solidarity—can be built from the wreckage of the old. The series has laid a formidable and bloody foundation for what promises to be one of the most compelling and thematically rich dramas of the year.
The eight-episode series was released globally on Netflix on August 14, 2025.
