L-r: Marc Blucas, Alex Fernandez, Tricia Helfer,
Michael Trucco, and Marta Milans
Alex Fernandez and Maria Milans are in front of the camera and Sofía Vergara is (sort of) in the exec office, but is Killer Women a Latino show? Not really.
ABC is pushing Sofía Vergara’s connection to Killer Women pretty hard (as you can see in the promo below), and the promo itself as a kind of Tex-Mex/Robert Rodriguez feel to it. But you take a slightly closer look, and the premise, casting, and locale don’t quite shout out “Latino.”
First Vergara’s production company is only one of many with production credit (she and her partner Luis Balaguer are listed as executive producers), but it’s not clear how much, or little, hands-on involvement she’s had in the production. Additionally, much of the publicity makes a fairly big deal about the new series’ south-of-the-border roots. It’s true, the series is ‘based’ on Mujeres Asesinas, a TV drama made in and for Argentina. But the American writer Hannah Shakespeare has publicly said that the resemblance ends there. When the name came to Hanna during development season, she met with the executive producers who owned the property, and that was all: she then went off and did her own take on the concept. In fact, she says, she hasn’t even watched the Argentinean show; one article about the ABC actioners said that Shakespeare ‘didn’t want it to cloud her own vision.”
Alex Fernandez
Even the name of the show makes things a little murky. It sounds a bit like an armed-and-dangerous version of Desperate Housewives, but in fact it’s really about an extremely blonde, robustly female Texas Ranger who specialize in murders by women. Another promo for the show says, “Eight weeks…eight killers,” which almost makes it sound like a mini-series. And it’s probably worth noting that there have only been two female Texas Rangers in the history of the service; the character, “Molly Parker,” played with energy and charm by Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer, would be the third.
There are, in fact, two Latinos in the cast, one of them playing a Latino cop, while the other character’s ethnic roots are unclear. The cop in charge is played by Alex Fernandez; this is his first regular role in a series, and this long-faced and intense actor (think of Miguel Ferrer’s younger, slightly less grumpy brother) plays Molly’s long-suffering but supportive boss Company Commander Luis Zea. Spanish actress Marta Milans, who’s been working in Hollywood for the last couple of years after studying and stage work in New York, is also a regular, playing Molly’s sister-in law. With a character name like “Becca Parker,” it’s hard to know which way they’re going with this role, but that is her married name; it remains to be seen. And a final bit of murkiness: the show is place firmly in Texas, but is actually being shot in Breaking Bad’s old stomping grounds, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Marta Milans
The Futon Critic tells us “Killer Women takes us inside the dangerous world of the Texas Rangers from a female perspective. Molly is committed to finding the truth and seeing justice served. In a male-dominated world, she is aided by her sixth sense for why women kill—rarely out of hatred, usually for what they love.” With solid pro’s like Helfer, who showed her action skills in Battlestar Galactica and more recently in Burn Notice, and with a partner in Marc Blucas, who spent a year or more fighting beside Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (san cute goatee and a few character lines), it’s certainly got the pedigree; it’s just not clear how Latino the whole treatment really is, despite the trappings.
Like The Bridge and Breaking Bad before it, the locale and overall flavor of the show may make it a haven for Latino actors as guest stars. The first episode alone features Vic Trevino (in a recurring role), Cynthia Huerta, Jorge J. Jimenez, June Griffin Garcia and Vincent Fuentes, among others; episode 3 includes Luis Bordonada of Bless Me, Ultima, with child actress Danica Medina as his daughter, and it’s just been announced that the remarkable Kate del Castillo will be headlining Episode 8, playing–unfortunately–the beautiful head of a drug cartel.
Here’s the best of the promo’s. It does look pretty hot (and a bit like the late, lamented In Plain Sight, when you think about it). The first episode premieres Tuesday January 7 at 10P.
http://youtu.be/hLdPeUeA2KU
