Dark Desire
ダークデザイア
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A married professor's weekend with a younger man turns into a thriller; Netflix's most-watched Spanish-language series at the time.
Alma Solares, a lawyer who teaches law, has been married for twenty years to Leonardo, a respected judge, and suspects him of an affair. On a weekend away with her best friend, Brenda, newly divorced, she meets Darío Guerra, a charming man of twenty-three, at a party and spends the night with him. She means it to be once. Then he turns up as a student in her class. Brenda is found dead at home, and Alma, shaken, goes back to Darío. When she tries to end it, he reaches her eighteen-year-old daughter, Zoe, through an anonymous account and sleeps with her.
Leonardo's brother, Esteban, a former policeman who had been sleeping with Brenda, investigates her death, and Alma helps him. Suspicion moves from Darío, seen at Brenda's house that night, to Leonardo, who turns out to have been her lover, and then to Esteban, the last person to see her alive. Darío's interest in the family goes back to an old case: his father, Antonio, was framed for a child's murder, sent to prison through Leonardo, and took his own life. The truth about Brenda is plainer than any theory. She took her own life, worn down by her love for Leonardo, Esteban's abuse and the distance from her friend. At the end of the first season Esteban admits that he brought Darío in to seduce Alma and wreck his brother's marriage, and that he loves her himself; in the fight that follows, Leonardo is badly hurt. Darío, believed dead in a fire, is alive and rich with his grandfather's fortune, and Esteban is now working for him.
In the second season Alma, in therapy, meets Lys Antoine, the aunt who raised Darío, in a support group. Darío is engaged to Julieta Lazcano, the daughter of a family friend. Alma warns her, then sleeps with Darío at the hotel on the night of the pre-wedding parties; soon afterwards Julieta falls from its roof. A video of Darío and Alma on Julieta's phone makes Alma a suspect, and Darío insists that a double is using his name. Alma learns that Lys sexually abused Darío when he was a teenager and later killed her husband, Alberto, and Lys goes to prison. But the double was Darío's invention. Julieta had threatened to tell her father about the affair; Lys had drugged her, and Darío threw her from the roof. Alma lures him to an empty building watched by the police and injects him with a truth serum. When he attacks her, Esteban stops him. The last scene finds Darío alive, handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Starring
Maite Perronias Alma Solares
A law professor twenty years married to a judge she suspects of cheating, whose one night with a younger man upends her family.
Alma Solares’s story
Away for a weekend with Brenda, Alma spends one night with Darío and means it to be once. He appears in her lecture hall, and after Brenda is found dead she goes back to him, then learns he has been sleeping with Zoe. She investigates with Esteban, confesses the affair to Leonardo and learns that her friend took her own life; believing Darío dead, she stays with her husband. In the second season, still haunted, she sleeps with Darío on the night his fiancée, Julieta, falls from a roof, and becomes a suspect. Seeing that he killed Julieta, she lures him into a police trap and injects him with a truth serum. Esteban shoots him as he attacks her, and as Alma puts out one last cigarette, Darío wakes handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Alejandro Speitzeras Darío Guerra
A young mechanic who enrols in Alma's class, enters her family's life by design and will not leave it.
Darío Guerra’s story
Darío's father, Antonio, was framed for a child's murder and took his own life, and Lys, the aunt who raised him, sexually abused him as a teenager. Working as a mechanic, he takes Esteban's money to seduce Alma, wife of the judge who sent his father to prison, and falls for her. When she tries to end it, he draws in Zoe through an anonymous account and sleeps with her. Believed dead in a fire, he resurfaces rich with his grandfather's fortune, with Esteban working for him. Engaged to Julieta and still sleeping with Alma, he throws Julieta from the hotel roof when she threatens to tell her father, then blames a double. Alma traps him with a truth serum; he attacks her, Esteban shoots him, and the series leaves him alive, handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Erik Hayseras Esteban Solares
Leonardo's brother, a former policeman who investigates Brenda's death while hiding his own part in it and his love for Alma.
Esteban Solares’s story
Esteban, a former policeman, lost a leg through his brother, Leonardo, and has never forgiven him. He was sleeping with Brenda, was abusive towards her and was the last to see her alive. Investigating her death with Alma, he spins theories of murder while hiding his own guilt and the fact that he paid Darío to seduce Alma and wreck his brother's marriage. At the end of the first season he confesses it all and tells Alma he loves her, then finds himself working for the man he hired. Out of prison after three months, and turned to God after surviving a shooting in a church, he helps the police look into Julieta's death and joins Alma's plan to trap Darío. When Darío turns on her in the empty building, it is Esteban who shoots him.
Jorge Pozaas Leonardo Solares
Alma's husband, a respected judge who has hidden an affair with Brenda and an old case from his wife.
Regina Pavónas Zoe Solares
Alma and Leonardo's eighteen-year-old daughter, unsure of her sexuality, whom Darío draws in through an anonymous account.
Why it matters
Dark Desire takes an old plot, the respectable wife whose single night of pleasure lets ruin into her house, and runs it through a telenovela's machinery of secrets, doubles and returns from the dead. What it puts in front of us is how that story tends to treat a woman's desire: as the crack in the wall. Alma is an expert in the law, and around her the men lie, stalk, bargain over her and abuse the women they claim to love. The second season adds a darker thread, a boy sexually abused by the aunt who raised him, and lets that harm explain, without excusing, the man he becomes. Netflix reported that its first season was, at that point, the most-watched non-English title on the service, reaching 35 million viewers in 28 days. The question it leaves open is whether Alma can want anything without being made to pay for it.