Photo: Prime Video
This Spanish series, titled Cochinas (translating to “dirty”) in its native tongue and Naughty Business abroad, is the brainchild of writers Irene Bohoyo and Carlos Del Hoyo. All eight episodes of season 1 are now streaming on Prime Video.
Opening Shot: Like the beginning of a fairytale, a woman with flowing hair rides across a vast landscape on horseback. Soon, she’s cornered by a man who accuses her of sleeping with her father, and all of a sudden they’re intimate as “revenge.” Just like the setting and aspect ratio suggested, it’s a scene from a raunchy telenovela that the characters are watching.
The Gist: In 1998, Nines (Malena Alterio) is a conservative but curious housewife in Spain, who lets her husband Mariano (Chani Martín) handle everything about their financial lives. But when he’s hit by a bus and left in a coma, she has to take over their video business, and she finds that they are in a considerable amount of debt. Realizing that desperate times call for desperate measures, she resolves to refresh the business by leaning into what sells: porn.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Naughty Business (Cochinas) treads a similar type of story to the well-received Minx, which focused squarely on the making of pornographic material in the 1970s.
Our Take: On its surface, the story of a woman taking over a business and going to extreme lengths to clean up the mess their husband made is a tale we’ve seen before in TV and film. But Naughty Business (Cochinas) twists the idea by introducing sexual morality into the frame, centering the story on a more conservative woman who plans to exploit her nation’s “obsession” with sex to pay her bills.
The pilot sets up a few interesting and distinct side characters—especially Chon (Celia Morán) and Agustín (Álvaro Mel) at the video store—who will hopefully have more to do as the series carries on. There’s also a fun rivalry with a Blockbuster-esque competing video store, cementing the series in its late ‘90s setting and trafficking in nostalgia, which will surely bring some added drama to the series. With an overall fun premise and good performances, we welcome this trip down memory lane.
Performance Worth Watching: Alterio, who holds the frame for most of the first episode, is convincing as a housewife who is at first bound by traditional cultural norms but soon quietly leans into her (and the community’s) interest in sex.
Sex And Skin: There is a lot of sex and nudity here, right from the beginning. But with a title like Naughty Business, what else did you expect?
Parting Shot: Nines has a lightbulb moment: the video store should center their pornographic offering. The first episode ends with a montage explicitly explaining her thesis that Spaniards are uniquely interested in sex, and she should exploit that; in other words, “these nerds are horned up!”
Sleeper Star: Celia Morán plays Chon, the sole employee at the video store who helps Nines pick up the pieces and chart a path forward. Morán’s laid back Chon is a good foil to Alterio’s buttoned up Nines, as she pushes boundaries while still remaining helpful.
Most Pilot-y Line: After Nines discovers her husband’s debt resides largely in purchases of various now-classic films, she goes ballistic at his hospital bed. “20 copies of Liar Liar?! Bridges of Madison County? That’s food for our children! I’ll kill you!” At least he had good taste.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We love a story about a woman rebuilding her life, and this Spanish series is both entertaining and titillating.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a film and TV writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, ELLE, and more. She is the co-host of the podcast PromRad with fellow Decider contributor Proma Khosla. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.
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