I had almost the exact opposite reaction from the reviewer who thought it fell apart. I started watching and feared that I'd have to give up, something I rarely do, being more stubborn than practical. But I thought the last three episodes were wonderful and the ending note perfect. I'm very picky about endings and I just loved this one. I was thinking 5* or 6* until the last few episodes. The last episode alone would have been 9*, but earlier problems dragged the net net down.
Bruno Gagliasso was exceptional throughout. Débora Falabella was very good in a role which could have been extremely annoying. Alas, Luana Piovani & Marcello Novaes were let down by an appallingly cliched backstory and some painfully cliché dialog relating to that backstory. To be fair, that may have been in the subtitles more than the original writing. I don't understand much Portuguese, but what I did get made it seem as if they went overboard on translating idiomatically. My personal preference is for a more literal translation. I can figure out what the characters meant without needing it dumbed down to UK or US cliched language. Most of the other actors were good.
The plot was a bit overstuffed, and at times seemed to be more of a class in the history of serial killers, rather than following the exploits of just one. There was a sort of, kind of, hand waving explanation for that in the last episode. Whatever. It didn't ruin the show for me. More of an issue were some face palm level dumb moves on the part of the lead detectives. That is always an problem for me. If I wanted to watch people making poor decisions, I'd watch reality TV. But in the later episodes the drive of the plot compensated.
