Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Women In Blue’ On Apple TV+, Where The First Female Cops In Mexico City Hunt For A Serial Killer

It’s not a coincidence that many of the themes of recent shows that take place in the early 1970s are built around the women’s movement; women being liberated from previously-traditional household roles was a major part of that decade. And that movement wasn’t just happening in the U.S., as we’ve seen in a number of international series. A new Apple TV+ series is “based on true events” involving the first women recruited to Mexico’s federal police.

WOMEN IN BLUE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of women sewing. One woman stands outside the manager’s office and watches the telenovela on the TV.

The Gist: That woman has to work late when she takes the blame for something her coworker did, just to make sure that coworker didn’t get fired. Needing a ride in the rain, the woman gets in a red car. Later, a housekeeper at a hotel finds the woman dead in a bathtub, the latest victim of a serial killer that’s become known around Mexico City as “The Undresser.” The year is 1971.

The new federal police chief, Emilio Escobedo (Christian Tappán), goes on a TV talk show and announces that the federal police are now open to recruiting women. He says it’s in an effort to diversify the force, but in reality it’s a publicity stunt to protect Mexico’s president from blowback about The Undresser.

Joining the police force is something that’s definitely of interest to a number of women who hear the announcement. Maria (Bárbara Mori), mom of two and a dutiful housewife to Alejandro (Leonardo Sbaraglia), finds out that all of those business trips Alejandro was taking to Acapulco were to be with his mistress.

Her sister Valentina (Natalia Téllez) couldn’t be more different; she’s adamantly anti-cop and pro-women’s rights, and gets arrested during a protest. Maria bails her out, and is shocked when Valentina says she’s going to join the force and change things from the inside. Valentina wonders what happened to her sister, who used to devour detective novels and imagined herself solving crimes. Both sisters end up reporting to the academy.

Gabina (Amorita Rasgado) comes from a family of cops and knows she’d be a good one. But her sexist father refuses to let her join. She runs to the academy behind his back. Angeles (Amorita Rasgado) is intelligent and focused, and when her grandmother’s oven breaks, she joins the force out of practicality, feeling the job will pay more than what she gets as a police lab technician.

To train and command the new recruits, Escobedo finds Octavio Romandía (Miguel Rodarte), a former detective drummed out of the force for insubordination. Octavio at first says no, but not for the reason Escobedo says everyone else refused, which was because it was a squad of women.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Minx, Mrs. America, The Serpent and other ’70s-set series.

Our Take: The first episode of Women In Blue (original title: Las Azules), co-created by Fernando Rovzar (Monarca), has a couple of storytelling issues, namely in how it sets up the stories of the four main women we’re going to see become federal police officers. For instance, there’s a scene where Valentina’s ex-boyfriend comes down to the station to bail her out and then leaves, which leads her to call Maria. And it feels like Angeles gets the short end of the storytelling stick, basically shown as super-practical and likely on the spectrum but little else.

Most of the first episode consists of the women training, somehow getting in shape to be cops in the span of two weeks, with Octavio rounding them into shape. What we hope to see is a bit of the sexism the women find on the job, whether it’s from their male colleagues or even people like Escobedo, who never intended to have his first female recruits do any hardcore police work.

The series treads a lot of well-worn ground about how normalized misogyny was in the early ’70s, with men thinking that somehow women don’t have the “body mass” to be an effective cop. Never mind the fact that Gabina can reassemble a gun blindfolded faster than her detective brother; she’s a woman so her place is helping her mother around her childhood home. There isn’t a particular light touch when it comes to the sexism the women face, but then again that sexism wasn’t exactly subtle back then, either.

What we’re curious about is how much the show is going to balance the women’s difficulty in making a difference on the force with them working to expose the serial killer that’s terrorizing Mexico City. Perhaps Rozvar and company will be able to integrate the two well; we’re looking forward to seeing them make the attempt.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: As Mexico’s first lady welcomes the new women recruits to the federal police, a waitress gets into a red car and rides away. Given which red car it is, we know what this woman’s fate will be.

Sleeper Star: We like Amorita Rasgado as Gabina, who is essentially on her own in this quest to be as good a cop as her father and brothers are.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a segment where Maria imagines confronting Alejandro about his infidelity as she arrives late to his birthday dinner, but then we see her in reality saying nothing. It’s a sequence that’s out of step with what we see in the rest of the episode.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While we don’t love the storytelling in the first episode of Women In Blue, the performances by the four lead actresses are very watchable and the serial killer mystery that will be a big part of the first season is going to be a good driver of action.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.