Age-Gap Romance: Tokyo was 14 when she met her 28-year-old boyfriend.
There are plenty of comments on the 10+ year age gap between Tokyo and Rio.
All Men Are Perverts: Discussed by Berlin in a conversation with Mercedes. He tells a joke about a husband who comes home with an aspirin pill so he and his wife can finally have sex, and adds that many jokes portray men as sex-obsessed (and conversely, their wives as sex-averse).
And Starring: The first two seasons' cast lists end with "...y Kiti Mánver"
Artistic License – Economics: Due to the nature of the series, the writers take a few liberties here and there with the actual economics of each heist for dramatic effect. Some concrete examples include:
The Professor makes case for the Royal Mint of Spain heist being harmless, even inspirational in a Just Like Robin Hood kind of way, as long as they don't kill anybody in the process and keep physical and psychological harm to the hostages to a minimum. His reasoning is that, since they'd be printing completely new bills, "they wouldn't be stealing anybody else's money". At one point, he also says this method is no different from the "liquidity injection" that Spain and other European countries received in the early 2010s from the European Central Bank "and absolutely nothing happened afterwards". While the first point has some truth to it, the second point... not so much, since the ECB didn't give that liquidity for free. The European Union forced Spain and the other European countries who received similar injections to adopt very strict austerity measures in their economy as a condition to receive that money. These measures had really serious consequences for Spain's working and middle classes, from which the country has yet to fully recover from.
The Professor's final master plan in Season 5 is to use the gold as leverage for negotiating the freedom of the entire gang, since if the general public discovers Spain's gold reserves have been stolen, the turbulences in the stock market would bring the entire country to bankruptcy in just a few days. In reality, Spain losing its gold would be bad, but nowhere near as catastrophic as the series makes it out to be, for multiple reasons:
Since the Gold Standard was abandoned in the 1970s, gold is not particularly important for a country's wealth anymore. Most of a country's wealth and financial credibility comes from other sources, such a its capacity to collect taxes, its economic assets (industry, etc.), its alliances, etc. All of which would still be relatively intact after the heist.
The value of the gold reserves of Spain, both in the series and in Real Life at the time of filming, is approximately 13-14 billion euros. That's a lot of money, but it's merely 1% of Spain's total GDP. A country losing 1% of its wealth overnight would no doubt create disturbances in the market and create serious short-term problems, but it wouldn't even come close to put the entire country to its knees the way it's shown in the series.
Similarly, the show tries to Hand Wave the previous point by saying that the European Central Bank, probably the biggest economic fail-safe for all countries in the European Union, would just let the country fall. Even if we overlook the fact explained in the previous point (and that Spain received from the ECB a far bigger liquidity injection during the Eurozone debt crisis of the early 2010's), the idea that the entire European Union would let the country to go down the drain without doing anything is extremely unlikely. Not necessarily out of moral obligation, but rather because Spain is the fourth biggest economy in the EU, the 13th in the entire world, and it is heavily integrated in the European economy. Meaning that if Spain was to default, it would have catastrophic consequences for the entire continent. Worst case scenario, it would bring the entire European Union down with it, which by extension, woud also affect the entire world economy down the line.
Awful Truth: Moscú told Denver that his (Denver's) mother abandoned them both when he was a kid. During the heist, he reveals the actual truth: she was hooked on heroin, and Moscú's attempts to get her to detox, in which he blew all of his savings four times, never worked because she would soon go back for drugs, so he took her close to a place where he knew drugs were sold and left her there.
The Bad Guy Wins: By the end of the second season, the bad guy protagonists have lost a few members but have still successfully printed millions of money and got away with them, evading capture.
When the Professor is at the bar with Raquel as she receives a message with a photograph from one of the robbers, she tries to arrest him... because she believes he is a journalist trying to get information about the robbery.
Double Subverted: when Mónica grabs Arturo's phone, and Denver sees her, he takes her outside - but he just wants to give her the abortive pill she requested and convinces her not to abort the child. Berlin comes up, Denver tells him about the pill, and Mónica leaves... and the mobile chooses that moment to blip.
After Tokio's failed attempt to force Berlin to reveal what's Plan Chernobyl, Berlin has Helsinki grab her. The narration appears to indicate she is going to get killed. She is taped to a table with wheels and thrown out of the Mint by the main gates, leading to her arrest.
"Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody: The Professor takes the inspector handling the Spanish Mint case, Raquel, out to dinner. From her point of view, "Salva" is a charming stranger that she has a crush on, and she doesn't know he is actually the mastermind behind the heist. However, her colleague Ángel has voiced his suspicions about Salva. At dinner, Raquel invites Salva to look under the table, and he teasingly asks if this is a Basic Instinct thing (ie. she's not wearing underwear). She's pointing a gun at him under the table and intends to confirm Ángel's hunch.
Battle Couple: Tokyo and Rio are dating and have more than a few shootouts together.
Batman Gambit: The plan to steal the Spanish National Bank involves using their security protocols against them.
The first heist. The heist team manages to get away with almost a thousand million Euros while keeping public opinion on their side, but they lose Oslo, Moscú and Berlín on the way. Raquel leaves her job, but she meets the Professor and possibly reignites their past relationship.
The second heist. The gang is successful in their heist and escape and go on to live their new lives and Sierra bids her farewell to them as she also decides to start her life anew as well to settle down and raise her daughter Victoria. However, they did lose their close ones in the process, namely Berlin, Moscow, Nairobi and Tokyo.
Blackmail: The heist team uses top-secret documents hidden in the bank to prevent the cops from assaulting the bank.
Book Ends: In the season two finale, the meeting between Sergio/the Professor and Raquel happens pretty much the same way they first met.
Bottomless Magazines: So, so much with the thieves in s2ep9, once the police breach the bank. Every single thief fires dozens if not hundreds of rounds, and only Berlin at the very end is actually seen to reload.
Caper Rationalization: The protagonists justify the heist with the fact that they aren't actually stealing from anyone, they're just printing new money, which the central bank does all the time anyway. This applies in universe as well, as a key part of the plan is to win over the sympathy of the public.
Chekhov's Boomerang: The Browning machine gun the team brought along gets used several times to fend off the cops, first to scare them off doing a full frontal assault, then when the escaping hostages leave a hole on a wall and the cops try to exploit it to charge in, and later by Berlin to pull off his final You Shall Not Pass! action as the team gets away with the money.
Chekhov's Gunman: Berlin's son Rafael, introduced in the previous season, turns out to be a Spanner in the Works for the Professor's plans, as his own gang hijacks the scheme and steals the gold from the Heist Team.
Company Cameo: La Sexta, a channel of Antena 3's parent company Atresmedia, appears numerous times with its news program to broadcast news relating to the heists, even after Netflix's acquisition of the series from Season 3 onwards. They even keep the program's real-life newsreaders as the speakers.
Contrived Coincidence: Subverted. The police believes that the robbery happening on the same day the students visit the Mint is a coincidence, but actually the Professor's plan relies on Allison's presence.
While some shootouts feature realistic bullet-blocking items - large cement pillars, sandbags - a good few scenes feature the characters surviving rather extreme rains of lead by shielding themselves behind wooden crates and cardboard boxes on sheetmetal shelves.
The ballistic shields used by the police are an example as well. While such shields will reliably stop light gunfire such as from pistols or most shotguns, assault rifle rounds - such as those used by the attackers in the show - typically go straight through. In the series, though, the bullets harmlessly bounce off - replete with "ping" sounds - and leave the cops (and the shields) completely unharmed.
Conflict Ball: The robbers have different, often conflicting personalities. Once they are locked in the Mint with the hostages, tensions start rising and only the Professor is able to keep them working together. When it looks like the Professor might have been arrested things quickly spin out of control and the robbers turn on each other. The Professor salvages the situation but Moscow is killed in the process.
Conversational Troping: In the first episode, the gang talk about how Malevolent Masked Men work and how much of an apparent bad choice was to pick Salvador Dalí masks for the heist (Berlin points out that he doesn't care because a gun will always be scarier and Rio and Moscow think that using cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse is actually scarier because of the feeling of violated innocence it brings in people).
Crazy-Prepared: The Professor. The entire heist is built on the premise that things will go badly and parts of the plan will fail, and The Professor accounted for these failures and turns them into distractions for the cops. To give some examples:
To prevent the Madrid police from just going for a full-out frontal assault, the team brings enough fake guns (alongside overalls and Dali masks) that a camera probe makes it look like there's an army standing on the main room of the House (and obviously they can't risk going in and shooting a hostage)... as well as a Browning heavy machine gun.
When Ángel suspects there's something weird going on, he follows him - and the Professor has prepared part of his warehouse for a cider cellar.
When Raquel begins to suspect the same and forces him at gunpoint to take her there, he takes her to a different warehouse where he also prepares cider and has a substantially cosier living space.
The country home where the team trained for the heist was almost completely wiped clean, but littered with a (false) Orgy of Evidence that would lead the cops askew if they managed to find it.
Although certain kinds of injuries are understandably beyond them (because of lack of equipment or them being just too severe), the Professor trained the whole team in how to handle medical emergencies like being shot.
When the police tries to sneak in a couple of SWAT Team troopers wearing the same outfit (red coveralls, Dali mask) as what the gang and the hostages are wearing in the hope they will go unnoticed, the Professor orders the team to have everybody switch to different masks, forcing the infiltrators to abort.
The Professor gave everybody an exact breakdown of every single law that they would be breaking during the heist and how many years each (individual) offense would give to their prison time (the complete total being a Longer-Than-Life Sentence no matter what happens), knowing perfectly well that one of the things the police will do is to try to Divide and Conquer by saying that the first thief to help arrest the others would be given leniency (and then exploit Loophole Abuse to take them in — a list this severe would only be pardoned by the Prime Minister, anyway). Rio calls the cops after he sees the footage with his parents, lists off every crime that the pardon would have to remove, and asks if they are truly capable of making the Prime Minister do that. They unconvincingly lie to him, and Rio tells them to kiss his ass before hanging up.
One of the gang's first steps while taking over the Mint is to install a dedicated physical phone line that they had dragged in through the sewage pipes, providing them a virtually untraceable method of communicating with the Professor. It is not until several twists occur in the final hours of the heist (after almost a week of being sieged) that the cops are able to pick up a cell phone signal to trace to the Professor's hide-out.
Because the possibility of burning out of exhaustion was very high, the Professor had set daily mandatory R&R time-outs for the team. Only Berlin follows this order to the letter.
Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Moscow used the knowledge he had gained from a legitimate job to turn to crime, because it paid better - even if it led to him going to prison. Same with Rio, who just worked as a programmer when he was asked to hack a system - which belonged to a mansion in Geneva.* Darkest Hour: Episode 8's Cliffhanger.
Nairobi gets shot by a sniper and is close to death, Raquel/Lisboa has been arrested and her execution faked and the heist team crosses the Godzilla Threshold to prevent the police from bringing down the Bank's doors by blowing the tankette with two RPGs, killing several cops and pretty much sending Rule #1 down the drain.
Lisbon is freed and reunites with the others in the Bank, but the heist is still not finished and they remain under siege. At the same time, the Professor is held at gunpoint by Sierra when she finds his hideout.
Darkest Hour: Season 3, Episode 8's Cliffhanger. Nairobi gets shot by a sniper and is close to death, Raquel/Lisboa has been arrested and her execution faked and the heist team crosses the Godzilla Threshold to prevent the police from bringing down the Bank's doors by blowing the tankette with two RPGs, killing several cops and pretty much sending Rule #1 down the drain.
Death Faked for You: The government ultimately does this for the gang, pretending to kill them during a final shootout and then providing them with new identities, as part of a deal to cover up the loss of the gold reserve.
Death Trap: The Bank's vault wasn't designed specifically to kill intruders but once the security system is tripped, the vault will fill with water within minutes and anyone still in it will drown.
Defiant Captive: Thoroughly deconstructed with Arturo. He wishes to be seen as a brave and heroic leader to the other hostages but is nothing more than a cowardly and entitledManchild. His increasingly desperate plans to escape and resist the robbers only make things worse for everyone including himself, and both heists get to the point where even the other hostages eventually tell him to sit down and shut up.
Eventually, the group of hostages trapped in the Spanish Mint start devising plans to escape and ways to overcome their hostage takers.
Even lampshaded. In a flashback, the Professor saw this coming, and strategizes with the team on how to get the hostages to comply again. Nairobi scoffs that the hostages would rebel, saying they're not all going to turn into Bruce Willis.
Due to the Dead: After Nairobi is killed by Gandia, the others make the Governor's security team carry her coffin outside the bank, with the authorities backing down on an attempted assault out of respect.
Enhance Button: The national police are able to "improve" a blurred image with maybe 60p of effective resolution to clearly show one of the perpetrators' faces. The literal translation of the original Spanish was "double the pixels", but the English dub avoided using the word "enhance".
"Eureka!" Moment: When Raquel sees the orange hair on "Salva's" shirt, she connects him to the clown at the hospital and to further incidents involving the Professor that he (a) either knew about or (b) fit the physical descriptors of, and realizes that he was the mastermind all along.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Several of the robbers have issues related to their families. Moscow brought his son in on the plan, Tokyo loves her mother who died while they were in the planning, Rio feels particularly crushed when his parents appear on television, Nairobi wants to get her son back, Helsinki sends a bunch of money to his family even though he puts the operation in danger...
Even Evil Has Standards: The heist team has this, some of them at different levels, but all of them to.
Most work so they won't have to physically harm any of the hostages, even treating some of them very well.
Berlín may be a sociopath and a thief and pretty much raping one of the hostages, but he won't stand for being accused of white slavery and pimping.
Faking the Dead: Denver fakes Mónica's death after she gets caught with a mobile phone and Berlin orders him to kill her.
Finale Credits: While the Closing Credits of most episodes consist of simple text without much aesthetic that address the crew in each individual episode/season, the final episode has a much longer and detailed closing credits sequence with footage from numerous other episodes.
The police, when they publish Berlin's identity, state he has been involved in white slavery and child abuse. Bites the police in the ass when Berlín uses the interview with the journalists to mention the frame up live and the journalists dig up the truth.
The Professor makes it look like Ángel has been passing information to the robbers, when it was all because of the microphone the group sneaked in his glasses.
From Bad to Worse: The Heist Team is now going to face the Spanish Army to stop them for good, after the Professor "struck the tent" in the previous season by airing Rio's confession.
Fun with Acronyms: Most of the promotional street banners for the season simply show the characters and the initials LCDP (for "La Casa De Papel"). The ones for Gandía and Arturo, however, say "LPQTP" and "HDP" (use your imagination, we are not translating that).
Given Name Reveal: The real names of most of the group are revealed over the course of the series, and because they refer to each other with city codenames to prevent attachments, said reveals are usually saved for important moments. A particularly dramatic instance is when a dying Moscow asks to say his name as his last will.
Give the Baby a Father: Denver eventually gets with Mónica and adopt her baby (by Arturo) as his own son.]]
The Glasses Gotta Go: When giving Alison advice about how to be more confident, Nairobi discusses this trope by talking about how in teen movies, the unpopular girl takes off her glasses and becomes a knockout. Alison's response is that she doesn't wear glasses.
The Professor knocks Raquel's former husband (who is helping in the investigation) out to eliminate proof that could lead the cops to his true identity, getting himself arrested just when the robbers are starting to fight against each other when he doesn't answer to their control calls.
Plan Chernobyl. Tie the cash they have spent days printing to balloons and launch them into the sky to then blow them up, thus causing enough of a disturbance that the team can escape.
In the Bank of Spain heist, The government has declared the robbers to be dangerous terrorists and subversives and is determined to stop them at any cost. The Bank of Spain heist is treated as a national security rather than police matter and the authorities are more concerned with stopping or killing the robbers rather than saving the hostages. A dangerous knockout gas is used that could kill hostages and one official suggests that they should just blow up the building and kill everyone inside.
Discussed when the Special Forces team is brought in to storm the bank. Their tactics are not subtle and could result in many casualties among the hostages. The super public nature of the events could also expose the team's many covert and not always legal missions. However, the authorities are so desperate that they are willing to accept the massive physical and PR damage.
Good Girls Avoid Abortion: When Arturo tells Mónica he does not plan to divorce his wife, she requests an abortive pill. Denver convinces her not to take it, at least for a while.
Green-Eyed Monster: Tokyo gets rather angry when she notices her boyfriend Rio is getting closer to Allison Parker.
Grey-and-Gray Morality: The moralities of the robbers run the gamut from Rio (whose first crime was to unknowingly hack into a mansion in Geneva, thus putting him on the wrong side of the law) to Berlin (a confirmed Sociopath) and Palermo (a misogynist who critically endangers the heist on the Bank of Spain because the other robbers opted to replace him). And as for the police officers and military officials who oppose them? Raquel Murillo and Ángel Rubio are by-the-book cops who seek to protect the public good whenever possible, Suarez is a ruthless-yet-honorable strategist, Alicia Sierra is a sadist, and Tamayo is completely selfish and PR-obsessed. And as for the hostages, the governor of the Bank of Spain is the Good Counterpart to the Dirty Coward and rapist Arturo Roman. So there's lots of good and evil to go around on all sides.
Groin Attack: Nairobi hits Pablo in the groin when he and his friends start to bully Allison after they find out the cops decided against getting eight of them free in favor of just her.
Happy Ending Override: Río and Tokio's happy ending becomes overriden when the police finds out where Río is, capturing him and forcing Tokio on the run.
Heroic Sacrifice: Played With. Berlin, one of the Villain Protagonists, ultimately stays behind to stall the SWAT team by several minutes, allowing everyone to escape with the cash and the evidence that would allow it to be traced. He does it partially to spite a hostage he had been raping and manipulating the entire time, though. It's still treated as a noble death, with slow-motion gunfire and the body dropping to the floor dramatically.
Hollywood Density: Nairobi is seen holding up a bar of gold in each hand and playing with them. If they're Good Delivery standard bars (and they look bigger than that), it means she's effortlessly carrying around about 25 kg of gold - more than a third of the weight of her own body.
Hollywood Healing: The Professor receives a gunshot from Sierra in his left foot. In real life, that would make him pretty much unable to walk properly, but in the series, the only effect is a somewhat light (and inconsistent) limp.
I Have No Son!: Rio's father states in television (just when the robbers have managed to hook up a TV signal to watch the news) that his son is dead to him. Subverted: Raquel later sneaks in an SD card with a video where Rio's parents plead him to leave, promising that they are going to get him a good defense attorney and a deal.
The Hyena: Ramiro, one of the special forces soldiers, hysterically laughs a lot, even shortly after he gets severely injured from Tokyo launching a suicide attack on his team.
Season 1 began with Tokio being recruited by the Professor and being very wary of him. Season 3 has her going to meet the Professor and hugging him.
Joaothe monk is from Sao Paulo, Brazil who hates football or partying.
Lampshade Hanging: Mónica, formerly a hostage who fell in love with her kidnapper, adopts the alias of Estocolmo.
Immediate Self-Contradiction: After Río reveals the whole plan to the hostagesbecause Berlín threw Tokio out of the door to be arrested, Berlín brings Río down and gets a gun.
Berlín (paraphrasing): My hand will not shake when I pull the trigger! Berlín points his gun, which is shaking quite a lot because of Berlín's illness. Berlín: Okay, maybe it will shake a bit.
Irony: Moscow tells his son that the reason he got out of the mine was because he had claustrophobia... and that led to him making holes to rob and being sent to jail.
Jerk Jock: Pablo, one of the students. Captain of the athletics team. He fakes interest in Allison so he can take a half-naked photo of her and publish it on the Internet.
Just Like Robin Hood: Explicitly stated to be one of the aims of the robbery. As long as no one gets hurt, the people will be likelier to support them.
The Professor: Be very careful, because the moment there is a single drop of blood, this is very important, we will stop being Robin Hoods to become just sons of bitches.
Kansas City Shuffle: The entire heist is a series of these. The Professor knows that the cops are not all incompetent so he feeds them information in drips and directs their investigation towards dead ends and red herrings. He starts out by making the cops think that the hostage taking was incidental because it forces them into a certain protocol and makes them waste a day. He specifically designed parts of his plan to fail because it makes the cops think that they can win without having to storm the building. This all culminates in the final escape plan. They force some of the hostages to dig a hole to a nearby tunnel they know will be detected by the police, while Moscow secretly digs a different hole in one of the vaults that leads to another tunnel the police does not know about.
Love Makes You Dumb: Several characters make stupid decisions because the people they love are in danger.
Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Rio and Tokyo had sex in the Mint's toilet while they were checking the place. Later Arturo and Helsinki walk in on Denver having sex with Mónica on the House's vault.
Maternity Crisis: Sierra goes into labor right after taking the Professor, Marseilles and Benjamin prisoner, forcing her to set them free so they can help her give birth.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After Nairobi is shot in the head by Gandia, we get a brief scene of her waking up on a quilt in a field, looking on as Oslo, Moscow, and Berlin smile and motion for her to come over to them. The scene can easily be interpreted as her former heist members welcoming her to the afterlife, but it's also entirely possible that it's just a flashback scene of the four of them hanging out before the events of the first two seasons.
Meaningful Name: Denver and Monica's son is named Cincinnati, named after a city like the rest of the gang (except for the fact that it is his actual name, and not just a nickname).
Mercy Kill: Helsinki kills Oslo once it's made clear that the pipe blow to the head he got during the getaway of some of the hostages has given him permanent brain damage and catatonia. Helsinki later says that he knows Oslo would have preferred it that way.
Misidentified Weapons: A Rheinmetall MG3 is referred to as "the Browning" and later G36 rifles are called M16.
Morality Pet: Most of the heisters develop bonds with one particular hostage.
Berlin: Ariadna. (Though in this case it's not mutual.)
Denver: Mónica.
Helsinki: Arturo. (Though in this case it's not mutual.)
Nairobi: Torres.
Rio: Allison.
If you include the Professor then Inspector Raquel Murillo.
The Most Wanted: Robbing 2.4+ billion Euros makes the heist team an objective of Europol and puts them in international search and capture. It also provides the robbers with much improved resources compared with what they had before, like having a team of 65 Pakistanis remotely doing what Rio did by himself in the Mint heist.
No Name Given: One of the rules established at the beginning. The Professor is the only one that knows everyone else's identity. Moscow and Denver are father and son, and Helsinki and Oslo are old friends. The only one that knows the Professor's true name is Berlin.
"No Peeking!" Request: Mónica takes advantage of this when Arturo asks her to swap Denver's gun with a fake. When she gets the opportunity, she asks Denver to turn his back while she changes, and uses that moment to swap the guns.
Not Afraid of You Anymore: The shy and awkward Miguel spends most of this season being unwillingly coerced into helping with Arturo's escape plans. When Arturo rapes Amanda (whom Miguel has a crush on) and tries to bully her into keeping quiet, Miguel angrily grabs Arturo and tells him to leave her alone, leading to all the hostages finally turning on Arturo for good.
Not Me This Time: Raquel correctly concludes that "Salva" is the Professor/Sergio Marquina, the mastermind behind the heist. He has been deceiving her at every turn, including faking an assault by her ex-husband. However, Sergio has to disclaim that he wasn't behind Ángel's accident; the audience knows he got lucky — he did not know Ángel had evidence against him, but Ángel was drinking heavily behind the wheel.
Not What It Looks Like: In the last few episodes, after the Professor is identified, everybody thinks that Raquel was working with the heist team because she was dating him.
Once More, with Clarity: Season 4, Episode 7 opens with Gandia seemingly getting into a firefight with the gang as he attempts to flee to the roof of the Bank and escape in a helicopter sent by the government. As we find out in the climax of Episode 8, Gandia is actually being held at gunpoint by the gang and being made to give false reports, the gang is faking the attack (complete with having Denver wear Gandia's armor), and the Professor has hijacked the communications to the helicopter in order to keep it at bay while Marseilles flies in with the gang's own helicopter in order to smuggle Lisbon into the Bank.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After committing so many crimes all across Europe and getting away with it, Berlin broke the mirror of a bar just with an irrational act of vandalism, and let himself be taken by the police. Why? Because he could accept that his girlfriend leaves him, that his son betrays him, but both things combined are too much, even for him.
Orgy of Evidence: The Professor allows the police to discover the gangs staging area because he filled it with irrelevant information and false leads. The police would spend days trying to chase down every lead only to discover that they had nothing of value. It is then subverted when the police forensic expert concludes that the evidence is useless and correctly identifies the one place in the house where real evidence might be found.
The Plan: Of course, the heist is a complex plan where pretty much every eventuality is considered and planned for. The robbers also have a number of smaller plans to activate at certain points, many of which have a Meaningful Name:
Plan Valencia: make a lot of noise by shooting at paper rolls while the hostages are encouraged to scream. This is used so the police will demand proof of life of all the hostages, and when they notice some of the images may have been faked force them to send someone to personally check on everyone, which allows the heist team to print even more money.
Plan Chernobyl: the go-to plan if they pass the Godzilla Threshold. Tie all the money they have printed to balloons, throw them out and then blow the balloons, using the confusion as people attempt to take the money to escape.
Plan Cameroon: named after a conversation on how people will (nearly) always support the underdog (comparing their situation with a Brazil-Cameroon football game), they invite a journalist for an interview where they make things look like they are a lot worse than they are and free a group of hostages, gaining a lot of sympathy - particularly after the press finds out that the police framed Berlín for a lot of crimes he did not commit. It's also how The Professor wins Raquel's trust once and for all, framing himself as the Underdog going against the legal cash-printing of the big government agents.
Poor Communication Kills: When the Professor charged Helsinki with destroying the car they used for their stakeouts, Helsinki did not realize that there was a good reason behind it. This nearly causes a problem when the police find about the car, forcing the Professor to risk being identified to erase the fingerprints.
Posthumous Narration: The series is narrated at the beginning and end of episodes by Tokio. She dies in the middle of the last season, but keeps narrating anyway.
Properly Paranoid: Subverted. By the time of the final season, the authorities are now fully aware of the Professor's penchant for creating elaborate deceptions that send them on wild geese chases so they refuse to fall for his tricks. This means that the Professor can now use simpler schemes and hide them behind more elaborate fake ones. In another instance, the authorities miss a good chance to retake the building because they think that the robbers are just putting on another performance to trick the police.
Psycho for Hire: All members of the special forces team sent into the bank with Sagasta have felonies on their records, and appear to be way too into the fighting.
Putting the Band Back Together: The heist team, with the inclusion of Mónica, Raquel and three actually five new people, reunites in order to save Río.
The Professor, when speaking with Inspector Murillo, asks several uncomfortable personal questions of her, such as what she is wearing and whether she has ever faked an orgasm. And he also takes the time to personally speak with her by going to the same bar as she does.
The Professor has to clean up the car that was left in a scrapyard before the cops find it, which he does, but cannot get away from there before the cops arrive. What does he do? Disguise himself as a hobo and dirty himself so much the only cop that talks with him lets him go without issue.
But the Russian scrapyard worker saw him before, and the cops get him to help build a portrait. So the Professor distracts a couple of cops to get in their car and uses the radio to call to the police tent (knowing the radio channel they are using) to threaten the scrapyard worker's family so he won't collaborate.
The Professor plays The Entertainer on the electronic piano for Raquel. Subtle.
When he suspects the reveal that Ángel is going to wake up is a trap, he tricks a large number of clowns into flooding the hospital while he sneaks in and gives one child a toy with a camera, to then send him to spring the trap.
To get back into the Mint, Tokio takes advantage of her cop disguise to get close, and then calls Río so he will open the gate for her, allowing her to get inside the building while gunning her bike.
The second heist begins by dropping 140 million Euros from a dirigible marked with the Dali mask. Then, the Professor sends a message where he shows his face - and calls the people of Madrid to demonstrate, while they sneak into the Spanish National Bank disguised as the Army, tricking the police and the bank's security into helping to do the initial heavy work for them.
SWAT Team: Or rather, the Spanish equivalent - the GEO (Grupo Especial de Operaciones, or "Special Operations Group"). Led by Suárez, they have a prominent role in both heists on the Police side.
Rape Discretion Shot: Arturo drugs and molests Amanda. The camera cuts as he begins to undress her.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Arturo attempts to talk the Governor into helping him with an escape plan, citing that they're both the de facto leaders of the group. The Governor refuses, dismissing Arturo as a clown who is willing to put the others in danger for the sake of attention. Things only get worse for Arturo when Amanda reveals that he raped her.
Rock Beats Laser: How the heist team gets around the communication problems in the second heist. They use a 1940s short wave radio to talk between the Professor and the team, and 2nd generation mobile phones so the police won't be able to track them.
Rooting for the Empire: Exploited in-universe. The no-kill policy was meant to get the support of the population, as if the heist was some kind of contra-cultural protest, and thus force the police to negotiate (and waste time, for them to print more money). And it worked.
Sacrificial Lamb: Discussed (with a threat to invoke) early on. Berlin torments Arturo by telling him how there's always a character in movies who gets killed to establish a threat, and that Arturo fits the type perfectly, so he ought to be careful.
Scatter Brained Senior: Raquel's mother suffers from memory problems, and has multiple post-its emplaced all around the house to remind herself of the changes, which becomes relevant when Ángel leaves a message in Raquel's home answering machine and she listens to it. When the Professor finds out about the message, he considers overdosing her with her medicine, but finding about her memory problems means he can just erase any trace of the message to get out of trouble.
"The Scream" Parody: The robbers at the Royal Mint wear their signature red jumpsuits and Salvador Dalí masks to hide their identity. They also hand these out to the hostages to confuse the police. When the police send cops to infiltrate the Mint, everyone switches their masks to ones of The Scream, so the cops (who are only carrying the Dali masks since they did not know they had Scream masks onhand) would be instantly identified. The mission is promptly called off.
The Professor's fake name is Salvador Martí, just like the man in charge of The Ministry of Time (another Netflix-broadcast Spanish TV show).
Part of the plan involves forcing all the hostages to dress the same way as the robbers so the police cannot distinguish between them, just like in Inside Man.
In a flashback to when the Professor and Rio are looking through the Darknet for weapons to purchase for the heist, Rio points out an APC for sale and makes a joke about buying it and using it to ram through the front door of the House like The A-Team.
The scissors. When the teacher takes the scissors, Arturo comes up with a plan to spark a escape plan by the hostage cops - which is the point where things start to go pear-shaped.
Raquel. Because she meets with the Professor, he is not there to warn the team that the hostage cops are trying to escape - which they do, opening a way into the mint and screwing up all the plan.
In fact, during the finale, the Professor explicitly mentions that his plan had gone on perfectly, and would have worked perfectly, if it were not for the fact that he has fallen in love with her.
The Professor feels quite guilty over the fact that three of the team members died during the first heist.
Palermo masterminded both the Mint and Bank of Spain heists with Berlin and later the Professor, but he did not participate in the first heist. He feels that if he did then Berlin would be still alive. He joins the second heist as a form of atonement/revenge.
Taking You with Me: When the government's torture of Rio is publicly exposed, Sierra is made to take the fall for it. However, during the press conference when she does so, she proceeds to fling blame at all her superiors, tarnishing them as well.
Tempting Fate: When Berlin tells the Professor he had Denver kill Mónica (it did not happen, but he doesn't know that), he dares the Professor to punish him, or else he won't think he's worthy of being a leader. The Professor plants one of Berlin's buttons, with his fingerprints on it, in the car used to watch the bank.
Trap Is the Only Option: The police attempt to suss out the Professor by setting up a sting operation. They tell the press Ángel — who knows the professor's identity — is awakening from his coma but fill the hospital with police agents in case someone comes to kill him. Berlin discusses the trap's obviousness, saying not even a sitcom character would fall for it, but the Professor says they can't risk the small chance that it's legitimate. He gets around it by flooding the hospital with clowns to distract the officers, sneaks in as one himself, then gives a child a stuffed animal with a Spy Cam and sends him to Ángel's room. It would have worked, but he Failed a Spot Check and left a hair from his wig on his shirt, leading Raquel to have a "Eureka!" Moment about his identity.
Trojan Horse: After Arturo gets injured, the police try to sneak Ángel (Raquel's Number Two) as part of the medical team while two special forces agents get in through a tunnel disguised as hostages, but the Professor knew they would try that tactic and recognizes said Number Two, so they sneak a microphone on his glasses, allowing him to catch the police plans, and has everyone change their masks to make the agents stand out.
Tropical Epilogue: The first heist ends with Raquel meeting up with the Professor on the tropical island of Palawan, Philippines, which they had previously considered as a vacation spot.
True Art Is Ancient: Invoked and discussed by Berlin. He planned a heist to steal some viking relics made of gold, to replace them with worthless replicas and melt them for the gold. His son, who loves the arts, was horrified: those relics are 1000 years old! Berlin said that it is all garbage. Work of blacksmiths, not artists. That vikings stole awesome art pieces from the Greeks and British, and melted them to make artifacts of everyday usage! If anything, by melting them Berlin would be returning them to their primal glory as basic gold.
Undying Loyalty: Subverted multiple times. Loyalty doesn't do much good when your opposers have your (and sometimes your family's) safety dangling above you, which Berlin notes in a flashback.
Rio admits he would have leaked the Professor's location to Sierra when he was being tortured to be let go.
Raquel would have pled guilty and told everything to Sierra for the safety of her family hadn't the Professor been just in time.
Unintentionally Notorious Crime: Subverted — one of the hostages is Allison Parker, daughter of the British ambassador and close friend of the Queen of England. She is so integral to the plan that she was nicknamed "the lamb" by the robbers, which is one of many clues to the Crazy-Prepared nature of the robbers.
Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The plan is revealed to the audience little by little, exactly as the corresponding part of the plan takes place in the present. It succeeds with a few hitches.
Warm Place, Warm Lighting: In contrast to the rest of the Madrid-set scenes, which are toned neutrally or with green or blue, the Tropical Epilogue of the second season (set in Palawan, Philippines) has a noticeable yellow filter.
We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Several times in the series important characters are shot, and a big deal is made of having to extract the bullets from their bodies before stitching them back up. While this might be marginally believable in the case of a handgun bullet shot into a leg - though if it were the type to stay in it would cause a lot more damage than pictured - it's just not reasonable that a high-power sniper round fired from a relatively close distance would stay lodged into someone's shoulder, to say nothing of the relatively small amount of damage inflicted - the victim survives with minor surgery to remove the bullet and a couple days of rest.
In the dub, the Wilhelm Scream is played during the shootout in P2 E6 when Tokyo reenters the mint. It's used when a SWAT officer ducks under some sandbags.
In season 5 Episode 5, the "Wilhelm Scream" can be heard when one of the soldiers gets killed by a grenade that Gandia threw to Tokyo, which she throws back to the special forces team's location.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Denver has a group of hostages move to the roof so his father can breathe open air. While there, Denver's conversation with Moscú makes Arturo think that Denver has killed Mónica and threatens them with his false gun. Moscú and Denver kneel, and the police, thinking Arturo is one of the robbers, shoot him.
You Are Too Late: The police arrive precisely 1 minute too late to stop the freshly printed Euro from being taken from the hideout. Also 2-7 minutes too late to capture any of the perpetrators.
You Shall Not Pass!: Berlin stays behind during the getaway and blasts away at the oncoming police with the Browning machine gun the team brought into the House, buying time for the other robbers to leave and blow up the escape tunnel behind them. Also a variant of Suicide by Cop.
was abandoned in the 1970s, gold is not particularly important for a country's wealth anymore. Most of a country's wealth and financial credibility comes from other sources, such a its capacity to collect taxes, its economic assets (industry, etc.), its alliances, etc. All of which would still be relatively intact after the heist.