García! is a Spanish television series produced by Zeta Studios and distributed globally on HBO Max, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Luis Bustos and Santiago García.
The titular García (Francisco Ortiz) is a Super-Soldier created by the secret services of The Franco Regime in the late stages of the dictatorship. In the present, Antonia (Veki Velilla), an investigative reporter, accidentally awakes him after sixty years cryogenized. The two will now try to fend off a conspiracy seeking to end democracy in Spain and replace it with a new and brutal dictatorship while García struggles to adapt to a world nothing like the one he remembered.
The series premiered on HBO Max on October 28, 2022.
Tropes seen on this show:
- And the Adventure Continues: In the series finale, once Winters is defeated for good, García sets off to Paris to look for clues to the whereabouts of Neffenberg, who is shown to be in Yerevan looking for new subjects to resume his experiments.
- Annoying Arrows: García no-sells several crossbow shots during the final battle against Winters, pulling the arrows right off of himself.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Elite agent García remains impeccably dressed in a tailored suit even when doing fieldwork.
- Baritone of Strength: García has superhuman strength and a deep, booming voice.
- Connected All Along: Antonia's father turns out to be Ortiz, García's former partner and the current boss of Section Nine.
- Covert Group: Section Nine was devised as this by the Franco regime: a secret unit of elite agents who took the jobs the police or ordinary military could not do publicly. At the peak of its power, it also had an Elaborate Underground Base hidden under a movie theater in the middle of Madrid's Gran Vía
. - Covert Group with Mundane Front: Section Nine still exists in the present, and its current headquarters are hidden inside a locksmith's shop.
- Disney Villain Death: Winters loses his balance and plummets off of a statue at the Valley of the Fallen to his death in the climactic battle.
- Fictional Counterpart: Right-wing party New Democracy appears as an obvious stand-in for Spain's real-life leading right-wing party, the People's Party. (Oddly, a real conservative party called New Democracy exists in Greece.)
- Fish out of Temporal Water: García is reawakened after sixty years frozen. A scene where he's ordering coffee with Antonia shows him bewildered when a waiter asks him what kind of milk he would like his coffee with, until Antonia steps in and asks for "cow milk".
- Identical Grandson: Both the younger Feli in the flashbacks of García's past life and her present-day daughter Julia are played by Diana Gómez.
- Intrepid Reporter: Antonia doesn't shy away from getting into the action when necessary, which is often considering there's a conspiracy after her.
- Limited Wardrobe: García's trusty beige suit seems to be all the clothing he ever needs. When Chencho reveals he was staying ready just in case García ever returned, he presents him with a wardrobe full of identical beige suits.
- Meaningful Name: Feli's full name is Felicidad, the Spanish word for "happiness", which is exactly what García hoped to find with her.
- Monochrome to Color: Every episode opens with a black-and-white flashback of García's life as a Section Nine agent in the 60's, switching to color when the scene cuts to the present. Any additional flashback shown during the episode will also be presented in black and white.
- Nice to the Waiter: A flashback shows that García knew the names of every clerk and secretary in the Section Nine HQ, and always greeted them politely.
- Pompous Political Pundit: In a clear reference to Spanish far-right pundits such as Federico Jiménez Losantos, the first episode has Antonia's father listening to one of these on the radio during breakfast, much to her annoyance. She refers to the pundit as a "fucking bigot".
- Quitting to Get Married: García reveals to Antonia that he planned to retire from Section Nine after the Neffenberg mission to marry his then-girlfriend Feli. He never got to after Ortiz betrayed him during the mission. Either way, it's an unusual example of the man wanting to leave his job to marry the woman, when in the Franco days, it almost always was the other way round.
- Red Baron: The first episode briefly introduces us to Catalina Bellido, a right-wing candidate for Prime Minister in the upcoming election who is known among her supporters as "La Capitana" ("The Captain").
- Refuge in Audacity: As a fight between Franco nostalgics and detractors seems about to break out while she's looking for clues at the Valley of the Fallen, Antonia gets the nostalgics to start chanting the Cara al Sol anthem so security has to be called in to defuse the situation and she can sneak away to continue investigating.
- Running Gag: An explosion interrupting García every time he's going to say his name.
- Shoe Phone: Chencho, Section Nine's resident inventor, devised a number of gadgets disguised as regular items, including lollipops that are actually small hand grenades, which Chencho notes that will not explode as long as you don't remove the wrapping, and an intercom disguised as a pack of cigarettes, with the antenna itself having the appearance of a cigarette.
- Special Person, Normal Name: García was basically engineered to be the Spanish Captain America, yet goes by the most common surname in the country.
- Super-Soldier: García was designed to be the perfect soldier: a man of superhuman strength, extraordinary endurance, and disciplined to obey any order he's given with no questions asked. Neffenberg is said to have created more super soldiers with his Super Serum formula, but only García and Winters are shown.
- The Unmasqued World: The show ends with Section Nine being shut down for good and all its documents being declassified.
