Top-rated
Wed, Sep 13, 2023
Mexico, 1982. Abel Rodríguez is a seemingly ordinary insurance salesman who spends his days shooting the breeze with his coworker, fighting with his wife, and pursuing the almighty dollar, the latter of which with little success. When saving his job requires closing a sale with a wealthy client, Abel doesn't hesitate in employing an elaborate scam to pull it off. But something is amiss, and Abel apparently escapes to the Bahamas, leaving a series of questions behind him. Meanwhile, rookie police officer Elena Robles is put in charge of the case, and she's eager to find answers. Robles' intuition tells her that Abel is still in Mexico, and she's not wrong-except that Abel is now living in a luxurious house with a supermodel girlfriend who knows him as... Julián?
An inmate who has pretended to be the famous swindler "El Mantequilla" complains that he hasn't received his monthly pay-off. Arriving to help the unfortunate prisoner is the refined and ruthless defense attorney, Julián Manríquez, who is none other than Abel... but how? In actuality, both are Emiliano Escamilla, the son of the real and not-incarcerated and presently missing El Mantequilla. As it turns out, the prisoner was being paid by Don Plutarco, the person Abel/Emiliano robbed, a situation that forces the prisoner's ex-lawyer, Mr. Botello, out of hiding. To what length is Botello willing to go to keep the secret? Meanwhile, Elena and astute journalist Pablo investigate whether Plutarco's case is connected to something bigger.
In need of funds to keep the prisoner quiet, Botello decides to sell a prized work of art that was stolen by El Mantequilla at a clandestine auction in Acapulco. Overseeing the sale is Becky, an eccentric gallery owner, and her fabulous friend, Fernando Lacrosse, who is-you guessed it-the latest persona of Emiliano Escamilla. The sale appears to go off without a hitch... that is until the buyer realizes that the painting was a copy, meaning that somebody has the original. Elena, meanwhile, discovers fresh clues about Emiliano's case, but she also comes up against the bureaucratic and misogynistic aspects of her job, as applied by Beto, her partner.
The clues that Emiliano has followed to find his father, El Mantequilla, begin to bear fruit and through the painting, he comes into contact with Cuauhtémoc Robles, a decorated former police chief and Elena's father. Emiliano introduces himself as Adolfino Matamoros, an army captain. Sensing a new enemy afoot, Robles sends Emiliano/Matamoros on the trail of his former boss Rodríguez, who he claims is the man responsible for setting El Mantequilla free and imprisoning Emiliano's mother. For her part, Elena begins to look at new leads while Pablo jumps to conclusions in order to sell a story. Elena comes to realize that in order to unravel the case, she will have to turn to her father-unaware that he's now entangled in it.
Disguised as a ranchera singer, with fans, an album, awards and a showy arrival to a new residence as a backdrop, Emiliano manages to befriend his new neighbor: captain Rodríguez, Cuauhtémoc Robles' former boss. Between ranchera music and tequila, Emiliano sets his sights on stealing a lost treasure of El Mantequilla. During the scheme, Emiliano comes to discover Robles' role in his family's misfortune. Elena and Pablo, meanwhile, investigate the "new Mantequilla", with Elena pursuing evidence and Pablo, for his part, pushing his journalistic senses a bit too far. Pablo's overzealous imagination ultimately causes him to lose his job after Elena is forced to accuse her journalist cohort of inventing stories.
Knowing that he has been duped, Emiliano decides to give Cuauhtémoc an ultimatum. But Cuauhtémoc, for his part, sends Emiliano on a mission to obtain and leave a series of "treasures" in specific places under the guise of giving him the location of his father. Following clues that emerged from the stories Pablo has written, Emiliano provides the journalist with an anonymous tip that results in Pablo becoming the journalist at the center of a major story. But as the treasure hunt winds down, Emiliano realizes that it was actually a trap, and that Robles knows his true identity, which he doesn't hesitate to share with the press.
Emiliano, knowing that he is being pursued by the police and the press, moves to cover his tracks, but not before visiting his mother in Tijuana. The plan, however, takes an unexpected turn and he ends up being arrested by Elena. Employing all of his tricks, and with a little help from Elena's partner Beto, Emiliano manages to escape. The case makes headlines across the country, reaching even the president's office, which results in Elena being given a 24-hour window to recapture the "new Mantequilla." Following a trail of clues left by Emiliano, Elena discovers that her father is at the center of El Mantequilla's crimes, and that in order to solve the case, she will have to arrest her father.
Cuauhtémoc Robles evades arrest and heads to Tijuana, where he seeks the help of Jacinto Buenaventura, the original El Mantequilla, who now lives a simple and peaceful life. Buenaventura refuses to help Robles, enraging the former police chief who has unknowingly led Emiliano to his father's location. Pretending to be a lowly farmer, Emiliano reconnects with his father and discovers that the painful story he was told may not be the truth. Elena, meanwhile, is forced to confront corruption when she arrives in Tijuana searching for her father while Emiliano manages to slip away once again. Pablo, for his part, receives an important recognition, although he is told that if he wants to keep his job, he will have to write whatever he's told. Everyone has gotten what they set out for, but at what cost?