Gigantes Season 1 recap: Like wolves, the Guerreros are a family without limits

Daniel, Clemente and Tomás are the sons of Abraham Guerrero, a ruthless gangster who raised them to be wolves among sheep. Abraham, who once had a stranglehold over the drug trade on the Iberian Peninsula, has seen the borders of his empire shrink to the claustrophobic confines of the Gypsy barrio of Madrid. Bitter, powerless and out for revenge, Abraham enlists his sons to violently force the Gypsies out of their neighborhood. Afterwards, he divides his drug business amongst his three sons, carefully setting them up to compete against one another.

The eldest Guerrero, Daniel, is very much a wolf like his father. But despite his brash persona and shoot-first-ask-questions-never attitude, he’s careful and deliberate in his actions. Tomás is the middle brother, a calm and cool businessman keen on taking his older brother Daniel out of the picture. The two disagree on the future of their father’s crumbling empire; Daniel wants to expand the old-fashioned way, through brutality and domination, while Daniel wants to take the Guerreros from the barrio to the boardroom as an art dealer, quietly laundering the family’s vast sums of drug money. The youngest of the Guerreros, Clemente, is an aspiring boxer desperate to escape his family and their past.

Fearing his sons are getting soft, Abraham sets out to destroy everything they love. He takes the business belonging to the father of Lorena, Clemente’s girlfriend, before threatening her to stay away from Clemente and running her family out of town. Next, Abraham pits his sons Daniel and Tomás against one another by tasking Daniel with killing Tomás’ Gypsy wife, Sol, who is pregnant with their second child. Meanwhile, Abraham learns of a new drug channel threatening his empire and sends Tomás to investigate. Tomás, seeing an opportunity to get rid of his brother Daniel once and for all, tells Abraham that the channel is run by none other than Daniel himself! But instead of killing Daniel, Tomás convinces his father to turn him over to the authorities instead.

Fifteen Years Later…
After 15 years, a hungry Daniel Guerrero is released from prison. First, he pays his now-senile father a visit. Once the coast is clear, Daniel quietly suffocates Abraham before calling Tomás to inform him of their father’s sudden death. Next, Daniel and Tomás set out to find their missing brother Clemente before burying their dad. They learn from mutual acquaintances that Clemente is paying off a debt by competing in clandestine fights in the Gypsy underground. Daniel and Clemente are forced to fight one another for the Gypsies’ entertainment, thus buying Clemente’s freedom. As the Guerreros are leaving the camp, a little Gypsy girl dressed in red stabs Tomás with a small knife.

No Good Deed…
In an act of hubris, Tomás contracts a family associate to exact revenge from the little girl who stabbed him. Meanwhile, Daniel hires an unscrupulous accountant to uncover and target Tomás’ financial manager, the lawyer Iriarte. Not long afterwards, an article is published by a local reporter implicating Iriarte of grossly mismanaging public funds, and he is arrested. Tomás is forced into damage control after Daniel’s accountant begin syphoning funds from his frozen account and a drug shipment from the south is delayed by two weeks, threatening his standing as a leading supplier.

Scars…
Things begin to spiral for Tomás after he learns that his supplier in the south won’t be able to uphold their end of the bargain. To make matters worse, Tomás and Sol’s daughter Carmen, who is half-Guerrero and half-Gypsy, is being bullied at school by the children of a far-right militia, and she’s out for revenge – Guerrero-style! To buy a little time, Tomás invites his suppliers to a meeting with his buyers to find a solution to the delay. Clemente runs into Lorena, his childhood sweetheart whose family his father forced out of town, and sets about righting the wrongs of the past.

Loss
Carmen seeks to escalate her feud with the Nationalists by getting her father Tomás involved. Meanwhile, Daniel taps a friend from prison to help sabotage his brother’s upcoming drug deal in the south. After a brief meeting with his brother, Daniel and his team head down down the Iberian Peninsula to intercept Tomás’ drug shipment. Sensing something is up, Daniel’s girlfriend, Bárbara, reaches out to Clemente, and they pick up a friend and follow Daniel down south.

Paradise
Daniel’s plan hits a snag when his accomplice shoots him and reveals he was hired by Tomás to set him up to take the fall for a drug deal gone wrong. As they wait for the authorities, Daniel’s “Plan B” springs into action and cuts them off at the head. Wounded and near death, Daniel’s plan hits another snag when he and his two-timing associate are ambushed by the Gypsies. A shootout ensues, and when the smoke clears Daniel is the only man left standing. Hallucinating and near death, Daniel is saved at the last second by his girlfriend, Bárbara, and Clemente. As they make their getaway, they are confronted by the police, during which Bárbara exits the vehicle and reveals her true identity to the lead detective – she’s a clandestine agent tasked with mapping out the Guerrero crime syndicate. This gives Clemente and Daniel time to escape to a safe house. Once there, we learn Daniel’s plan to sabotage Tomás has come to fruition: Tomás’ lawyer and accountant Iriarte has been killed in prison, completely cutting Tomás off from all his resources. To make matters worse, a battered Daniel is licking his wounds and biding his time until he can achieve his ultimate goal: the destruction of his brother, Tomás, and the Guerrero empire – at any cost…