Netflix’s Chilling 3-Part True Crime Series Is an Unmissable Binge From Start to Finish

Arguably, no one does true crime better than Netflix. The sheer number of offerings Netflix has in the genre is staggering, making it the de facto platform. It’s a reputation that Netflix is only too happy to oblige, with true crime consistently finding its way into the top-watched programs and accounting for a significant portion of what its subscription base chooses to watch. That said, despite a respectable consistency in quality, Netflix’s true-crime fare often falls into the same trap that has dominated the genre for years, where victims are merely checkpoints in the story of the glorified perpetrator. But Netflix does have its fair share of projects that are more victim-centric, and its latest, The Predator of Seville, is one such entry, and it is surging the charts, currently sitting as the third most-watched Netflix show of the week.

The Hunter Becomes the Hunted in ‘The Predator of Seville’

For a series called The Predator of Seville, it spends precious little time on its titular subject, one Manuel Blanco Vela. Blanco Vela was a tour guide in Morocco who used his position to scout out young women, in Spain on study abroad trips, he could drug and assault. One of those women, Gabrielle Vega, was assaulted when she was 18, with Blanco Vela choosing the night before her return to the United States to commit the act. The timing was deviously purposeful, not allowing time for local authorities to be approached before the flight home, and wagering that the challenge of pursuing justice for a crime suffered abroad would be enough to deter his victims from even trying.

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The series draws directly from detectives, prosecutors, survivors, friends, and victims’ families.

Initially, Vega wasn’t interested in trying either and simply wanted to warn potential victims to avoid Discover Excursions, despite the incident sending her into years of depression. But it would turn out that Blanco Vela had many other victims, as many as 50, and the stories were shockingly similar to her own. It led to Vega mounting a full-scale investigation into Blanco Vela’s crimes, bolstered by those who had reached out to her, and largely without the assistance of authorities. It all paid off, with Blanco Vela convicted and sentenced to eight-and-a-half years for sexual assault.

‘The Predator of Seville’ Is a Tale of Inspiration

The Predator of Seville is a rarity in the true-crime genre. It doesn’t focus on Blanco Vela, which is refreshing and rare on its own, but it also isn’t victim-centric. Rather, it is a celebration and a tale of inspiration about a group of women who rallied to break free of the victim label, finding a strength in connection they couldn’t have on their own. Interviews with other women who were assaulted by Blanco Vela, interspersed throughout the series, serve to highlight the impact of Blanco Vela’s crimes. It’s a shared experience that each recounts, about how a charming tour guide lured them in with a comforting reassurance before shattering it through his heinous actions, the words weighed down by years of trauma and grief, laid bare to the audience.

Those stories build on one another, with viewers privy to how each one emboldens Vega even further in her investigation, creating a union of survivors who collectively bear the ups and downs of the journey. And as The Predator of Seville makes abundantly clear, there were a lot of downs: bureaucracy, shoddy law enforcement, translation complications, the distance, and Blanco Vela himself, who leaned on his charismatic reputation to evade suspicion.

Yet their resilience in the face of it all is empowering, showcasing how collective action worked to prove a pattern of abuse and bring it to a satisfying end. While Gabrielle Vega may be the primary focus, don’t let that fool you: The Predator of Seville is their story. In a genre that too often focuses on the villain, one where the victim is little more than a name on the villain’s journey, as much a victim now as they were then, it’s little wonder that the series has stormed the charts. The Predator of Seville is a series celebrating a resilient group of women who found in each other their own story reflected, connected in an unprecedented way to change the narrative and reclaim what had been taken from them.