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Shows about racing show a lot of action, but there also needs to be story under that action. It’s why the Fast & Furious series has been so successful, because the franchise has set up a “family” that people follow. A new Netflix series from Mexico deals with racing culture and a neighborhood that’s known for cars — and car theft.
Opening Shot: “Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.” Cars are lined up, getting ready for some drag racing. A DJ spins some tunes.
The Gist: Kike Guerrero (Benny Emmanuel) and Noche Martinez (Andrés Delgado) regularly race their modified Volkswagen on the illegal racing circuit and they’ve gotten pretty good. Kike is the driver, and we see them in a drag race where, right as the car and driver they challenged pulls ahead, they hit a turbo boost that blasts them to a win.
With their winnings, plus wagering the money their boss at a local auto shop asked them to collect from a customer, Noche thinks they can make enough money to buy the garage from their boss. After all, cars and racing are in Kike’s blood, as his father and grandfather both raced in Mexico City. Kike is worried his grandmother, Amparo (Silvia Pasquel), is gambling again.
When their boss comes to get his money, Kike realizes that Noche took it to another illegal race. He goes down there and sees that his friend has already challenged a rich kid with a Ferrari to a race. The rich kid decides to drive his friend’s Eclipse to help even the playing field. During the race, though, Kike and Noche cause an accident that kills the other driver; they barely get out of it with their lives.
What they don’t realize is that the dead racer is the son of a highly-influential businessman (Jorge Zárate), who has the police under his control. Amparo has no choice but to boost a car and drive Kike and Noche to her old neighborhood in Mexico City. There, she finds her son and Kike’s uncle, Abel (Gerardo Taracena), who used to race like Kike but now runs a church and auto shop in the “Torque” neighborhood. It’s a neighborhood full of auto shops, many of which deal in stolen goods.
He puts the boys to work in his shop, but first they encounter Abigail (Renata Vaca), who uses one of her father’s tow trucks to move their car away from hers. She’s the daughter of the man who essentially took over the neighborhood from Kike’s father after he died, and he controls just about everything. After Kike puts a scratch in her GTI’s custom paint job, she goes to Abel looking for payment. When she realizes they can’t pay, she puts Kike to work. He watches as she uses a remote jammer to disable a sports car’s transmission, allowing her to carjack the vehicle as Kike drives her car away.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Fast & Furious series, with a bit of Mexican flavor to it. Pedal to Metal also has elements of the Discovery reality series Street Outlaws.
Our Take: The part of Pedal to Metal that intrigues us isn’t the races or any of the auto-related stuff. It’s the relationship between Kike and Noche, how Kike’s grandmother isn’t your typical cookie-baking, cat-owning grandma, and the fact that Kike is part of a Mexico City auto legacy that’s not 100% legal.
The rest of the story, at least in the first episode, isn’t all that interesting. The idea that this influential businessman has the Monterrey cops and others chasing and threatening Kike and Noche really just serves as an impetus for them to end up in Mexico City in the Torque neighborhood, exploring how the Guerrero family lost the power they had. Albie’s relationship with his mother is interesting, as is Kike struggling to figure out whether he wants to be a part of life in Torque or not.
It’ll be interesting to watch the friends get sucked into Mexico City’s racing scene, and how Abi and Kike start deepening their friendship/relationship. We hope that the part where the boys are being chased either gets concluded or disappears completely, because once it pushes the boys to Torque, that part really doesn’t matter much anymore.
Sex and Skin: None, at least in the first episode.
Parting Shot: After Abi steals the sports car, Kike drives off in her car, wondering what the hell he just witnessed.
Sleeper Star: We love Silvia Pasquel as Amparo, one of the coolest grandmothers we’ve seen on a show in quite a while.
Most Pilot-y Line: Abel’s main mechanic, Centavo (David Montalvo) brings the stolen Grand Marquis into a chop shop he knows that will strip it for parts. He tells Kike and Noche, “You should have stolen a Hyundai or something without a heart.” Are ’80s-era Grand Marquis that renowned in Torque?
Our Call: STREAM IT. Pedal to Metal has a fine story somewhere under all the racing and cartel-esque intrigue. It might take time to find it, but we hope subsequent episodes get to the heart of what the story is really about.
Will you stream or skip the Mexican racing drama #PedalToMetal on @netflix? #SIOSI
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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