Heist layered with comedy as a genre has been a success in recent times; we have the Ocean movie series and Baby Driver which are some examples that have gotten a lot of acclaim. Even in the TV show spectrum, we have Good Girls, and this time, Netflix Sweden brings us yet another drama with a heist carried by young girls at its forefront. Why, you ask? Because they can. Barracuda Queens is a six-part show with a running time of 35-minute per episode. We get to see young girls carrying out robberies and getting away with it. But will they ever get caught?
Spoilers Ahead
The Bill They Must Settle
Barracuda Queens begins with five girls being interrogated for something they have done, the answer to which will come up in the forthcoming episodes. The scene starts in Bastad, Sweden in the year 1995. Louise, Klara, Frida, and Mia wake up with a horrible hangover, and they get a shockingly high bill to settle for all the disarray they created at the hotel they stayed in. All the girls apart from Mia come from well-to -do families but at the moment, they are not willing to speak to their parents about this astronomical bill because these girls were supposed to act responsibly, but they were anything but that. The girls know their parents would be livid at their actions, and that is why they take it upon themselves to find a solution to pay the bill. The girls are all out of ideas because they have no idea how to make money in the real world. Their privilege never pushed them to work or think about finance. It was only Mia who worked as a cleaner to earn some extra cash for herself. She comes across as a hardworking person who understands the value of money.
Queens And Their Robbery Plans
Klara initially steals Lollo’s mother’s expensive watch and sells it to gather enough money for the bill. She feels guilty when she hears Lollo’s mother fired their maid for losing the watch. The girl does not have the guts to face the reality that she doesn’t have enough money, and she cannot afford to look bad in front of her family by confessing to the crime. Lollo comes up with the idea of stealing from the other rich people and selling the items to gather enough money to settle the hotel bill. This is the only solution they could think of because they are surrounded by people, family, and friends who are wealthy, and robbing them would not make them guilty because these people have enough cash to replenish the valuables they would lose.
Amina Joins The Group
They initially plan to rob Amina’s home, but they are caught in the act by Amina herself though she does not report them. The girls are initially surprised by her move as much as the audience is. Maybe she wanted to know what their game plan was, and as the new girl in town, getting along with the Barracuda Queens would help her find a bunch of friends to hang out with.
Amina joins the group, and they plan their first robbery. Their first target is Tobias, the man who broke Lollo’s heart. Their robbery is a success because this whole scenario was set in the 1990s when there were only security systems and the concept of CCTV did not exist. The girls always wore gloves, which made sure that they left no fingerprints. This successful robbery helped them repay the debt, but it became an addiction. They sought fun and pleasure in not getting caught because Lollo was sure they would never be considered suspects. This comes from a place of privilege, which Lollo, being the leader of the group, does not understand, for it is always the working class who are first questioned.
Mia works as a cleaner for another rich family in the neighborhood, and the man of that house always inappropriately touches her, giving the group a reason to rob them. Instead of discussing this issue of harassment, the girls deal with it by robbing them. They don’t realize it was Mia who was questioned after that robbery, and she ends up having to clean up the mess they made. Lollo and Amina do not understand things due to the entitlement they grew up with, which makes them take impulsive decisions, and the rest of the group ends up following them without realizing the consequences of it.
‘Barracuda Queens’ Ending Explained: Who Saved The Girls From Being Arrested?
The robberies don’t stop, and the police are clueless about who is carrying out these crimes. Meanwhile, Amina’s maid, Trisha, overhears her talking about the robbery, which leads her to blackmail Amina into giving her money in return for her silence. Amina is arm-twisted into this understanding because, as a young girl from a rich family, she cannot afford a police investigation. Trisha’s poor economic condition forces her to choose this path to gain some extra cash.
Amina eventually shuts Trisha’s mouth and gives her a pair of expensive emerald earrings that they had stolen. Amina does not realize the consequences of such acts, and she keeps the group in the dark about Trisha’s blackmail because if too many know of their misdemeanor, the chances of them getting caught increases, which the girls cannot afford.
The next robbery almost gets them caught, and Lollo and Amina run off with an expensive car. Understanding that they would now need a storage space to store their stolen items, they approach Lollo’s cousin Carl-Johan to use his barn space. The girls are desperate to hide their crimes because they don’t want to take accountability for their deeds, and storing away their stolen goods would divert the attention of their families, but they forget it would garner Carl’s unwanted attention. The man, just like Lollo, does not want anyone to tarnish his reputation.
With Trisha selling off the precious emerald earrings and Lollo driving away with the stolen car from Carl’s barn, the police finally got the lead they needed. The cops caught Lollo with the stolen car, and their barrage of questions led them to the robberies that were going on in the neighborhood. The police were finally on the right path, and to conclude, the girls were in trouble.
Trisha’s earring got the attention of the pawn shop owner, who informed the police about it being stolen. This is again a big lead for the cops, but thankfully, Lollo and Amina were able to dodge arrest because Lollo and Trisha’s statement was good enough for the police to let them off. The police are just doing their job, and being able to get hold of the robbers would mean the end of the nuisance the neighborhood has been facing.
The police connect the dots and find that one of the five girls was spotted near the scene of the robbery, and along with that, they acquire a search warrant for Carl’s mansion. The girls are taken in for questioning, thus solving the equation of the first scene of Barracuda Queens. The girls were smart enough and probably knew the cops would catch up to them. Hence, they made a conscious decision not to tattle. Their friendship is too important for them to be shaken up by police questioning methods.
The search at Carl’s leads nowhere, as the barn is found empty. The audience and the girls are shocked to see the turn of events in their favor. This proves that someone is trying to help them out and make sure they are not arrested. The girls do not understand that so far, they have had luck on their side, and the fact that they are rich wouldn’t make them the first suspect. As one of the cops pointed out, these girls do not need to steal anything because things are just given to them on a platter.
Luck plays a crucial role in these girls’ lives. As it turns out, Klara’s father was a witness to his home being robbed by another group of thieves. These men ended up taking away Frida’s box of memorabilia that she had collected from her robbery. The presence of this box allows the police to finally frame these men for all the other robberies in the neighborhood.
It turns out that the stolen goods were moved to another location by Lollo’s mother, Margarete, with the help of Carl because, after the incident at the barn, she was sure the girls were up to something. Call it a mother’s instinct but this savior act came into play because Margarete was probably afraid of the family losing respect because of her daughter. I’m not sure if her reaction would be the same if this were carried out by her son. Their reputation is at stake because her daughter committed the crime. This might come across as a patriarchal thought, but again, since Barracuda Queens is set in the 1990s, this thought process was rampant.
The ending montage of Barracuda Queens has the girls finally finding out about Lollo’s mother’s contribution to saving them from jail time. But again, their happiness to see them being saved shows that the girls have not learned their lesson, even after a close brush with the police. The girls joke about carrying out more robberies because they still believe they are invincible. This kind of privilege is problematic to the core, and if there is a second season of the show, which there should be, as viewers, we can only hope the girls understand they are culpable for their crimes.
