A Spy Ring, A Killer Virus, and a Body Double Trying to Steal Carolina’s Life: High Seas Season Three (2020)

So last year my friend and I started watching Alta Mar/High Seas after watching the trailer as it looked really good. We were both thoroughly pleased as it was AMAZING and we couldn’t stop until we finished it.

The story is of two sisters, Eva and Carolina Villanueve. They lost their father, their home country of Spain was greatly changed because of WWII, and both ladies are looking for something new. Carolina had been running the family business, but decided to sell the company and is planning to marry Fernando Fábregas (owner of the ocean liner the Barbara de Braganza). Her sister Eva doesn’t like the changes Carolina is making but is still supporting her. She is also traveling on the Barbara de Braganza to Brazil to meet with a publisher interested in her book.

On our way!

They are on their way to the ship’s dock and hit a woman, a woman running away from an abusive man with powerful connections. Eva takes pity on her, ignores Carolina, and sneaks her aboard as a stowaway. However, this woman is not who she says she is and the sisters are in for quite the journey.

Someone is murdered on the ship, and it turns out their uncle Pedro and family friend Dr. Rojas have some secret they are keeping from the girls, their stowaway vanishes, someone they thought was dead is alive, and more. All this while they are on a ship in the middle of the ocean-you can see how it makes for one fantastic season.

While the first season was amazing, the second was horrible. First Mate Nicolás and Eva have fallen in love and tons of fangirls were ecstatic, but in season 2 they broke them up as Nicolás’ wife turned out to be alive.

Carolina found out that her husband was going to run off before the wedding, but his girlfriend disappeared-murdered. So yeah, their marriage isn’t going that great. And it turned out that Francesca their surrogate mother and housekeeper murdered Rosa Marin.

Veronica broke up with Sebastian, he lost all his money [although they say that’s not why they broke up], and she got with Dimas (he deserves better).

Let’s see…what else happened? Oh yes, Clara committed suicide as she couldn’t handle her rape, killing her rapist (it was in self-defense), and the rapist’s wife/co-killer going after her boyfriend.

So…yeah I hated Season 3, not as much as Season 2 as it did have one amazing storyline. But it was cut short and just not good as a whole.

***Spoilers***

So  we start off with the series with Coronavirus type disease floating in the ocean-weird choice.

What??

So Eva has had her book published and goes into a bookstore to look at it, so happy and pleased! There she is approached by a man going by “Fabio” who is a spy and needs to get on the ship and look at the passports as they are searching for a scientist or his helper who created a killer virus. She agrees, although I don’t know why she would after all that she and her sister have been through, you think they would be the most least trusting people on the planet. Wouldn’t you? I mean the first girl was a crazy lady after gold, the second was a fake psychic trying to drive her sister crazy, plus both their father and surrogate mother were crazy and killed people.

She and Carolina should be like how Sydney was at the beginning of Scream 3 not wanting to befriend or trust anyone.

I don’t trust her.

They prepare to be off.

Let’s go!

Meanwhile in the ship we have Nicolás who is there with his wife Chantel. I tried to hate her but she was tortured in the concentration camps, so….yeah I can’t. Nicolás actually is hardly in this as the other ship’s captain disappears. Nicolás is still first mate, although I don’t know why they let the previous captain keep his job when he was going crazy in the previous seasons, but anyway-so he is set to take care of that ship and is in the first episode, a little in the middle, and then just in the end. What the heck? Why wasn’t he in this.

I watch for Nicolás and Eva, not Eva and Fabio. 

Ugh…

So Pierre (Clara’s former fiance) is moved up to first mate.

So this other ship belongs to Carolina. She put her half of the fortune from selling her father’s company into her own ships. She is still married to Fernando but is freezing him out. I love it as Fernando actually treats her good and tries anything he can to get her to warm up and she is just an Ice Queen. You deserve it Fernando.

So Fabio and his supervising agent come, and they can’t tell anything from the passports. The other agent recognizes someone on the boat and dies-they don’t know who the person is, and now Fabio is stuck on the ship with Eva. He’s supposed to be her love interest I guess, but I don’t like him. Ugh, Fabio get out.

So Carolina has the most interesting storyline. So there is another group interested in the virus-the ship’s new doctor, Dr. Ayala, (we had to replace the murdering one from Season 1 +2), is traveling with a friend of their Uncle Pedro, Carmen. Carmen is taking the trip with her very sick and injured daughter Diana. She’s covered in bandages so we can’t see her. You know what that means-she’s not sick but just disguising herself.

Hmm…

I’m right of course as it turns out she has had surgery to look just like Carolina. Alejandra Onieva is a fantastic actress in her movements and her manner as she goes from street tough Diana to classy Carolina. The whole reason behind her appearance is to befriend Eva and get information out of her.

Diana does what she is told, but she also likes Carolina’s life. She likes the money, the clothes, the husband, etc. Fernando is enthused to have his wife want to be with him, although he feels uncertain about. Whenever he poses a question Diana distracts him. One day he finds a mole on her shoulder that he was 100% sure she didn’t have, but then…like always-she convinces him to focus on other things.

From The Great Gatsby

So Diana continues with her job, taking anything Eva shares and working against her and Fabio. However, she wants to change the terms-she wants Carolina’s life. The doctor doesn’t care, but Carmen is starting to have second thoughts.

Eva notices things are weird too as Carolina has seemed to forget everything that happened in the previous cruise. However, the drugs on the real Carolina have rubbed off a bit that she tries to communicate with Veronique, who’s been assigned as “Diana’s” special nurse. Veronique worries about “Diana” as she seems scared of her mother and the doctor. One day she is really troubled that she returns with help and when she comes back with help, they can’t find “Diana”, they go searching and finds Carolina/Diana trying to kill her…Carolina/Diana?  Who is the real Carolina, Eva has to figure it out, you know after she gets over the shock of seeing two of her sister.

Where is going on?

And I liked Fernando in this, which surprised me as I hated him the last two seasons. He was really trying to make things right with his wife. When he sees the real Carolina and how they had been drugging her.m, he is so upset and worried for her. That was cute.

So yeah, the Carolina and Diana storyline was the best as it sucked me in right away and never let go.

I just had to know what was going to happen next!

So they are after the virus, meanwhile Pierre has made the captain think he is crazy, and has taken over the ship with a plan made with the new first mate. You see-Pierre wanted to ruin Natalia Fábregas and teamed up with the first mate to destroy the company, but it turns out they are terrorists with the virus and planning to unleash it on the ship. They give it to Carolina, but it turns out it was really given to Diana instead.

Hmm…

Nicolas comes and turns everything on the ship right, as Pierre and his people had taken over and mutined. It’s like really fast, snap that’s over.

Well…

Dr. Ayala turns out to be the evil torturous doctor from the concentration camps that hurt Chantel, but they need him as they need a doctor to make an antidote. And surprise, surprise he does in like no time at all from the blood of maid Alex, who is the creator of the virus and had already taken the antidote. And not only is he able to an antidote with the few supplies they had around on the ship, but he creates enough to save everyone onboard. But that doesn’t save them as Mexico bombs the ship as they can’t stand having the people come in and possibly spread the virus. Like why wouldn’t they contact them first.

Eva and Nicholas rush together, but he is stabbed by Alex who survives all the blood being drawn from her, which is literally impossible.

There is no way. I have been with friends who had a little blood drawn and they couldn’t handle driving, let alone running and stabbing someone.

And don’t get me started on Nicolás’ death. First of all I am angry and appalled as I loved Nicolás and wanted him and Eva to somehow be reunited. And secondly I am extremely angry that is all they give us. To be honest if that’s all they were going to do, why didn’t they just not have him come back? He could have told Eva he loves her but as his wife is alive he is taking a job on another ship or he could have written a letter or telegram? And who’s great idea was it to write Fabio? He was boring and we knew nothing about him, and there was zero chemistry. I was extremely disappointed and heartbroken.

The ship goes down destroyed, just like my hopes and dreams of another seeason to love.

For more on High Seas, go to A Psychic Arrives and a Ghost Haunts the Ship: High Seas Season Two (2019)

For more spy stories, go to Murder, False Imprisonment, Nuclear Bombs, and Nazi Spies: Bon Voyage (2003)

We’re Stranded on a Ship in the Middle of the Ocean with a Killer!: High Seas (2019)

We’re stranded on a ship in the middle of the ocean with a killer!

So I saw the trailer for this on Netflix and instantly added it to my to-watch list.

It looked so good!

One day my friend and I were hanging out trying to find something to watch when I suggested this. We started watching it and could NOT stop! And that ending, WOW!

Fridays are when I review TV episodes, but as this show can’t be broken episode by epiode, I’m reviewing the whole first season. I did the same thing last year with American Gothic. So the show is actually filmed in Spanish, its real name being Alta Mar, but you can listen to it with the English (or other language) voiceover. I have to say they did really good with this, there are only a few times that it didn’t sync up.

So the TV series takes place in Spain after WWII.  The cruise ship is departing from Spain to Brazil. Carolina (Alejandra Onieva) and Eva Villanueve (Ivana Baquero) are headed on an Ocean Cruise liner as Carolina is getting married. Their father passed away two years ago and after his death she discovered that their shoe factory trucks were used to aid the Nazis during WWII. With that news, coupled with her father’s death-Carolina decided to sell the business. Instead, after their marriage she will join her fiancé, Fernando Fábregas (Eloy Azorín), cruise business.

Eva is a writer and is happy for her sister, but sad that the family business ended, and she will be separated from her sister-as she will be in Brazil and her sister will be traveling. She doesn’t like Fernando as something doesn’t feel right about him, but when she investigated a rumor that he was a gambler, she turned up nothing.

As they are driving with their maids Francesca and Veronica de García when they hit a woman in the street.

They rush out to help her and she tells them she is being chased by her fiancé. She doesn’t wish to marry him, but he wants her and has decided he must have her or no one can. She is intent on getting away, and getting on the ship.

Carolina, Francesca, and Veronica want to give her over to the police-but Eva wants to help her and convinces them all to smuggle the girl, Louisa, on the ship in their travel trunk.

Hmm, I don’t know about this…

When they get on board the ship they meet the Captain and the first officer, Nicolás Vázquez (Jon Kortajarena). Nicolás is very interested in Eva, but she shrugs him off trying to get the trunk to her room. When questioned why the rest of their luggage remains below, Eva deftly comments on how Carolina is the owner’s bride.

They get to the room where they free Louisa, and she and the maids go to their rooms down below. Francesca loves the Ladies, having been like a mother to them-but Veronica does not. Having grown up playing with the girls and is now serving them-she is very unhappy at her lot an does not want to be a servant, she wants to be more.

I have to work

Veronica helps the ladies dress for dinner and remains in the room, seeing a man try to break in. He claims to have mistaken it as his room, but Veronica is unsure. She leaves, but does not go down to steerage.

Or on this cruise ship.

Meanwhile, Louisa and Francesca are in the room, and Louisa grabs a vase and knocks Francesca out. She then escapes to the Carolina and Eva’s room and starts going through their things. The man comes back from before and he and Louisa fight.

Dinner is a wonderful affair, and of course the two ladies are honored guests and sit at the Captain’s table. Carolina gets up and dances with her fiancé Fernando, the two then separating as Carolina wants to change her shoes. Earlier, Fernando had a mysterious message telling him to meet at a certain point at 12, but he lies to Carolina that he is receiving a cable. Suspicious.

Eva goes out for some air and is followed by Nicolaus, who is really interested in her. He flirts and things are leaning his way when they hear a woman scream from above and a body hit the water.

Eva is worried about her sister and goes searching for her, finding the room a mess. She continues to search and finds her in steerage aiding Francesca.

The girl’s search their room but can’t tell what is missing. While they are doing that, the crew searches for the body and only find a dress-the one Louisa was wearing.

That is not good,

Eva and Caroline come clean about what happened and everyone wants to hush it up. Fernando has a lot riding on his ship and can’t have it be known as the Murder Cruise or else all is lost.

They say it was an accident, and everyone but Eva and Nicolaus believe that to be true. The two begin investigating.

This will be a dangerous voyage as Eva has no clue who to trust and wants to do everything she can to protect her family and find justice.

Nazis, arson, shady deals, dark secrets, three deaths, a murder masked as suicide, and more combine in this show as we have a wonderful cast of characters.

WATCH IT NOW!!

Nicolas is the dashing first officer and the one who was with Eva when they heard the body fall. He is kind, caring, funny, handsome, and intent on finding justice as well. He used to be a street thief until Captain Santiago Aguirre found him and enlisted him on the ship. He seems to be the perfect one to trust-the Tommy to her Tuppence, but Eva discovers that he has a secret-can she really trust anything he says?

The fiancé-Fernando. He I really do not like as he didn’t meet Carolina when she arrived, when she comes to see him pretty much ignores her for work, and just seems altogether shady. The way he wraps the case up pinning it on an innocent steerage passenger, pretends to be robbed-throwing his rings over the boat and lies about the telegram-having received none. Is there something darker going on with him? Or is he the murderer?

Fernando’s sister and her husband are also on the cruise and they are very strange. Natalia is always drunk, unfocused, and a shadow of a person while her husband just exudes bad feelings. His is also unfaithful as he immediately sets his sights on the lounge singer, Clara. He promises to help her, then rapes her-making her promise not to say anything or he will rip her to shreds. No wonder his wife is the way she is-married to that guy. Clara is not the first and could he have been after Louisa too? Or was he involved in the shady business dealings with the Nazis and want to keep that from being found out. He is extremely eager to get to Brazil.

I HATE this character!

Eva and Carolina’s uncle, Pedro Villanueva has been watching over them and being there ever since their fathr’s death. He, their father, and Doctor Rojas used to be business partners. Was their father killed in an accident…or murdered? Murdered by their uncle or longtime family friend? They are both nervous and trying to search the girls things for some microfiche. What’s on that film?

Hmmm

Veronica wants more in life than being a maid and Sebastián de la Cuesta, rich and famous playboy, pays a lot of attention to her…but is he honest in his feelings? Is he just playing with her heart-using and losing, or does he really feel for her? It turns out Sebastian is bankrupt and trying to hide it from all. Could that be all he’s hiding. Could he be involved in something nefarious? Something he wants to keep hidden?

Hmmm…

Dimas Gómez is the sweetest guy, working as valet to Sebastian and also interested in Veronica. He has an idea to turn cane sugar into ethanol. He presents his idea to Sebastian (who may or may not steal it) and pretends to be Veronica’s sweetheart so her mother doesn’t discover she is sleeping with Sebastian. He seems like a great guy, but he was the roommate of the man who confessed to killing Louisa. Is he more involved in this than he lets on?

Hmm…

Plus to top it off we have a Captain who lost his wife and is very suicidal, a skulky crewm ember with a mysterious burned face, and a ship detective who doesn’t care about solving the crime.

And that’s not all, this show will have so many other twists and turns, once you start watching you will not want to stop!

So this movie reminded me a lot of Dangerous Crossings with the cruise ships, wedding, suspicious guy skulking about, being unsure who to trust. And just like that movie I really, really liked it. It was extremely compelling and the characters are amazing.

I couldn’t help but compare this to American Gothic which I reviewed last year. American Gothic had a great idea, but fell apart in the middle as it would lead is in one direction, then have an episode that turned it back on itself saying that it was false and this was the answer…oh wait, no that’s false-this is the answer, making it not enjoyable and obvious you couldn’t trust the show.

With this, it was done like Twin Peaks or Veronica Mars with each episode adding to the solving of the mystery. There were twists and turns along the way, and was amazing to watch!

YOU MEAN, THIS ONE

And the other reason to watch this? The CLOTHES!! THE CLOTHES are GORGEOUS!!! I want everything Eva and Carolina wear. Even the  guys’ clothing are beautiful.

I want to buy all the clothes!!!!

This film is also a Non-Austen Film for Austen Fans

Yes, I think that this is a perfect film for Austen fans.

At the center of the mystery is the love sisters have for each other. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are both stories that focus on sisterly bonds and friendship. Even though these two sisters have been doing other things, they have reunited and care strongly for each other. Their first thoughts are whether they are okay-and doing all they can to make sure that their sister is taken care of and safe-sometimes hiding things to keep them from being put in danger. In P&P and S&S the sisters were each other’s best friends and always there for each other, just like in this film.

In this show Carolina is poisoned and Eva stands vigil doing all she can to help and aid her sister-Just like Elizabeth caring for Jane or Elinor caring for Marianne.

Carolina reminds me of Jane-beautiful, kind, caring, always thinking the best of people even though they clearly do not deserve it. She is the older sister, but often falls way to the younger sister’s persuasion.

Eva made me think of Catherine Morland: a reader, strong imagination, an investigative spirit. Like how Catherine searches out the Abbey for clues to the murder she believes to have happened there-Eva does the same on the ship. Except in Eva’s case there actually is a murder! Eva doesn’t automatically make me think of Elizabeth but she is just as stubborn and not interested in the main love interest…at least at first.

Nicolas and Eva’s interactions again make me think of Catherine and Mr. Tilney. Like Mr. Tilney-Nicolas is fun, witty, kind, and makes his interest known. Their interactions are fantastic banter.

VIctoria, Sebastian, and Deemis’ love triangle make me think of Isabella Thorpe, Captain Tilney, and James Morland. In Northanger Abbey, Isabella comes from not a super wealthy family and is on the prowl for a wealthy man. She catches James Morland, Catherine’s brother, believing the Morland’s are wealthier than they are but exchanges him for a larger quarry-Captain Tilney. Captain Tilney is not interested in settling down and after sleeping with Isabella, is done with her. Now Victoria, like Isabella, does not want a second class passenger, she wants first class. She has the love of a good man, Deemis, but she won’t even bother with him as she wants someone with and from more. But Sebastian is a famous playboy, and we see after sleeping with her he uses the same lines on another lady.

And the final reason why this made me think of Austen’s works and why you should watch this?

Yes, the very handsome officers. Mrs. Bennet, Lydia Bennet, Louisa Musgrove, Henrietta Musgrove, and Anne Elliot would all approve.

To start Horrorfest VIII from the beginning, go to Count Dracula the Propagator of This Unspeakable Evil Has Disappeared. He Must Be Found and Destroyed!: Horror of Dracula (1958)

For more Non-Austen Films for Austen Fans, go to Non-Austen Films for Austen Fans: The Buccaneers, Episodes 3-5

For more mystery cruises, go to I Do Think You Are Confused Mrs. Bowman: Dangerous Crossing (1953)