From left to right: Nancy, Elvis, Ventura, Keta.
"We are the Diableros. We are charged with keeping that order."
— Elvis Infante
Once upon a time, angels and demons opposed each other in perfect balance, maintaining order between good and evil. Disgusted with the humans' depravity, however, the angels left, freeing the demons to prey upon the humans with impunity. With no other way to defend humanity, some humans became demon hunters, called diableros, who hunt and kill demons who attack or attempt to possess humans.
Diablero is a Netflix original Mexican Urban Fantasy series. Set in Mexico City, it follows a trio of diableros — Elvis Infante (Horacio García Rojas), his sister Enriqueta "Keta" Infante (Fátima Molina), and Nancy Gama (Gisselle Kuri) — who agree to help a Catholic priest, Ramiro Ventura (Christopher von Uckermann), track down his illegitimate daughter, Mariana, who has been taken by a demon. When the story starts to smack uncomfortably of a similar incident that happened to Keta's infant son years ago, the four realize that this battle will decide not only the fate of Mariana, but that of all humanity.
Blending Judeo-Christian mythology with indigenous Mexican religion, the show utilizes horror, action, and comedy elements, going everywhere from the catacombs of Mexico City to underground demon cage fighting rings. The first season premiered on December 21, 2018; Season 2 was announced February 1, 2019, and premiered on January 31, 2020.
Diablero provides examples of:
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Lupe engages Keta in one in order to teach her how to use her full power as the avatar of Coatlicue.
- Blood Sport: Isaac (or "el Indio") buys demons from diableros, has them possess Willing Channelers, and then pits them together in cage matches for gambling. It's the diableros' main source of income.
- But Now I Must Go: Mayaken feels that he's a monster and he doesn't deserve a happy home with Keta, so he tells her that he'll come back to her when he's had time to figure things out and flies off.
- Catchphrase: Ventura saying "I had a life once too," when people express shock at him having a daughter.
- Crossover Cosmology: There are angels and demons and Aztec gods running around fairly seamlessly. Keta is an incarnation of Coatlicue, and Mayaken is somehow both an angel and an avatar of Huitzilopochtli.
- Deal with the Devil: Well, technically with an Aztec death god. In order to get the crew out of the land of the dead, Elvis sells the ferryman his life.
- Demoted to Extra: Mariana, in season two.
- Embarrassing First Name: Elvis' first name is actually Heliodoro, which he despises.
- Fantastic Drug: Lupe extracts demons' tears and sells them as a drug. Unfortunately, if you take enough of it your bones become very tasty to a terrifying type of demon called an ahuizotl.
- Forced into Evil: It's clear from the beginning that Wences is a fundamentally nice person who has objections to Mama Chabela kidnapping and imprisoning the kids, but that he has some kind of psychological condition that makes it almost impossible for him to disagree with her. It also can't be helping that she uses him as a demon host, which Nancy recognizes as not his fault and pities him for.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble:
- Elvis, the Boisterous Bruiser leader of the group, is their sanguine. He's loud, cocky, snarky, and a jokester.
- Nancy is their choleric; extroverted but kind of short-tempered and impatient. She's The Big Guy of the group and most of the direct fighting is left to her.
- Ventura is the tortured, brooding priest who fills out the role of the melancholic.
- Finally, Keta is quiet, empathetic, and not nearly as extroverted as her brother, making her the phlegmatic.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the first season finale, Ventura gives himself up so that Mariana will survive having been used to summon Tezcatlipoca.
- Hot for Preacher: Ventura is an attractive man, and Elvis' nieces often lustfully call him padrecito (a diminutive of padre, "father"note ). He then begins a slow-burn romance with Nancy over the course of the first season.
- Hunter of Monsters: The diableros hunt demons, either for a price, or to sell later (or both).
- It Was Here, I Swear!: After Keta gets kidnapped and escapes, she brings Elvis to the house where it happened and there's nothing there. Keta, upset, says she's not crazy. Elvis says he doesn't think she's crazy and completely believes her—in fact, he's more worried by the total lack of evidence, because it means whoever they're up against has the resources to make everything vanish overnight, which is not good for them.
- I Will Find You:
- Keta's son with Isaac, Mayaken, was kidnapped when he was very young. She and Elvis have never given up trying to find him. In the second season, they do.
- Everyone to Ventura in season 2.
- Last-Name Basis: Ventura is usually called either by his surname or his title, Father (padre in Spanish, or the slightly-condescending diminutive form padrecito). Hardly anyone ever calls him "Ramiro."
- Make Way for the New Villains: As season 1 wraps up, the Corrupt Church rolls in to clean up the evidence and kidnap Wences.
- Mugging the Monster: In Nancy's first scene, she has checked herself into a mental hospital, and an orderly attempts to assault her. He has cause to regret this.
- My Greatest Failure: Elvis used to have an apprentice, and still blames himself for the case which got him killed. The apprentice is actually alive and working for the Corrupt Church, but Elvis doesn't know that.
- Our Demons Are Different: When not possessing a human body, they appear as a sizzling black smoke that can be contained in soda bottles.
- Police Are Useless: Ventura quickly figures out that the cops aren't going to help him much; even discounting the supernatural elements, they seem apathetic about adding another missing person to their case load. He even calls them "fucking useless"Spanish when they brush him off.
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Real Song Theme Tune: "Futuro" by Café Tacvba. - Red Herring: Lupe's scars and the mark on the back of her neck, which matches Mayaken's birthmark. She's not actually an angel—her Abusive Parents knew about a prophecy that an angel would return to earth, and deliberately scarred her to try and force it to happen. Mayaken, however, is the genuine deal, which is why he was kidnapped.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both Nancy and Elvis drop chinga and puta basically anywhere they please. This being Mexico, though, everyone swears a lot by other countries' standards.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Elvis and Keta's father believes women shouldn't be demon-hunters, despite the fact Keta is actually much better at magic than Elvis.
- Vow of Celibacy: Ventura took one, obviously as a Catholic priest, but he has a daughter from before his time in the priesthood. He didn't know Mariana was his, though, or that she even existed until her mother called him to her deathbed.
- Willing Channeler: Isaac's fighters, though just how much they're "willing" to do that is up for debate. It's also Nancy's main fighting style; she summons demons into her via a walkman.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- The villain of season 1 is kidnapping the children so she can sacrifice them to summon Tezcatlipoca.
- Likewise, the villain of season 2 kidnapped a young boy and manipulated and groomed him into becoming a monster, then tried to kill him once he'd served his purpose—operative word being tried, at least.
