Olmos y Robles is a Spanish Buddy Cop Show TV Series created by Televisión Española (the same that brought us Águila Roja and Isabel) that follows two Guardia Civil officers during their work, work that is normally calm but sometimes it brings quite a few surprises for them.
Sebastián Olmos (Pepe Viyuela) is a First Corporal in the Guardia Civil barracks in the town of Ezcaray. Most of his work is just about dealing with small town problems, such as traffic problems, animal deaths and whatever minor crimes that can happen there. However, now the barracks are about to be closed down, since there's so little crime in the town that it is not worth the investment to maintain it open.
A few days before the barracks are definitely closed, Olmos discovers the body of one of the town neighbours, a Russian man that lives in its outskirts, beheaded. This brings the attention of an antiterrorist Guardia Civil squad, led by veteran Lieutenant Agustín Robles (Rubén Cortada), a no-nonsense By-the-Book Cop who easily determines that this is but the latest attack of a Serial Killer that has been murdering men that belonged to a mercenary company with the same modus operandi. During the investigation, where Olmos both helps and hinders (somewhat) with the investigation, the group manages to find out who is behind the murders, but Robles is kicked out of the Interpol squad because of a mistake he made. Thanks to Olmos, Robles soon finds himself assigned to the Ezcaray Guardia Civil Barracks, which he is none too happy about.
Unfortunately, the Serial Killer was not caught, and he is still in the background, and Olmos and Robles still have much to do if they want to solve this crime...
This Series has examples of:
- And the Adventure Continues: before dying, Alcides tells Robles that the latter's father (dead in a traffic accident) knew something dangerous. Among Alcides' belongings is a ring that might shed some light on it.
- Best Served Cold: Alcides killed the mercenaries because they brutally murdered his family, and tries to kill Olmos and Robles because said brother was the man Robles killed in episode 1 to save Olmos' life.
- Big Bad: Almanzor.
- Big Bad Friend: Alcides.
- Big Damn Heroes / The Cavalry: several GAR squads arrive just in time to kill the last of Alcides' mercenaries and get Olmos and his grandmother to safety.
- Buddy Cop Show: the laidback and happy-go-lucky Olmos is paired with stern, By-the-Book Cop Robles.
- Chekhov's Classroom: in chapter 5, when faced with a dangerous hired killer, Olmos remembers what Robles taught him on aikido a few days before.
- Chekhov's Gun: several.
- Robles' knows the Bible front-and-back. Helps him find a message from Padre Juan that he hid in a Bible he gifted him.
- Cata's nose is so good it can smell dead people at a long distance. She is the one that finds the real Pierre Pollard in episode 5 and Géretz in episode 8.
- An actual gun in episode 8. Robles gives his handgun to Olmos' grandmother so that she can defend herself, and she manages to hide it before Alcides sees it, allowing Olmos to kill him before he can kill them.
- Comically Cross-Eyed: Atiza.
- Defrosting Ice King: Robles has dedicated so much of his life to work that it takes a lot of effort (from both Olmos and the townspeople) to get him used to a normal life.
- Dirty Cop: Interpol agent Mónica Salcedo, who kills Padre Juan. Alcides.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Olmos and Robles.
- Good Shepherd: Padre Juan who is actually a protected witness after he testified against a mafia clan.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: at the end of episode 1, Olmos thinks he shoots the killer that shot him in the leg with his handgun, even though he knew he had a low chance of doing it. He later realizes that it was Robles that saved him.
- Just a Stupid Accent: the first fake Pierre Pollard thinks he can pass himself as French with this and using a few stock French words. Check Spanner in the Works for what happens.
- Meaningful Name: Almanzor, as the Serial Killer decided to kill the seven mercenaries men like his namesake
did, according to the legend. - The Mole: Mayor Damián has one in the wine-making co-op business created by Catalina and her friends.
- Never Mess with Granny: Olmos' grandmother, who has no problem in helping her grandson with a potentially lethal situation. She is wife and grandmother of a Guardia Civil, after all.
- The Nose Knows: Cata, the hotel's owner, has very good smell sense. So good, she can smell what's under a cup at five meters.
- Once More, with Clarity: in episode 8, several apparently innocuous scenes are repeated, cluing Olmos and Robles into Almanzor's true identity.
- Red Herring: Initially, it seems like Géretz is Almanzor, based on his constant ordering Robles to stop investigating the case and his spying on them. It turns out that he knew Almanzor was a mole in his own team and wanted to work on it on his own to make sure he could catch the killer.
- Running Gag: If any of the people involved in a case mentions an enigma, Olmos will become very interested in the enigma, thinking it will solve the case. By chapter 5, as soon as one of the suspects mentions this, Robles heads Olmos off before he can start running with the idea.
- Sherlock Scan: Robles is well trained in this. Several times, his POV will point out the different details he notices.
- Shout-Out: Tons. Most of them by Olmos, who actually likes to point out the reference.
- The Serial Killer murders the seven men in the mercenary unit the same way it happens in Spanish medieval legend Los siete infantes de Lara.
- Chapter 7 is one to Die Hard with a Vengeance, with Olmos and Robles being forced to run around the town under orders of someone that has put a bomb on a bus. One of the tasks is almost identical to the movie's Set Piece Puzzle, but replacing gallons with liters, which Olmos points out. Foreshadows the fact that it is all a plan by Almanzor to keep the two of them away from certain points in the town so that he can put his true plan to work. And also that he wants to kill them for killing his brother.
- In Episode 8, Olmos talks about High Noon when Robles and him are getting ready for the assault.
- Spanner in the Works: the first fake Pierre Pollard might have got away with his plan, if it were not for the fact that Robles knew French and the former didn't.
- Spotting the Thread: When Cata visits Alcides in his room, she finds a strange smell she associates with dead people. Géretz' corpse is in there.
- While they are in the old headquarters, Olmos wonders something: if Géretz was Almanzor, why was he insisting in sending the GAR team to the bridge where Almanzor was going to drop the sixth victim, which could have saved the latter?
- Theme Naming: The two protagonist cops get their surnames from two kinds of trees: elms (Olmos) and oaks (Robles).
- Visual Pun: When a flock of sheep passes by the road just as Robles is going through it, he uses his Sherlock Scan to determine the sheep are of two races, "churras" and "merinas". It's a reference about a Spanish proverb about not mixing churras with merinas (i.e. do not confuse different concepts).
