The Devil's Maw (Original title: Дяволското гърло [Dyavolskoto gurlo]) was a 2019 Bulgarian Murder Mystery thriller series.
In 2016, the victim of a gruesome murder is discovered in a lake in the Rhodope mountains in Bulgaria's South. As Philip Chanov, the commissar from the nearby regional seat of Smolyan, takes up the case, an agent of the National State Security Agency, Mia Yazova, is also dispatched to assist. In the context of the 2015 refugee crisis, fragile ethnic and religious peace and distrust between authorities, the investigation threatens to shatter the fragile peace in the region and uncover deeper, darker secrets, all the while the mysterious murderer keeps leaving a trail of mutilated bodies.
This series features the following tropes:
- Asshole Victim: All of the victims as they were being punished for ruining the murderer's family:
- Peter Karakehayov and Dicho Manolov were traffickers of Syrian refugees and in communist times were the cops who killed Asen's father on Prosecutor Chanov's orders.
- Nedko Roshanov lived with a young refugee woman whom he abused. He was also a spy for Chanov.
- Deniz Ramadanova was Prosecutor Chanov's lover who received a lot of benefits from him. She was tasked with institutionalising Asen's mother and destroying her mental health.
- Barbarian Tribe: Pop says as much about the locals.Pop: Two ways you can get the truth out of us mountain folk. You get us drunk or you stuff us in the trunk.
- Body Motifs: Mia is quick to suspect one, citing the particular ways in which the bodies have been mutilated: the eyes of Karakehayov being gouged out and replaced with those of a sheep, the severed hand of Manolov, the severed tongue of Roshanov, and the crude Lobotomy performed on Ramadanova. She's right, Asen did indeed punish the victims for being complicit in his family's destruction. "The eyes that bore witness", meaning Karakehayov watched as Asen's father was being beaten to death; "The hand that struck the killing blow" means Manolov carried it out; "The tongue that snitched" is that of Roshanov who reported him to the authorities for possessing land for them to steal; "The whore who took her sanity" was the psychiatrist Deniz Ramadanova who used drugs to destroy the sanity of Asen's mother.
- Cave Mouth: The eponymous real-life cave, Dyavolskoto gurlo ("The Devil's Throat") is Where It All Began because Karakehayov's body went from there to the Dark Lake where it was found. In real life, the cave is largely still unexplored, its underground river leads to an unknown location, and it was believed to be the entrance to the Underworld where Orpheus went to rescue Eurydice. It is also the site of the finale, where Asen kills Prosecutor Chanov in revenge.
- Five-Man Band: The core team assembled to investigate includes Commissar Philip Chanov, who's heading the team; Agent Mia Yazova, whose unorthodox tactics often work better, but who can get a bit too persistent; Manol "Pop" Popnedelchev, who's willing to play rough and get results quickly; Donka Chilingirova, a persistent cop who serves as The Face when talking to women in a conservative community; and Krasimir Karov, an aging cop awaiting retirement, often dismissed as a slacker, but sometimes his old-school tactics help the team.
- Headbutting Heroes: Philip as the overconfident local commissar who's not willing to admit any weakness, vs. Mia as the tough but at times arrogant secret agent who's Seen It All. The Belligerent Sexual Tension doesn't help.
- Red Herring: Plenty.
- At first, Karakehayov's son is suspected as he he has a crush on his father's girlfriend and often goes to a remote cottage where he is suspected to have been preparing the murder. Turns out he just goes there to paint icons in solitude.
- Next, a Syrian refugee is suspected to have murdered Karakehayov after getting high on drugs. Karakehayov mugged and beat him, but the refugee is otherwise unrelated to his death and was seeking asylum and a new identity since he is the brother of a terrorist whom he wants nothing to do with.
- A beekeeper living at a remote house next to the second murder site is the bext suspect who is secretive and hostile. He was hiding something else, namely abusing his wife.
- A young activist Mia's daughter befriends gets suspicious when he takes her to a remote cottage. He just loves hiking.
- A military man storms into the town hall and takes Prosecutor Chanov hostage. He is an unrelated Right-Wing Militia Fanatic frustrated by Chanov's inaction toward refugee violence.
- Asen, Filip's brother, is suspected by Mia to have murdered Roshanov because he mistrested his girlfriend whom Asen was in love with. Asen also was out in the nearby woods in the night of the murder. He reveals he was taking care to smuggle Amena (the woman) and her daughter away and then visited his mother's grave. It's a cover story and the grave is empty. Asen is guilty if all four murders.
- Room Full of Crazy: When he enters Asen's cottage at the end, Filip is sickened at the sight of walls full of newspaper clippings about the murders and a list of the victims and their crimes.
- Scenery Porn: The series showcases the beauty and mysticism of the relatively untouched Rhodope mountains with lots of scenic shots.
