'Women in Blue' fight sexism — and a serial killer — in this Mexican drama

Transcript

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH Air. The new crime series "Women In Blue" from Apple TV+ is set in Mexico in the 1970s. It's about four women cops, the first ever in Mexico City, who band together to catch a serial killer while battling their male colleagues' belief that women can't do the job. Our critic-at-large John Powers says that it's a story about the battle to shift consciousness.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Over the years, TV has offered up an entire precinct worth of women cops - from Angie Dickinson's spicy Pepper Anderson in the '70s hit "Police Woman" to Helen Mirren's flinty Jane Tennison in the great '90s series "Prime Suspect," to Mariska Hargitay's driven Olivia Benson, who will doubtless still be solving sex crimes on "Law & Order: SVU" long after the oceans have swallowed New York City. We've watched so many women with badges that it's easy to forget that there was a time when most men believed there shouldn't be any. That belief is the starting point of a new Mexican-made TV series, "Women In Blue," which is streaming on Apple TV+.

Set in the hyper-conservative Mexico of 1971, this lively, 10-part drama focuses on four vastly different women who go to work for the police and discover that it's easier to capture a serial killer than to deal with the assorted misogynies of the men around them. As the story begins, Mexico City is being terrorized by a woman-killing maniac known as the Undresser, for the way he leaves his victims. To distract from the force's failure to catch this killer, the police chief cooks up a publicity stunt. He announces that he's opening up the police department to women, an idea he feels sure will get scads of upbeat coverage. We follow four new recruits. Foremost among them is Maria, who once dreamed of being a detective but wound up an elegant, bourgeois mother with a husband you know is cheating the instant you see him.

There's her sister, Valentina, a revved-up feminist who hates the government. There's Angeles, a loner who does most of the actual crime solving. And finally, there's Gabina, whose policeman father slaps her face for joining the force against his wishes. These four shine in training. But when it comes time to do the job, dressed in blue miniskirts, they're treated as a joke. Sent out to patrol a park, they're given not weapons but a bag with coins - to call the cops if they uncover a crime. Naturally, they do uncover one. They find the Undresser's latest victim, and even though they're ordered not to, they throw themselves into tracking down the killer. Early on, I got a bit bored watching the relentless sexism faced by our heroines. I don't doubt its realism, but nothing is more tiresome than having to watch people be bigoted in stupid ways that the world has passed by.

This is 2024, and hearing some macho detective snarl that women can't be cops made me fear that "Women In Blue" might be one of those shows that simply flatters its audience by letting us feel more enlightened than the people from an earlier era. Happily, the show grows more interesting, with each of the quartet facing a different form of misogyny, even within their own families. And like them, we discover some startling wrinkles in Mexican law back then, like Article 169 of the country's civil code. It held that a Mexican woman could be forced to quit a job if it affects the, quote, "integrity" of her family. And the person who got to decide on this was her husband It's since been repealed.

Although there are original works about the shocking level of femicide in Mexico - most famously Roberto Bolano's great novel "2666" - "Women In Blue's" crime plot is pretty generic. It resorts to such tired standbys as the cultivated serial killer who gives them brainy tips from his prison cell, and the murderer deciding to target the women in blue who are investigating him. The show's real strength lies in showing how each of the heroines is transformed by joining the force, be it Angeles breaking free of her emotional isolation or the idealistic Gabina discovering the brutal corrupt truth about policing in Mexico.

The story's feminist angle clearest in Maria, with her nice house, elegant clothes and George Clooney-looking husband, is the one who would seem to have had it made. She's the one who must decide whether she'll sacrifice comfort to work in a police department whose men don't want women in it. By the end of "Women In Blue," its heroines and its audience come face to face with a radical truth. What drives the Undresser to kill women is grounded in the ingrained patriarchal values that ordinary women live with every single day.

MOSLEY: John Powers reviewed the new series "Women In Blue" on Apple TV+. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, pediatric surgeon Dr. Ala Stanford. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stanford made the decision to step away from her role as surgeon to address health inequities in Black and brown communities. Her new memoir is "Take Care Of Them Like My Own." I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.

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MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Ann Marie Baldonado, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Susan Nyakundi directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.