When No One Sees Us (Cuando nadie nos ve) comes from Spain. It’s a series about two women investigating several crimes in a small town near a U.S. Air Base in southern Spain.

When No One Sees Us starts with a missing soldier and a civilian suicide. Almost immediately American Lt. Megaly Castillo (Mariela Garriga) is sent to investigate the disappearance of the soldier. She works closely with the local police, in particular Lucía Gutiérrez (Maribel Verdú), who is working the suicide case.

Later, there’s another death to investigate. A young local man disappears and is found dead.

María Yagüe (Abril Montilla) is a new police officer. Lucía is mentoring her. She works on the cases and notices some things the more experienced police miss.

The officer in charge of the base doesn’t trust Megaly to be on her own so he assigns Sgt. Andrew Taylor (Austin Amelio) to be her driver.

Many characters in the town have story arcs. Lucía Gutiérrez’s daughter and mother-in-law, several police officers and soldiers, the mayor, a businessman, and a drug peddler who is dating Lucía Gutiérrez’s daughter all get worked into the plot. Even the local bartender, Ramón (Eloy Azorín), has a place in the story.

Megaly Castillo, on the other hand, was not well developed. She was a tough soldier, a good investigator, and not much more. We learn she’s from Chicago and might have some eating issues. Not a lot to go on.

The entire mystery happens during Easter week. Every day the Catholic Church celebrates a new holy day. The entire town is involved in this daily. There’s a parade where men carry a large float on their shoulders down the street. The holy figure on the float changes daily as Easter approaches.

The photos on IMDb showed the European release of this series. There, the men called the Nazarene who marched in front of the float wore white robes and pointed hats. A little too similar to the KKK for America, because the version we see here has the Nazarene colorized to be in all black.

The religious ceremonies, new drugs on the street, the suicide, and the assorted murders all happen at the same time. It’s all tangled up together.

The cooperation and chemistry between the two women investigators is what made the series work for me. There were unexplained scenes and what felt like unnecessary subplots, but the two women in the lead kept me watching.

In a lengthy flashback in episode five the viewers learn who the killer is. The two women don’t figure it out until later. It’s a dangerous discovery.

I did not like the way the story ended. Well, they got the bad guy, but otherwise I did not like the way some of the women characters were written. The series was written and directed by men, so that may be why I didn’t like the choices that felt like out-of-date tropes.

Overall, the series was interesting, a little subdued and slow, but watchable. It’s on HBO Max.