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The Gardener is a Spanish-language series that was released on Netflix on April 11, 2025. Spanning six episodes, the mystery thriller is directed by Mikel Rueda and Rafa Montesinos. Miguel Sáez Carral serves as the show's creator and co-writer alongside Isa Sánchez. Among its executive producers are Miguel Lorenzo and Jose Manuel Lorenzo.
The Gardener features Álvaro Rico as the titular character Elmer. Cecilia Suárez plays his mother, China Jurado, and Catalina Sopelana stars as his love interest, Violeta.
After living a life devoid of any emotions, Elmer develops a brain tumor that allows him to feel his emotions for the first time in his adult life. However, his tumor is surgically removed (against his will), returning Elmer to his emotionless life by the end of the series.
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The official synopsis of The Gardener, as per Netflix, reads:
"Cold. Quick. Ruthless. Elmer is a gifted hitman - until he experiences something that threatens to blow his secret and his cover as a gardener: love."
Why does Elmer become a hitman in The Gardener?
The Gardener begins with Elmer stabbing a man at the beach with a fatal serum. A voiceover of his mother, China Jurado, reveals that Elmer is unable to feel emotions like happiness, sadness, or love after a car accident at age six damaged his frontal lobes. Due to his medical condition, he lives a solitary life wherein his mother is his only source of connection.
China uses her son's unique ability to turn him into a hitman for hire. She saves the money from his contract killings to fulfill her dream of buying her family house in Mexico.
Elmer grows up loving horticulture and devotes his spare time to tending to his garden, which doubles as a decomposition island. After killing his victims, Elmer buries them in his garden so that the dead bodies can enrich the soil and help with the growth of plants.
In the second episode, Elmer is found to have a brain tumor that causes him to experience feelings for the first time since the accident. When he meets his next target, a young teacher named Violeta, he experiences the sensation of being in love and changes his mind about killing her.
Elmer also refuses to get surgery to remove the tumor, to his mother's dismay, as it will render him emotionless again. Furthermore, Elmer's refusal to kill Violeta drives a wedge between him and his mother, as she needs the huge payout to move to Mexico.
In the finale episode of The Gardener, China hits her son over the head and takes him to the hospital to get his tumor removed against his wishes.
After the surgery is successful, Elmer reverts to his old state of being emotionless. He still harbors residual resentment towards China but lives with her and continues to work on the garden.
Violeta and Elmer fall in love in The Gardener
Violeta also has a violent past, in which she accidentally killed her ex-boyfriend Xoan. His clingy nature and constant threats to commit suicide left her frequently frustrated.
During one particularly heated argument, Violeta pushed him and unwillingly caused his death. However, she was declared innocent after her friend, Catuxa, became her alibi.
However, Xoan's mother, Sabela, blamed Violeta for her son's death and hence, paid China to kill her off. Even Xoan's best friend, Mon, accused Violeta of getting away with murder. Elmer, who was present with her at the time, got so angry that he killed Mon unprompted later on.
After Elmer and Violeta get together in episode 3, he starts acting very needy and makes her feel suffocated. Her friends also warn her about keeping him away to avoid a repeat of Xoan. Elmer's persistence seems too much for Violeta, who hooks up with another guy to get rid of him.
Heartbroken, Elmer plans to kill Violeta the next time he sees her. However, they reconcile after she apologizes and confesses her love for him.
In episode 5, Elmer finds out that Sabela has been blackmailing his mother for not having killed Violeta yet. He goes over to her house and, during their ensuing scuffle, stabs her to death.
Instead of disposing of her body as usual, Elmer makes the crime scene look like a robbery that got out of hand. He steals her jewelry and hands it over to China so that she can buy the house in Mexico.
When Violeta figures out that Elmer murdered Sabela, she freaks out and runs away. However, she is soon kidnapped by Orson, who China hired to finish her off. He takes her to the forest to shoot her, but Violeta fights back and smashes his head with a rock till he is dead.
With blood splattered all over her, Violeta calls Elmer to help her dispose of the dead body. He places the corpse in a car with Sabela's stolen jewelry in the backseat and drives the vehicle off a cliff to make it look like he was escaping after killing Sabela.
While driving her back, Elmer comes clean to Violeta about having killed 11 people so far. He tells her that she was his latest target, but he couldn't go through with it as he fell in love with her.
Although she still loves him, Violeta decides to leave town with her dog, Milky, to make a fresh start. However, she returns to Elmer at the end of the finale episode with a request to kill someone for her. Elmer responds with, "Who?" before the screen cuts to black.
Do Torres and Carrera catch the killers in The Gardener?
Detective Torres and his partner, Carrera, are called to investigate the disappearance of the swimmer, Anton, at the beach in episode 1 of The Gardener.
Despite Torres believing that Anton drowned, Carrera feels strongly that something nefarious is at play. She is right, as it turns out that Anton was an abusive husband and father, which prompted his wife to hire China and Elmer to take him out.
While investigating Mon's disappearance, the detective duo comes across around 10 missing cases with the same MO. They suspect the involvement of a serial killer. However, instead of handing over the case to the homicide department, they continue their search for the perpetrator themselves.
While looking up ways to dispose of a body, Carrera learns that human remains make excellent manure. As she begins putting together all the evidence, Carrera concludes that China and Elmer are behind the killings and have been burying the bodies in the garden to avoid any suspicion.
She sneaks into the garden alone to take pictures of the plants under UV light. If the leaves show spots on them, it indicates the presence of a corpse buried underneath who was once a smoker.
Sure enough, Carrera gets the results she had hoped for and requests a search warrant to excavate the whole garden.
However, when Carrera and Torres dig up China’s garden, they don't find a single dead body buried underneath. China proactively asked Orson to remove all the dead bodies the night before, after noticing Carrera snooping around her garden. Orson dumped all the human remains into the sea, but the secret doesn't stay hidden for long.
In the mid-credits scene of The Gardener's finale episode, the human remains wash up on the shore of the Pedras Negras beach, giving Carrera and Torres the breakthrough they were looking for all along.
All episodes of The Gardener are available to stream on Netflix.
