‘Time Flies’ Review: An Unconventional Crime Series About Women Starting Over (Netflix)

Two novels by Claudia Piñeiro, Tuya and El tiempo de las moscas—originally conceived as a sequel—are fused in this Argentine series, which takes the title of the latter, the one that ultimately carries the most narrative weight across its six episodes. Staying true to the spirit of the source material, the events of Tuya are reworked here as the past of one of the protagonists, while the bulk of the story unfolds fifteen years later, in something close to the present, incorporating the second lead character.

Carla Peterson plays Inés, and the first thing we learn about her—through what is shown on screen and what she narrates in voice-over—is that fifteen years earlier she went to prison for what appears to have been a murder, triggered by discovering her husband (Diego Cremonesi) having a drink in a bar with his lover. The series devotes its third episode to unpacking that episode in detail (nearly everything connected to Tuya is concentrated there), but its real focus lies in the present, after Inés is released from prison. We meet her working alongside another former inmate, nicknamed “La Manca” (Nancy Dupláa), as fumigators, driving their cheerful pickup truck from job to job.

What begins as a near–slice-of-life comedy—built around Inés’s rookie mistakes and the hard-earned “wisdom” of her more experienced partner—gradually darkens when they cross paths with a client (Valeria Lois) who seems to know about Inés’s past and blackmails her into helping commit a crime. As Inés struggles to figure out how to contribute to this coerced criminal partnership while also dealing with unresolved issues from her past (she has an adult daughter she no longer speaks to), La Manca shows her skills as a private investigator. With the help of her brother and business partner (Osqui Guzmán), she tries to unravel the client’s true intentions. At the same time, La Manca must contend with a health problem that costs more than she can afford, a pressure that ultimately pushes Inés to accept—at least initially—the client’s potentially criminal request.

This sets the stage for a crime story that, at least for a while, operates at a relatively low intensity, functioning less as a suspense engine than as a framework for observing the relationship between these two women and the world around them—a world they are still struggling to navigate, Inés more so than La Manca. La Manca is a lesbian and strategically uses that fact in her work, trying to extract information from a housekeeper (Jimena Anganuzzi), while Inés forms a relationship with another client (Diego Velázquez) that is initially based not on romance but on mutual assistance in solving practical problems.

The series’ third episode takes place entirely in the past and offers a deeper understanding of Inés’s character, as well as the circumstances that led to the act that landed her in prison. Directed by Benjamín Naishtat—who helms three episodes, with the others directed by Ana Katz—this installment is the most tense and accomplished in an otherwise gentle, not especially revelatory series. It proposes an unusual tone for a story that could easily have been told in a more conventional way. Not all of the directors’ choices fully work, but there is a clear effort to rethink how a classic crime narrative—built on secrets, mysteries, and tension—can be filmed from a more personal perspective.

A strong ensemble cast—beyond Peterson and Dupláa, the series also features Carlos Belloso, Lola Berthet, Diego Gentile, María Marull, and Claudia Cantero, among others—helps the show navigate some of the narrative swamps it wanders into. The crime plot itself can feel forced and occasionally confusing, and the suspenseful situations don’t always land as intended, but whenever the story falters, the actors manage to steady it as best they can. The final result is ambiguous: there is undeniable talent, intelligence, and creativity on display, yet the story itself never quite achieves the emotional impact it seems to be aiming for.

In some ways, Time Flies—with a voice-over overloaded with metaphors about insects as reflections of human behavior—shares more than a few similarities with Black Widows, the series starring Malena Pichot and Pilar Gamboa. The Naishtat/Katz show is less overtly funny and noticeably more melancholic, perhaps reflecting the age of its characters and the world they inhabit. On the surface, it appears to be the story of two fumigator friends and their misadventures, but underneath, it feels like a tale about survival: about two women who, for different reasons, were forced to break away from living under patriarchy in order to build a world of their own. One where survival is not easy—but where it is still worth trying.