Time Flies

The Persistent Buzz of Survival

A certain kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to prove you belong in a world that has already moved on without you. I’ve seen my fair share of post-prison redemption arcs on television, and they usually lean on grand, tragic gestures. But *Time Flies* (originally *El tiempo de las moscas*), Netflix’s new six-episode adaptation of Claudia Piñeiro’s novels, understands that starting over is mostly just embarrassing. It’s about not knowing where to stand in a room, or how to apologize to a daughter who grew up while you were locked away. It’s quiet, itchy work.

Directed by Ana Katz and Benjamín Naishtat [1], the series follows Inés (Carla Peterson) and Mariana, better known as "La Manca" (Nancy Dupláa), two women who meet in prison and attempt to go straight by launching a modest pest control business [1, 2]. They drive a cheerful pickup truck from job to job, spraying chemicals in the corners of kitchens they could never afford to live in [2, 3]. It’s a brilliant narrative engine. Fumigation places them squarely in the private, unvarnished spaces of the upper class, rendering them socially invisible while giving them access to everyone’s dirty secrets [1, 3].



What anchors the show isn’t the central mystery, but the weary, lived-in chemistry between its leads [4]. Peterson and Dupláa are Argentine television royalty, famously headlining the breezy hit *100 días para enamorarse* years ago [4]. Here, stripped of soap-opera gloss, their dynamic is far more transactional and prickly [5]. Peterson’s physical performance is a masterclass in internalized panic. Her shoulders seem perpetually locked near her ears; she holds her arms close to her torso as if trying to take up as little physical space as possible. Inés spent fifteen years inside for murdering her husband’s lover [2]—a crime unpacked in a gripping third-episode flashback [2]—and Peterson plays her like a woman still bracing for a blow. Dupláa, conversely, is all frontal, blunt energy. La Manca is pragmatic, loud, and seemingly better adjusted, though the script smartly undercuts this bravado by weaving in a quiet struggle with her failing health and empty bank account [3].

The show functions beautifully as a slice-of-life comedy until it abruptly doesn't. The pivot happens during what seems like a routine job at the sprawling home of Susana Bonar (played with terrifying, bourgeois entitlement by Valeria Lois) [4, 6]. I couldn't look away from this scene. Bonar doesn't just ask them for a stronger chemical; she glides around her pristine living room, pouring tea, casually inquiring if the poison Inés uses could, theoretically, stop a human heart [6]. Lois delivers the line not as a dramatic threat, but as a banal administrative request. She knows exactly who Inés is. She knows her past. The camera lingers on Peterson’s hands—her knuckles whitening around the strap of her pesticide tank. In a matter of seconds, the power dynamic in the room entirely collapses, pulling the women back into the moral quicksand they thought they'd escaped.



I’m not sure the series sustains this tonal tightrope for its entire runtime. Sometimes the pivot from screwball survivalism to genuine noir feels jarring. And then there's the voiceover. The writers saddle Inés with an internal monologue full of entomological metaphors—comparing human behavior to the flies and roaches she kills. It’s a literary device inherited directly from Piñeiro’s prose, and on screen, it lands with a thud. As *La Nación*’s review aptly pointed out, the show occasionally suffers from a "tendency to over-explain," relying on these heavy-handed analogies to tell us what Peterson’s expressive face has already communicated [6]. Trust the audience. We get it.

Yet, even when the pacing sags, the show remains deeply watchable because its emotional baseline is so incredibly honest. The series doesn’t treat the women's friendship as a magical cure for trauma. They snap at each other. They make terrible, selfish decisions.



Katz and Naishtat have crafted something that sits slightly askew from the typical crime thriller [2, 4]. *Otros Cines* noted that it carries an "adventure cinema spirit a-la-*Thelma & Louise*" [7], but I'd argue it's much less romantic than that [4]. There's no grand drive off a cliff here. There's just the grueling, daily labor of trying to stay clean in a world that constantly begs you to get your hands dirty. *Time Flies* isn't a flawless piece of television, but it lingers. It left me thinking about how easily a life can be derailed, and how much sheer, exhausting effort it takes to put it back on the tracks.