My Reviews of Global Netflix Series – Portuguese

Glória is Netflix’s first original series from Portugal. It’s based on  true events that took place in 1968 in the middle of the cold war. There is small town in Portugal, about 50 miles north of Lisbon, called Gloria de Ribatejo. It’s perfectly situated for RFE (Radio Free Europe) to broadcast anti-Soviet propaganda into eastern bloc countries. The series opens with an ex-Soviet general taping a broadcast calling on Soviet soldiers not to invade Czechoslovakia. The tape is taken to the RARET (an arm of RFE) station at Gloria to be broadcast over RFE. 48 hours earlier, Joao – son of the Portuguese secretary of state – is about to start a new job at Gloria as a radio engineer. Turns out Joao, who was emotionally and physically scarred by the colonial wars in Angola, has been turned by the KGB and ordered to change the tape. The director of RARET, James and his wife,  Ann work for the CIA. Some of the Portuguese engineers and staff work for PIDE (Portuguese Secret Service). It looks like almost everyone at Glória is  a spy for one agency or another. Glória is an excellent spy thriller with lots of twists, turns, murders,  brutality that will keep you guessing from one episode  to another about what will happen next.