Can Netflix’s ‘The Longest Night’ Become The New ‘Prison Break’?

The generally ‘meh’ response to Prison Break’s belated fifth season in 2017 suggested no one was buying the “logical and believable explanation to why the characters are alive and still moving around the world.” So, with Wentworth Miller’s near-superheroic convict seemingly now free to live a normal life, there’s a gap in the market for a penitentiary potboiler that makes Ernest Goes to Jail look the height of realism.

Step forward Spanish-language Netflix original The Longest Night, which premiered on July 8. Unlike the elaborate plan of Fox River State’s tattooed finest, the end goal here isn’t to break out of a big house, but to break into one, namely the Monte Baruca Correctional Psychiatric Facility which has just welcomed into its thick steel gates the “most prolific serial killer in modern history.”

That title belongs to Simón Lago (Luis Callejo), a man who, despite showing little interest in cannibalism, appears to have based his entire mild-mannered yet menacing persona on Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. You half-expect him to start salivating over some fava beans and a nice Chianti every time he slithers into shot. 

Nicknamed The Alligator, Lago has only just been captured for the murders of 20 individuals, all of whom were discovered wrapped in plastic bags (the disturbing opening scene sees his penultimate victim slowly suffocating before being buried alive). And for reasons you’d expect to, but frustratingly don’t, come clear he gets fast-tracked to the nearest mental institution instead of a maximum-security prison. 

Lago, however, seems several steps ahead. “This’ll be a very long night,” he warns prison director Hugo (Narcos’ Alberto Ammann) on their introductory meeting which, as the early playing of “Jingle Bell Rock” suggests, takes place on Christmas Eve. He’s not wrong. Minutes later, a trigger-happy armed gang show up demanding to take the psychopath for their own mysterious gain. And they’re prepared to get in any way necessary. 

Soon after, we learn the newbie has somehow already prepared for such a scenario: should he be handed over, then Hugo’s eldest daughter Laura (Maria Caballero), who’s just been abducted by two apparent minions, will become the latest addition to his kill list. So far, so nail-biting concept. 

What promises to be a curious game of mind chess, though, quickly turns into an unremitting bloodbath, with the shocking execution of three ‘innocent’ patients serving as a catalyst. Director Óscar Pedraza previously helmed five episodes of Netflix’s hyperviolent revenge caper Sky Rojo, and there’s a similar over the top approach here. Indeed, it only takes until midway through the second episode for the situation to escalate into all-out warfare between those inside and outside the jail, with everything from blazing fireballs and spectacular car crashes thrown into the deadly mix.  

Pedraza knows how to frame these high-octane set-pieces effectively, particularly the tense gun-toting corridor-based showdowns which briefly make you feel like you’re playing a first-person shoot-em-up. It’s just a shame most of the characters involved have about as much depth as a Call of Duty screensaver. 

Although he’s given a workplace romance and another two kids he has to rescue from the clutches of his facility’s dangerous inhabitants, Hugo makes for a pretty non-descript hero. And other than Cherokee (Daniel Albaladejo, ironically a dead ringer for Prison Break’s Peter Stormare), an amputee with both a strong sense of loyalty and a Shawshank Redemption-esque plan, the inmates who also attempt to take over the asylum are pretty much defined by their illness. 

But while you might not particularly care who makes it out alive, screenwriters Xosé Moraisa and Victoriano Sierra Ferreiro still keep you hooked with an abundance of increasingly outlandish twists which continually blur the boundaries between who really are the good and bad guys: watch out for the late-in-the-day rooftop push that will leave your jaws well and truly dropped. 

Of course, with only six 45-minute episodes to tell the story with, it’s perhaps little surprise only a few key players get fleshed out. Though no-one’s going to grumble about its refreshing brevity – you can binge the whole thing in the time it takes to watch the last two episodes of Stranger Things – some may feel short-changed by the lack of definitive answers, especially if Netflix’s recently busy axe falls on the show before the airing of a second season. 

The fact the finale blatantly sets one up might ring alarm bells for those who believed Prison Break should have finished after the first major escape. It’s not called The Longest Week, after all. Luckily, the remaining questions are just about intriguing enough to make all the sheer unadulterated carnage worth another visit. 

Jon O’Brien (@jonobrien81) is a freelance entertainment and sports writer from the North West of England. His work has appeared in the likes of Vulture, Esquire, Billboard, Paste, i-D and The Guardian.