Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Little Nicholas: Life Of A Scoundrel’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About A 20-Year-Old Who Had The Ear Of The Spanish Government

Little Nicholas: Life Of A Scoundrel is a three-part docuseries about how, at the age of 20, Francisco Nicolas Gomez Iglesias, dubbed “Little Nicholas” by those who both loved and hated him, had enough influence on the Spanish government to attend the coronation of King Felipe VI in 2014 as an invited guest. Nicolas himself is interviewed throughout the series, as are government officials, his mother, and a number of journalists, all of whom give conflicting reports about just who he was and what his connections were.

LITTLE NICHOLAS: LIFE OF A SCOUNDREL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “I’m going to tell you the story about a nobody who reached the top. But this person who reached the top shouldn’t have been there,” says Francisco Nicolas Gomez Iglesias, whom we see reflected in a bathroom mirror.

The Gist: From almost the time he was born in 1994, Nicolas had an interest in being a leader, and was always made himself visible to people he thought could be influential. We see him, at the age of 10, talking on a news report about the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, and he persuaded his mother to enroll him in an expensive private high school, despite their working class background. When his grades didn’t cut it, he somehow managed to call in favors and was transferred to a school for elite athletes, despite, as one journalist says, “he didn’t even know how to play chess.”

According to Nicolas, he had connections with the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI), the country’s intelligence agency. But journalists who did the research for the docuseries found no connection; in fact, the house that he claimed that CNI rented for him in a swanky neighborhood in Madrid was actually owned by a construction company that is suspected for trading favors for lucrative government contracts.

But how did he find himself at the coronation, a 20-year-old kid who hadn’t even graduated college yet? That’s what a lot of the people interviewed wonder. Did he have someone operating behind the scenes? Is he just that slick of an individual? And what precipitated his downfall?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Little Nicholas: Life Of A Scoundrel has all the makings of a scammer docuseries along the lines of The Lady And The Dale.

Our Take: There is a lot of style to Little Nicholas: Life Of A Scoundrel, with the filmmakers employing bold graphics and depicting Nicolas and some of the other players in his scheme as pieces on a massive board game; the Nicholas game piece is especially well-done, with him looking exactly like the college kid he was, with the untucked shirt, loosened tie and casual blazer passing for business attire.

What goes somewhat unexplored in the first episode is just how Nicolas got to the point he did when he was so young. Sure, he was a charmer, but how could anyone schmooze their way to the level of influence he had over a major European government that quickly? Surely it was more than just knowing the right people.

That’s the part that’s essentially teased out in the first episode. There were rumblings that Jose Manuel, a police chief in Madrid, was the power behind the kid, but Manuel denies it. It does seem like Nicolas was brought down by whoever might have been supporting his efforts at the time, but by the end of the first episode, who those people are is still undefined.

But, let’s be clear: Nicolas did have some real influence at a young age. The arrogant manner that he puts on during his interview segments makes us think of him as a real life Cousin Greg from Succession, though with more charm. He’s a guy who sidled up to those in power and helped them just enough to be let inside their circles of trust, even though in reality he had no idea what he was doing.

We don’t even know how much of what Nicolas says in his interviews is actually true. It might not even matter, given how entertained we were at the inflated opinion of himself he had.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: “The matter of the coronation is very simple. Very simple,” says Nicolas.

Sleeper Star: Nicolas’ mother, Maria del Carmen Iglesias, seems to have some pretty ready explanations for everything that her son was involved in. She has no suspicions that something more sinister was going on?

Most Pilot-y Line: This isn’t a bad thing, but a good one: The filmmakers were kind enough to repeat identifying graphics often for each person being interviewed, so we didn’t have to try to remember the role each speaker had in the story.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even if you don’t know the story told in Little Nicholas: Life Of A Scoundrel, it’s still fascinating to see this seemingly nondescript college student amass so much power and influence before he was even legal U.S. drinking age.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.