The Apple TV+ miniseries Land of Women (Tierra de Mujeres) is an intergenerational drama-comedy that reels you in right away, despite a mildly distracting subplot. Wine connoisseuse Gala (Eva Longoria) has a settled life in New York, until criminals demanding $15 million back from her husband drive her out of the country. Her husband only tells her she needs to flee before disappearing himself, so Gala collects her daughter Kate (Victoria Bazua) and mother Julia (Carmen Maura) and travels to the remote wine town in northern Spain Julia fled decades earlier — with no idea what to do next.

Land Of Women Shows Poignant Dynamic Between 3 Generations Of Women

Land of Women comprises a compelling intergenerational story, showcasing how Gala, Kate, and Julia all have different opinions about the world and womanhood, how they frustrate each other by trying to impart their opinions in the form of advice, and how they are ultimately all trying to protect each other. Longoria portrays Gala as annoyingly assertive, because what else is she going to be — she’s in the middle of nowhere with her 17-year-old daughter and mother afflicted by dementia, with all her credit cards canceled, bank accounts overdrawn, and cash gone from getting there.

While Gala stumbles through this new reality and continues to insist that a husband she will likely never see again is taking care of things, Julia is confronted by her past. Julia was the town pariah and, considered sexually promiscuous in her youth, left after getting pregnant, effectively abandoning her sister Mariona (Gloria Muñoz). Meanwhile, Kate is predictably thrown by having been brought somewhere with no cell reception and just wants to get back to her girlfriend Maggie (Layna Sheppard). Evidently, tensions are running high.

Their relationships are complicated: Gala isn’t happy to find out that her father isn’t definitely dead and could be any of the men in this town. For all her flaws, Julia has the measure of her son-in-law better than her daughter and keeps demanding to know what he has done. Kate frets about her father, whom she has a more amicable relationship with due to her mother’s disapproval of Maggie, although Gala’s problem is less with Maggie and more with Maggie’s judgmental, conservative parents, who don’t seem to know that Kate is trans.

Land Of Women Doesn’t Know How To Also Be A Crime Drama

The Apple TV+ series’ biggest weakness is that the crime drama carries on after the first episode — it’s obviously not the writers’ strength. Land of Women forgoes the courtesy explanation of why Gala doesn’t just go to the police and explain that she is in danger, something I’ve come to expect from this scenario in fiction.

Completely cutting us off from what is going on with the people who want their money back would have been bolder, and it would have been truer to Gala’s perspective. The first two episodes seemingly set up the rest of the series to be a character-driven narrative of Gala using what she is good at — wine — to enter a new business partnership to support her family on her own. Had Land of Women focused more on this and less on the crime aspect, the series would have been stronger.

Land Of Women Has A Wild Narrative But More Than Enough Heart

The most interesting parts are the arguments and reconciliations among the women. There is also something freeing in the depiction of women’s sexuality. Gala and Kate find their own flirtationships in La Muga — Gala with the ruggedly handsome Amat (Santiago Cabrera), who works for the wine cooperative, and Kate with a local girl. They are technically both in committed relationships, but Gala’s husband is a jerk and Kate is 17, so no one cares.

What can be said for the series as a whole is that my attention never wavered, not for a moment. Land of Women becomes tonally strange in later episodes, and the ending is rushed and weird, but the moments between the characters are perfect. Land of Women could have just stuck to intergenerational tensions and wine, and it might have been a masterpiece, but it’s still worth a watch for a handful of stunning scenes alone.