In the One Hundred Years of Solitude Finale, Macondo Is in Danger

Spoilers below.

After acquiring the rights to Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien Años de Soledad (100 Years of Solitude) back in 2019, Netflix finally released the first eight episodes of the highly anticipated adaptation. Led by Argentinian-born director Alex García López with Márquez’s two sons as executive producers, the magical realist show takes viewers on an enchanting and heartbreaking journey.

A multigenerational story following the Buendía family, the first eight episodes of the series delve into the background of patriarch José Arcadio Buendía and his wife Úrsula Iguarán Buendía in the early 1820s. After leaving their hometown to discover a new home for themselves, the Buendías establish the fictional town of Macondo in Colombia.

By the time we reach episode eight, it’s the early 1900s. The final episode in part 1 (Netflix has already confirmed a part 2 with eight more episodes covering the second half of the book) is titled “So Many Flowers Fell From the Sky,” a quote from the novel and hint to the tear-jerking events that’ll take place during the hour-long finale.

The episode opens with Colonel Aureliano Buendía (Claudio Cataño) being led through Macondo as a prisoner of the Conservative Party. His mother, Úrsula (Marleyda Soto), demands to see him despite her son being in solitary confinement. The psychic colonel has come to terms with his impending execution as leader of the defeated Liberal forces, but tells his mother that his premonitions have stopped and he cannot see his death.

Ahead of his execution, town fortune teller Pilar Ternera (Viña Machado) tells the leader of the Conservative Party that the death of anyone who kills the colonel is guaranteed—it’s an ominous message that Captain Roque Carnicero disregards in the moment, but ends up being subtle foreshadowing to what happens later on in the episode.

On the day of his execution, Aureliano reminisces on the day his father took him and his older brother, José Arcadio (named after their father, played by Edgar Vittorino) to see ice at the traveler’s carnival. He closes his eyes and accepts his fate. Despite the executioners being nervous about the fortune teller’s prediction, they raise their guns. A gunshot goes off and Aureliano opens his eyes to see his brother and his sister-in-law Rebeca (Laura Sofía Grueso “Akima”) holding the executioners at gunpoint. Carneciro accepts this as a form of divine intervention and calls off the execution before joining Aureliano’s ranks as a Liberal fighter.

Claudio Cataño as Aureliano.

Shortly after saving his younger brother, José Arcadio, who has begun to charge landowners taxes, is killed. A trail of blood leads back to the Buendía family house, alerting Úrsula to her son’s fate. The narrator says no one knows who killed the eldest Buendía, although it is heavily implied that one of the farmers took action against him after taking portions of their profits.

Back on the battlefield, Aureliano is approached by the Conservative Party representatives and urged to sign a peace treaty. Refusing to sign away the dignity of his people, Aureliano and his troops continue their fight for the Liberal cause. Soon, a wanted poster with Aureliano’s face appears around town. The Liberal party has betrayed him and put a reward out for his capture or death. Aureliano symbolically burns the red scarf signifying his party colors and declares to continue his mission with a rebel army. This is a significant shift for his character, who has always been an advocate for the people. He’s now attacking innocents to rid Colombia of the conservatives.

A decade of war passes and peace is finally brought back to Macondo under the rule of General José Raquel Moncada. Despite being a conservative leader, he becomes instrumental in helping Macondo navigate the Colombian civil war.

In a strange turn of events, Amaranta (Loren Sofia Paz), the only biological daughter of José Arcadio and Úrsula, begins to have feelings for her adopted son and biological nephew, Aureliano José. They begin an affair, but Amaranta decides to end it, forcing Aureliano José to join the frontlines with his father.

Towards the end of the episode, we see Colonel Aureliano dream of his father in a field with a bright yellow flower in his hands. He writes home to his mother saying that his premonitions have begun again and José Arcadio (Diego Vásquez) is going to die.

Back in Macondo, we see José Arcadio, who is not yet ready to “sleep” chase his wife through an infinite number of rooms, reliving significant parts of his life. He sees the truth of his friend Melquíades’s death and the man he killed when he was younger, Prudencío, leads him into the stars. It’s a powerful allegory for the passage of death.

The night the Buendía patriarch dies, thousands of tiny yellow flowers fall from the sky, coating the town in a sea of sunshine. José Arcadio’s funeral procession is led through the flower-littered streets with his widow close by his coffin.

Marleyda Soto as Úrsula.

The episode ends years later in the early 1900s. The civil war has raged on and Aureliano has finally returned back to Macondo with hundreds of heavily armed rebels. His mother begs him not to attack, but he refuses to listen to her and intends on taking back his hometown from the conservatives. The audience watches as Úrsula laments that her mother was right: She and José Arcadio did have monsters for children.

Despite eight full hours of non-stop drama and thought-provoking mysticisms, the final episode of Cien Años de Soledad leaves you craving more. The next eight episodes, which do not yet have a release date, will hopefully be even more riveting. Will Macondo be retaken by Aureliano? What will happen to Úrsula now that her husband is dead? And, most importantly, which of the Buendía offspring will take center stage in the remainder of the story?