When Money Heist, or La Casa de Papel, first premiered on Netflix in 2017, it was clear that the streaming platform had hit the jackpot. Not only did the series become the most watched non-English-language program at the time, but Money Heist quicklybecame a cultural sensation. With red jumpsuits and Dalí masks popping up everywhere, from political protests in Puerto Rico, a real-life robbery in France, to countless Halloween costumes, the series reached every corner of the world.
With so much love for the series and its characters, Money Heist received massive support from Netflix, getting renewed all the way to Season 5, which concluded the series in 2021. But while the series reached an end with its twisty fifth installment, Netflix wasn’t done with the Money Heist world just yet. In 2023, the platform released Berlin and the Jewels of Paris, originally only named Berlin, a prequel series following the glory days of Pedro Alonso‘s heist expert and fan-favorite character, Berlin. Much like its successor, the prequel was a streaming hit, grasping the Top 10 in 91 countries, and earning 348 million hours viewed and 53 million total views in the premiere week alone.
As a result, the prequel series was renewed for a second installment, titled Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine, which released worldwide on May 15, 2026. In just three days, the series has already made waves. Per FlixPatrol, the series is #1 worldwide, and is gearing up to become another sure-fire hit on the platform.
What Is ‘Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine’ About?
In Season 1 of the prequel series, viewers saw Berlin’s signature charm and genius as he assembled a whole new crew in Paris as part of a plan to steal roughly $51 million worth of jewels from a prestigious auction house during Fashion Week. By Season 2, Berlin and his team travel to Seville on a mission to steal Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting, Lady with an Ermine. The gang is summoned by the ambitious Duke and Duchess of Málaga (José Luis García-Pérez and Marta Nieto), who are looking for a new addition to their collection of stolen art, and believe they’re manipulating Berlin for their own gain. Knowing Berlin, however, that’s the last thing they’re doing. Instead, the heist master is planning to trick them and steal from them instead.
Therefore, while Season 1 was more of a straightforward heist, Season 2 ups the ante. With Berlin refusing to take orders from anyone, he plans to humiliate the Duke and Duchess at their own game, all while making them trust him in the art heist all along. In addition to the double-crossing plot itself, the series also introduces a feisty new character in Candela (Inma Cuesta), who pickpockets Berlin and quickly becomes a newcomer to his team, as well as one of his best onscreen love interests to date. The series also follows the dynamics of the rest of the team, including Bruce (Paul Zinno) and Kelia (Michelle Jenner), who are now a couple, and Cameron (Begoña Vargas) and Roi (Julio Peña), who are still reeling from their recent breakup.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
‘Berlin’ Continues to Be One of Netflix’s Most Divisive Hits
While Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine has quickly climbed to the #1 spot on Netflix worldwide, the series has been divisive since its release. Season 1 of the series landed a lukewarm 70% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a 63% with viewers. Collider’s Erick Massoto was especially unimpressed by the show, awarding it a dire 2/10, and calling out the series for trying to make Berlin likable and endearing, instead of the cutthroat criminal that first won over fans in Money Heist. “Self-absorbed at best and a psychopath at the very worst (and we’ve seen his worst), Berlin would need a much more daring show to embrace his less-than-human tendencies and still be enjoyable and compelling,” he wrote in his review of Berlin Season 1. “This series, however, takes the easier and ill-advised route of trying to humanize him to make the character more relatable.”
So far, Season 2 has yet to have a Rotten Tomatoes score,with early critic reviews calling out the series for not adding to the Money Heist world, and simply telling a less interesting, less action-heavy, and more personal story instead. “The narrative incorporates new stories, new characters, and new motivations, but this expansion doesn’t always translate into growth,” wrote Juan Pablo Russo for EscribiendoCine. “Sometimes it simply adds layers to a structure that’s already struggling to hold together.”
With all that said, while the Money Heist prequel series has yet to gain the same critical acclaim and cultural momentum as the original series, Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine is a major streaming hit on Netflix. As the #1 show worldwide, the series is certainly making the case for the spinoff series, even if it pales in comparison.
