Billionaires' Bunker (2025): Eat The Rich...Or Join Them

From the brilliant mind that gave us Money Heist, Billionaires’ Bunker (El Refugio Atomico) is a Spanish dystopian thriller/drama series created exclusively for Netflix by Esther Martinez Lobato and Alex Pina. The show spans 8 episodes with an average runtime of 60 minutes per episode. The show follows two families and how they navigate the luxury bunker that is seemingly created to ensure their survival in the ensuing World War 3. However, all is not what it seems.

Premise

Episode 1

Max Varela falls in love with his childhood friend Ane, but tragically kills her in a drunk driving accident and is imprisoned for involuntary manslaughter. After early release, he reunites with his estranged father, Rafa, who takes him to Kimera Underground Park—a secret luxury bunker for Spain’s elite as nuclear war erupts. Inside, Max faces his family (His mother, Frida and his grandmother, Victoria) and Ane’s, including Willy and Asia, Ane’s father and sister, who secretly resent him. Tensions rise during a strict briefing from Minerva, Kimera’s leader. Max tries to make peace by giving Asia Ane’s old phone. Suddenly, nuclear bombs strike, cutting power. In the darkness, buried truths emerge, including Frida’s admission she never loved Rafa. Outside footage shows a red, devastated world, and a worker, Luca, is fatally exposed to radiation. He’s rushed to the infirmary by Minerva.

However, in the control room, we see her rejoicing with the entire team. We are then shown the truth on the surface; there is no nuclear apocalypse, Minerva and the team have lured these people into a giant simulation.

Episode 2

The episode reveals Minerva’s elaborate deception: the “war,” news reports, bunker tremors, and even the elevator malfunction were all staged to trap the elite while executing a massive heist. In the present, Max consoles his mother, and Guillermo is treated for an injury. Asia secretly watches Ane’s videos, while family tensions simmer—Rafa clings to Frida despite her wanting a divorce. Asia stops a guest’s suicide, alarming medic Julia, but Minerva dismisses her concerns. Rafa later causes a scene, and Max defends him against a guard, raising his suspicions. The next day, guests with AB-negative blood are summoned, including Mimi. Max and Asia follow and witness Luca’s fake radiation agony—another fear tactic. Julia, disturbed by the cruelty and torn by her relationship with Minerva, threatens to expose everything. Minerva begs for loyalty, but Julia walks away. In panic, Ziro intervenes and pushes Julia to her death.

Episode 3

The episode opens with Guillermo’s backstory. Born wealthy, he expanded his family business and grew even richer. We see Minerva preparing her grand plan, claiming the “American dream” is a lie and that she chose to exploit capitalism rather than fight it. In the present, Ziro reports Julia’s death as suicide, showing edited footage to convince the staff. Minerva urges them to stay focused on their mission. Meanwhile, Frida reconciles with her mother, while Max tries to speak with Asia, offering her hope despite tension with Guillermo. An emergency meeting is called, where Minerva announces Luca and Julia’s deaths and imposes an indefinite lockdown, demanding Max return the stolen weapon. Asia regrets losing Ane’s phone and tricks Tirso into letting her retrieve it from the compactors. In secret, Minerva uses surveillance footage for Roxan, an AI designed to impersonate guests and cover their disappearance. Asia finds the phone and confides in Tirso, who advises her to confront or avoid Max. Elsewhere, tensions rise as Max refuses to comply. Minerva sends Yako to retrieve the taser, leading to a brutal fight in the gym. Privately, Ziro apologizes killing Julia, and Minerva orders her clone prepared for Roxan. The episode ends as Asia walks in to find Max bloodied, standing over a fallen Yako.

Episode 4

Yako is rushed to the infirmary after the brutal fight, leaving Max in shock, terrified he’s killed again. Asia approaches him calmly, tending to his dislocated shoulder and head wound. With Julia gone, the staff panic; there’s no doctor to save Yako. Minerva reluctantly begs Asia, to intervene. Asia stabilizes Yako, while Minerva scolds Max, tasing him to reassert control. Elsewhere, Frida, Victoria, Mimi, and others are taken to “contact the outside world,” however their radios aren’t even connected. Frida and Victoria discuss love and betrayal, while Rafa opens up in group therapy, feeling abandoned like he’s married to an AI. Guillermo tries to push Rafa toward moving on, recalling old tensions between them. Meanwhile, Roxan, the AI, is used to impersonate Guillermo during a call with Oswaldo, Guillermo’s right hand man, who reveals a major business deal hinging on Guillermo’s presence. The team scrambles for information but fails to decode a key term: BJ3. Back in the infirmary, Asia stitches Max, struggling with her feelings. When he confronts her later, she lashes out, calling him a monster, even as she secretly aches for him.

Episode 5

What is BJ3? Minerva panics, fearing her heist will collapse. A flashback reveals her harsh childhood. Abandoned by their mother, she vowed to protect Ziro and escape poverty through education. Only after working for the ultra-rich did she realize the system would never let her rise, inspiring the bunker heist. Back in the present, they discover BJ3 is Ane’s prized horse, Fiero, worth €40 million—an emotional target meant to humiliate Guillermo. Roxan, posing as Guillermo, agrees to sell it, but Oswaldo demands the safe code, giving them 12 hours to obtain it. Ingrid is sent to extract it from Guillermo. Max, spiraling, finds Yako’s earpiece and overhears staff surveillance, raising suspicion. Meanwhile, Yako flirts with Asia, and Cindy tends to Max, who pointedly ignores Asia, leaving her upset. Ingrid corners Guillermo with a truth-or-lie game and successfully retrieves the seven-digit code—just as Mimi arrives and ends their marriage in fury. That night, Guillermo finds Asia with Ane’s phone, realizes Max gave it to her, and attacks him. Max refuses to fight back. Guillermo blames Max for Ane and Marta’s deaths—until Frida intervenes, knocking Guillermo out. In a shocking turn, Frida reveals she and Guillermo have secretly been lovers for 28 years.

The remaining 3 episodes escalate matters incredibly quickly as Minerva continues to utilize Roxan to game a huge fortune out of Guillermo, the ties between the Varelas and the Falcons complicate themselves even further, leading up to a painful tragedy. Max realizes some horrible truths about the people around him, urging him to leave the bunker by any means necessary. Due to this, he develops an interesting bond with a conflicted Asia which comes to a head during the film’s climax as Max is on the cusp of discovering the truth.

Cast and Performances

Pau Simon as Max Varela
Alícia Falcó as Asia Falcon
Joaquín Furriel as Guillermo ‘Willy’ Falcon
Carlos Santos as Rafael ‘Rafa’ Varela
Miren Ibarguren as Minerva
Natalia Verbeke as Frida
Agustina Bisio as Mimi

Max

It strikes me as simultaneously intriguing and baffling that our main character is the least interesting one. Max is incredibly hot (I’ve never had shame in admitting that), but it seems like his only role in this project is to be our tortured rebel hero. And I had such high hopes for him too, based on the first episode alone. There were so many elements to his character that set up the foundation for some much needed complexity. The love of his life has died by his own hand, he goes to prison and after buying protection failed, he was bullied and tormented until the brink of death. But ironically, and perhaps a bit of a cliché, it is at that lowest point that he rediscovers the meaning to life. He takes on a more carefree and positive personality, finding joy in the smallest things. This allows him to adapt to prison life, and also heal from the heartbreak of losing Ane. However, he still carries tremendous guilt, and also what seems like an estranged relationship with his father. This sets a precedent that could easily be key points in shaping him for the dystopian environment that he lives in. But we get there, and aside from this incredibly strange dynamic he has with Asia, his only role is to be a thorn in Minerva’s side. I wish we had gotten some more melancholy from his trauma (they dabble with it when he thought he killed Yako, but that is quickly snuffed out without proper exploration). And I love a good “haunt the narrative” character, so I really wish we got to see Ane play a bigger influence (beyond Asia’s endless pining). His intrigue only picks up at the last episode, when literally every single familial relationship he has crumbles all around him with the revelations of lies and betrayal. Seeing as he might be the first one to discover the truth, I look forward to any character development he might have in the future.

Asia

Another character whose journey I found a bit lacking because of how interesting her foundation is. And also, another female lead that fails my own quasi version of the Bechdel test: over 50% of Asia’s screentime is hopeless yearning for Max. Another reason why I have such an ick about this is because, Asia is genuinely a fun character to explore. She’s assertive, smart, with an outlook on life that is almost a complete parallel to Max’s. And a bit further down the line, we find out that a huge part of her almost cynical perspective is her inherent jealousy of the light that her sister radiated in life, and the resulting void that she left behind in death. Asia had done everything her sister was seemingly weak at, and she still wasn’t able to break out of that shadow. And then Ane dies, that shadow is now immortalized. So Asia’s envy culminates into intense, borderline obsessive love for her sister, which is in turn projected as hatred and then love for Max, the only constant in the story of Ane’s life…and death. But no. She just pines and undermines her own self (even her self discovery about her feelings for her sister was still set off by Max reprimanding her). Mind you, she ends up being the bunker’s de facto medic, so she already plays such a huge role and has the potential to be the pillar that could make or break the literal simulation. Like Max, I also hope and look forward to any character development in the future. But seeing as her very last scene in the climax was the confession of her feelings to Max (finally), and Max promising to come back to rescue her, I fear it’s a long dark road ahead.

Guillermo and Rafa

I’m not going to lie, I almost believed that these two were in a secret relationship.

Hear me out.

Willy and Rafa are such interesting parallels of each other…that somehow manage to have quite and interesting bit of chemistry. And seeing as the show takes such liberties with sexuality, it wasn’t far off to believe that they at the very least shared a queerplatonic relationship. Willy is strong willed, Rafa is soft hearted. Willy takes liberties with as many women as he wishes, Rafa clings to Frida and no one else. And they are best friends, truly looking out for each other.

Until you remember that Willy has been having sex with Rafa’s wife for the entirety of their marriage and then some.

Ouch.

Now when I say I love when a character haunts the narrative, this is what I’m talking about. Ane’s death and Max’s involvement is a delicious recipe for the crash and burn of this friendship. And not only did the writers understand the assignment, they gave it a reverse sort of slow burn where we got to watch everything fall apart throughout the course of the show. I can’t wait to see the aftermath.

Minerva

There isn’t much I can say about this character because she’s incredibly one dimensional. She’s all about her plan and nothing more. And even within the limited context of her character, there is still flatness. She’s normal when the plan is going well, and helplessly loses her shit when it doesn’t. And not only does this do very little for the “ruthless mastermind boss” narrative that was created for her character in the beginning, it actively harms it. And part of me feels like this is intentionally written because she’s a woman. Looking at her male parallels in other media (Money Heist’s Professor, for example), while emotions are a huge part of their characters, they don’t disrupt the plan or their power narrative as much as Minerva’s do.

And while I have much, much, to say about the other characters (Frida, Victoria, and Mimi deserve a whole new article), I need to get to my feelings about the actual show sooner or later. Which brings me to…

What I Liked and Disliked

This. Show. Is. Amazing.

But.

It was a let-down.

The trailer is the first thing that caught my eye. It promised me dystopia, or at least the very feeling of it. It was also heavily marketed that the creator is Alex Pina, the same person that gave us one of the absolute chokeholds of the COVID-19 Lockdown. Money Heist was such a cultural reset in what to expect from foreign language projects (dare I say is what inspired other foreign media to birth cultural shifts such as Squid Game, Alice in Borderland etc.). Not to mention other projects by the same creator meeting and exceeding those standards (I highly recommend Vis-à-vis/Locked Up, an underrated gem). So I was all in for another icon that will be in conversations for ages, especially in a social time like this when anti-capitalism is on the rise, but it just…wasn’t.

The first episode had such promise, especially when it was revealed that it was all a ruse, a simulation. I was prepared to see high stakes, or perhaps a striking metaphor of how the elite and their lifestyles end up being their own downfall, but the show ends up stagnating, morphing into more of a reality soap opera than a thriller. Them being in the bunker does little to affect the characters and the general plot until the very end. The setting could have been an extreme version of The Big Brother House or Love Island, and it wouldn’t change much. The only thing that made it feel like the thriller that it’s meant to be is Minerva and her scheme to steal, and that in itself still feels lacking. After the ruse is revealed to us viewers, the next episode cuts right into a monologue by Minerva about how she hates the rich. So initially, you’d think that this is a revolutionary scheme to bring the elite to their knees and give them a taste of their own medicine, have them realize their own hubris, their own inflated sense of self importance and how they are no different from the common man, especially with how she so firmly asserts that latter point in the first episode.

“You might be the Elite on the Surface, but down here, I’m the Boss.”

But no, she just wants the money, which makes her no different from the system she claims to hate.

A lot of criticism I’ve seen towards the show is how much you have suspend your disbelief. You actively have to tame your skepticism on how realistic any of this is in order to keep watching. And initially I had a problem with that criticism. Logistics like realism don’t really matter if the message it’s trying to pass across is that profound (dystopia itself as a genre is about using extremism and hyperfictional settings and scenarios to communicate messages that affect us right here and now). But now I can’t even defend this, because it lacks the substance that dystopia is meant to have.

And don’t get me wrong, I loved the drama. I loved the conflict. I loved the complexities of the relationship between characters (except Max and Asia, that’s just weird). I loved the fact that there are various “couplings”, but make no mistake, there is no single love story. Asia is obsessed with Max only because of how much he loved Ane, Victoria and Mimi is just intoxication-fueled predatory fascination, Frida and Willy is a sexual power game, and Minerva and Julia ends up with Julia dead.

They’re all such interesting stories to be enjoyed on their own as a psychological drama, but feels melodramatic within their current context.

Billionaires’ Bunker (El Refugio Atomico)

Final Thoughts

It’s really hard to say if this is going to be a success in the foreseeable future. I can understand both sides of the argument of whether to question everything or just enjoy the show. I personally had a good time, but I don’t judge those that didn’t. I’d really love a continuation, but I don’t know if I see it being a possibility with the current audience climate.

Only time will tell.

I rate Billionaire’s Bunker (2025): 3 out of 5

Our Rating

Have you seen the show? Would you like to read my thoughts on Frida? What are your thoughts on Asia’s feelings for Max?

Author

Winifred Eze
Winnie is a business student by day and a writer by night, with a passion for movies and the art of storytelling. Whether it’s dissecting a film’s themes, exploring character arcs, or celebrating cinematic masterpieces, she loves diving deep into the magic of the big screen. She also strives to bring fresh perspectives and engaging discussions to fellow writers and readers.