As of December 3, Netflix subscribers can discover the latest episodes of La Casa de Papel. But how realistic are the scenes in the series? In our new video format Serious ?, we put the question to Laurent Combalbert, a former negotiator of the RAID … He returns in particular for us on a crucial scene between Raquel Murillo and The Professor.
End clap for La Casa de Papel ! After five seasons to hold fans across the world in suspense, the series is finally going out of business. Part 2 of this fifth season has been available on Netflix since Friday, December 3. An opportunity for the actors to say their moving farewells on social networks. But if the adventure has ended, and the platform has hinted that the series could have ended differently, a question remains unanswered: are the scenes of negotiations between the police and the robbers really realistic? TV-Leisure wondered and went to meet Laurent Combalbert, crisis negotiator and former RAID negotiator.
“It’s not very good for a first contact”
The Spanish series is built particularly around a standoff between the police and the robbers, led by The Professor. But are these negotiators using the true methods of the pros? Laurent Combalbert has been a professional negotiator and expert in crisis management and complex negotiations since 1998. He has long practiced his profession within the RAID, the elite unit of the national police. He intervened in particular in the release of hostages as in 2001, during the escape attempt at Fresnes prison.
If according to him the series respects the role played by a negotiator on this type of intervention, the first exchange between the inspector Raquel Murillo and The Professor should have happened differently. “The first contact is the important moment. We will create the relationship between the negotiator and the hostage taker. He is very calm and will ask for news of the injured. But the negotiator uses negative terms. We must be positive because remember that there are potential losses, it is not very good for a first contact“, he told us.
“The hostage taker is in control”
In episode 4 of season 4 of La Casa de Papel, the professor asks Inspector Alicia Sierra a favor: to bring paella dishes to the robbers and their hostages. An unrealistic scene that could not have happened in a real situation according to him. “When we see the request to bring food for the comfort of the hostages and the paella dishes which pass under the guard of honor of the journalists … on a security perimeter, we do not let the press so close. We avoid showing this type of transaction, putting it under the watchful eye of the cameras. It shows that it is the hostage taker who has control and who decides on the staging he will apply“, judged Laurent Combalbert, even if he recognizes that this kind of request can ultimately be an asset for the police:”I happened to have hostage takers asking for pizza. They were brought in in exchange for being able to talk to one of the prison guards who was taken hostage for information.“.
Find the interview Serious ? by Laurent Combalbert on La Casa de Papel in the video at the top of the article.