After a long night that stretched until 4 a.m., we stumbled into New Year’s Day. Along with the remaining warriors from the previous, festive night, we decided to binge-watch a series to nurse our hangovers—an activity I firmly believe is the undisputed king of New Year’s Day activities.
Our sights landed on the Netflix series La Palma. Four episodes, no more, no less—just enough to help everyone get back on their feet while drinking copious amounts of coffee to start the new year fresh and full of energy. A disaster series about a tsunami hitting the Spanish island of—you guessed it—La Palma.
Disaster series or films often leave plenty of room for spectacular visual effects, a gripping battle between humankind and the overwhelming forces of nature, and, above all, heaps of drama. Why we wanted to kick off the year on such a somber note is anyone’s guess, but we were ready for it. What no one anticipated, however, was that this so-called disaster series would feel more like an old-school feel-good Disney movie. By the end of the final episode, we had laughed more than we had cried—which surely wasn’t the intended effect.
Throughout its four episodes, but especially in the finale, La Palma completely falls apart. It’s as if the series was written by one person, with no one else of the crew ever bothering to review it. Because I simply cannot believe that this plotline was pitched and no one in the room raised their hand and asked: “Does this even make sense?”
Here are the most bizarre, inexplicable, and downright laughable moments from La Palma. Needless to say, spoilers ahead.
One Big, Happy Family, the Day After a Plane Crashed Above Them

After yet another argument between her mother, Jennifer, and the man she sees as her father, Fredrik, Sara has had enough and decides to leave La Palma. She rushes to catch a flight to Madrid, but a last-minute text from her great new love, Charlie (whom she met the day before), makes her change her mind. At the last moment, she exits the plane—something we, as viewers, don’t see but quickly start to suspect.
Meanwhile, Jennifer and Fredrik realize their daughter is on her way to Madrid, just as a plane flies dangerously close overhead and crashes nearby due to the natural disasters. A traumatizing event, though the writers seem to underestimate just how impactful it would be.
La Palma should have gotten rid of Sara right there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find enjoyment in witnessing the tragic death of a young girl, but it would have made this list of ridiculous moments a lot shorter. No offense to actress Alma Günther, who did impress me with her acting, but her character is involved in most of the points on this list.
Anyway, after a few tense hours for the family (not for us, of course, since we can see it coming from a mile away that Sara is still alive), Jennifer and Fredrik find the girl perfectly fine in their hotel room, having assumed she was dead.
Naturally, this leads to obvious euphoria. The relief and joy are immense. Not for me on the couch, though, because I appreciate when a series dares to pull the trigger. And I still didn’t know half of what was coming.
The true low point comes the next day, when the family seems to have completely forgotten the traumatic event. Set to cheerful and tropical Christmas music, in episode three we see the family enjoying themselves at the pool where, just the day before, hundreds of people fell to their deaths. Everything is idyllic, exactly how a vacation should be. Jennifer and Fredrik have rekindled their love, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Let alone a crashing plane.
Luckily, I’ve never had to witness anything like that, but I don’t think I’d be living the best day of my life the next morning. I suspect you could sweep me up as I’d repeatedly see that plane crashing in my mind. And if I were Sara, I wouldn’t be lounging by the pool, but I’d be buying a lottery ticket.
Pursuers Catch Up to a Van That’s Been Speeding for 7 Minutes

You might think the world’s fastest man comes from Jamaica, but that’s far from the truth. La Palma is home to a group of men who would wipe the floor with Usain Bolt.
After a lot of chaos, the warnings about the approaching tsunami are finally heeded, and the alarm is sounded. Panic ensues, and everyone on La Palma wants to leave the island as quickly as possible. To do so, they need to head to Tenerife, where a flight is still available.
Our favorite family receives a warning that they absolutely must catch the last boat to Tenerife. This sparks an intense race against the clock, during which Fredrik steals a van from a group of men who are not amused. Luckily, young Tobias (the son) is there to let us know that there are exactly 6.5 minutes left before the boat departs.
Fredrik speeds off just in time, narrowly avoiding the angry men, who begin chasing the van on foot. In the very next frame, however, they seem to have already given up the chase and have vanished.
Despite some obstacles and people crossing the road, Fredrik speeds toward the harbor, where the family arrives 30 seconds before departure. A quick calculation tells us that Fredrik has been driving full throttle for 6 minutes, but the van owners aren’t losing any sleep over it. They promptly appear at that very moment.
I run a blog about games, series, and films, meaning I spend a lot of time on the couch in front of the TV. So, maybe I’m not the best example, but after sprinting for 6 minutes, you’d need to hook me up to oxygen. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that these guys were apparently running so fast they managed to keep up with a moving van.
HOW?! Well… quite simply. To make way for the next ridiculously laughable moment on the agenda.
Sara Chooses Her New Love Over the Man Who’s Like a Father to Her

That poor Fredrik gets beaten up by the angry van guys and, in the end, gets left high and dry, missing the boat. The rest of the family makes it to Tenerife thanks to his heroic efforts, where, against all odds, they spot Sara’s new great love, Charlie. How she managed to reach the airport is anyone’s guess. It’s a shame, because I’m really curious about how she pulled it off, especially after the previous episode made it seem like an impossible task.
Anyway, I’m not that picky. I don’t need a watertight explanation for everything, so I try to focus on where the story is heading. But that doesn’t last long before I regret it.
First off, Sara leaves her mother behind to go find Charlie in a sea of people. I’ve had my fair share of teenage crushes, but if I were in a life-or-death situation, I wouldn’t leave my mom’s side for someone I literally just met.
Jennifer and Tobias manage to squeeze onto the plane, and there’s still no sign of Sara. She’s too busy handing her stepdad’s wristband, which serves as a boarding pass in evacuation times, to Charlie.
So, Fredrik first has to watch some smooth-talking Spaniard flirt with his wife, then he gets beaten up after trying to get his family to safety, and finally, Sara pays him back by giving away his escape ticket to her new girlfriend. Ah…family love.
In the first episode, we see a loving conversation where Sara tells Fredrik she considers him her real father. But when it really matters, she throws him under the bus. Quite a choice, and certainly not a winning one.
And to make things even worse: worried Jennifer leaves the plane when Sara is still nowhere to be found, to go search for her daughter. In the end, Jennifer and Tobias get off the plane, while Sara and Charlie do manage to make it to their seats. What a mess…
The Two Gigantic Waves Colliding With No Effect Whatsoever

Luckily, Fredrik isn’t entirely left to his fate. Together with tsunami expert Marie, he discovers that there’s a safe zone—an area where multiple waves collide and cancel each other out. If they can reach that spot in time, they’ll escape the disaster.
Now, I’m no expert on natural phenomena, but what happens in this so-called safe zone seems like a bit of an unrealistic series of events.
Huge forces of water, powerful enough to tear an entire island apart, crash into each other and, as predicted, cancel each other out. Meanwhile, our duo floats calmly toward the shore.
You could convince me that such a safe zone exists, and that two gigantic waves can, to some extent, neutralize each other. But just look at the screenshot above and see how massive those waves are. Then, look lower at the calm bay beneath and imagine that it stays just as peaceful after those massive waves crash into each other.
At the very least, I’d expect to see a huge wave that would drag everyone on the beach several meters into the water. Maybe even a few casualties here and there (is that really asking too much?). But no. The water in front of the beach remains completely still. Nothing is happening. It’s a total cop-out. Or is there a physicist out there who can explain to me that this is a perfectly normal occurrence? Because I’d love to hear that explanation.
Sara and Charlie Survive the Full Impact of the Tsunami

The ending of La Palma forces me to turn my attention back to Sara once more. Due to her selfish choices throughout the series, it would be more than justified at this point if the young blonde were to meet her end—but Mother Nature (read: the writers) decide, against all odds, to grant her eternal life.
So, while the rest of the family faces disaster, Sara is, miraculously, still in the plane with Charlie. But, of course, the damn thing refuses to take off. And the fact that the ground is partially cracking apart beneath them doesn’t exactly help matters.
As a viewer, you’re just waiting for the plane to somehow miraculously get off the ground in the nick of time. I thought I had this all figured out ahead of time once again: a millisecond before the tsunami hits the shore, the plane takes off. But this time, I was wrong. The writers didn’t take the typical, predictable route. In hindsight, that might’ve actually been the better choice.
Instead, they decide to have the tsunami actually slam into the grounded plane with full force. And if this moment had taken all the lives aboard, I could’ve forgiven a lot of the show’s shortcomings. But, you guessed it… nothing happens. Because the only characters who die in La Palma are the ones we couldn’t care less about, the ones with nothing more than a supporting role. The rest? They’ve got that classic plot armor, which is rule number one of what not to do when creating a show like this.
I ask you, dear reader, to take another look at the screenshot above. Realize that this massive tsunami is penetrating this tiny plane with forces capable of destroying an entire island. And then realize that Sara simply walks away from it. Sara doesn’t give a damn. Sara is invincible, unlike La Palma. Sara is immortal. She might as well have been on that earlier flight to Madrid, because she would’ve stepped off that one with a smile as well.
While we’re laughing on the couch at the absurdity unfolding before our eyes, the creators try to make us believe that her girlfriend didn’t make it. But we’re not naive. The creators don’t want blood on their hands, so after a quick round of CPR from a flight attendant (who, by the way, only seems to care about Charlie, completely ignoring the other passengers), Charlie “surprisingly” comes back to life.
All’s well that ends well. Everyone in the family survives the tsunami. The only thing left to complete the picture is the message, “And they lived happily ever after.”
La Palma is a disaster series, and there’s no denying that. It was a disaster. And it could have all been avoided if the creators weren’t so determined to keep characters alive in such illogical ways.
Anyway, we binge-watched the series in one sitting. We laughed, and had a great first of January in 2025. So, in the end, it was actually a fantastic series. You should watch it.