DOWNFALL

SYNOPSIS

After an anonymous report, the former minister Álvaro Vieira Branco, under investigation for several crimes such as lobbying and misuse of powers, stays in home detention with an electronic bracelet.

The report allows the criminal inspector, Gonçalo Schmidt, to finally investigate what they have suspected for so long: Álvaro Vieira Branco does not own personal nor familiar income to justify his high-quality level.

Imprisoned in his luxurious mansion, Vieira Branco has to adapt his strategies to keep satisfying (mostly) the financial needs of those who surround him, while he tries to: get rid of the case, find out who is the whistle-blower and maintain his influence on the public sphere. To solve all of these, Vieira Branco counts on with his long-standing lawyer, David Rebelo Morais, current politicians and his trustworthy foreman, Zé Mário.

Within this, Álvaro will also have to manage a delicate family situation…

His mother, Maria de Lourdes Vieira, obliged to sell the mansion she lived in, in order to pay her son’s legal defense and the countless domestic expenses, moves in.

Álvaro’s wife, Raquel Vieira Branco, is constantly struggling with the fact that she is married to a man with no values.

Their son and daughter, Frederico and Matilde, are Álvaro’s point of contact with a normal real life - a family man who does everything to protect them. While the introvert Frederico, disappointed with politics, prefers to spend his days on his computer or other gadgets, Matilde is a demanding left-leaning young girl, who has no problem on confronting her father when the accusation’s evidences become public.

Behind the bars of the mansion’s gate, Álvaro feels powerless. How do we hold power with blocked bank accounts, when money is the biggest source of power?

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