Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Great Heist’ follows the story of a group of thieves who come together to pull off the biggest heist in history. They come up with what seems like a simple plan, depending entirely on the timing, apart from the reliability of everyone involved in it. The show gives us a complete context of the event that kickstarts the idea of the grand heist, rolling into the day when it actually takes place, and then, focusing on the aftermath of it. Safe to say, the business of bank heists is not nearly as glamorous as a lot of movies and TV shows have made it out to be. The ending of ‘The Great Heist’ says it all. If you haven’t seen the show yet, head over to Netflix. SPOILERS AHEAD
Plot Summary
Chayo is the owner of a jewelry shop but is under a lot of debt. He plans a con to pay his way out of the situation, but it does not work out and he becomes all the more desperate. An old connection tells him about the plan of a heist that would make him enough money to not worry for the rest of his life. He brings together a team, experts in their fields, to steal from Colombia’s Bank of the Republic.
From getting funded by a dangerous criminal organization to getting the cops on his payroll, Chayo is ready to do whatever it takes to make his heist a success. Some unforeseen situation leads to some minor hitches, but overall, the plan works out. It is later that the team discovers that their troubles have only just begun.
The Ending
After successfully getting more than twenty-four billion pesos out of the bank, Chayo and his team separate with their money and start getting their affairs in order. However, they don’t get the happy ending they had expected. The first hurdle in their happiness arrives when the cops and the bank declare that all the stolen bills with their unique numbers have been put out of circulation. The money is rendered useless, which gives an incentive to anyone who comes across the bills to report them to law enforcement.
This causes a lot of trouble for Jackie who had financed the heist through her connections with The People. She is visited by the criminal organization and when her most loyal man is killed, they offer her the option of either getting the money or giving up Chayo. Jackie briefly considers handing over Chayo and Molina to them, but then decides that she is not a snitch. She tries to run away, but Kike, who works for The People, catches her and she is killed. Chayo is also threatened by The People, but by the time they get to him, the bank is forced to lift its restrictions on the stolen bills making them legal once again. It turns out that prohibiting twenty-four billions worth of currency was not working out for the economy of the country. This decision saves Chayo’s life, but meanwhile, there are other factors in motion to bring his perfect heist to its knees.
The first sign of real trouble had arrived for Chayo’s heist when one member decided that they knew better than to follow the plan. When breaking into the vault turned out to be more troublesome than they had imagined, Estiven offered to raid the millions of worth of coins. Other members of the team found his plan better than staying on the intended path. If it weren’t for Sardino, the whole heist would have fallen apart at that point. The show of some bullets knocked sense into everyone, but the one thing that this incident underlined was the unreliability of Estiven. Chayo becomes suspicious of him and, later, wonders if he should be trusted with the responsibility of transporting the money.
Though Estiven does not present any trouble with his next task, he eventually becomes the domino that leads to the fall of every other member. He tells his boyfriend, who happens to be a cop, that he had helped rob the bank and he knows where they can find more money to sustain themselves should they choose to run away. He leads the cop to The Dragon, who is forced to choose between the money and the safety of his family. Eventually, Dragon decides to turn himself over, which would be the only way to escape the threat posed by the cops. He mistakenly believes that the ones who attacked his family were affiliated with Moroy, the police officer who had worked with them during the heist.
Once Dragon gives up Moroy, a thread is created that points next to Molina, the only real name he had been acquainted with. Meanwhile, Molina tries to get a kidney transplant, but it is revealed that his previous wounds had not completely healed, which means he won’t be able to get a new lease on life. With an expiry date looming on the horizon, Molina decides to surrender to the cops, taking the responsibility of the heist. This way, he also hopes to leave enough money for his wife and not have any blame come back on her or Chayo, for that matter.
Things take a turn for the worse for Chayo when his wife discovers that Dragon has been arrested for the robbery. This also leads her to the fact that her husband was involved in it too. Appalled by his criminal history, she leaves him, and all that Chayo had worked for becomes meaningless. He pays a visit to Sardino, hoping to get some support. But it turns out that Sardino doesn’t hold him in high regard any longer. He is angry with Chayo for not accepting him as his son in front of everyone. With nowhere else to go, Chayo takes his share and hides away in the countryside. The cops catch up with him three years later and he is arrested. The only man who gets out of it unscathed is Sardino; the rest have to pay the price.
Read More: Will There be a The Great Heist Season 2?
