Turn of the Tide (Rabo de Peixe) follows four friends whose lives change when they find a lot of cocaine. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Like most Azoreans, Eduardo, a fisherman, also dreams of moving to the US in the hope of escaping poverty. Eduardo’s dreams take a back seat, as he has to take care of more pressing issues.
His father is losing his vision with each passing day and needs an operation. Since Eduardo’s mother died when he was young, it is Eduardo who has to take care of him. Additionally, he dropped out of school to fish and earn money, and due to that, his application for a US visa gets rejected.
Eduardo is in love with a girl named Silvia, who is dating his best friend, Rafael, who used to be a professional footballer. Silvia’s father is Arruda, a drug dealer, and Rafael sometimes runs errands for him, much to Eduardo’s displeasure.
Then there is their fourth friend, Carlinhos, who has never been able to fit in with others because he is gay.
One day, a ship carrying hundreds of kilos of cocaine of an Italian drug lord gets caught up in a storm and sinks. Some of the packets of cocaine are washed ashore, and the people of Eduardo’s village, Rabo de Peixe, leap at the opportunity to take them home.
Eduardo thinks that there must be more of it somewhere in the ocean, and when he discovers how expensive the drug is, he goes to find the rest of it. He successfully finds more than 300 kilos of cocaine and takes it to his friends.
He convinces his friends to sell the drug and make money in order to fulfill their dreams. However, that night, when Eduardo, Rafael, and Silvia are driving home, they accidentally hit a man.
This man is none other than Gianluca Rossi, nephew of the Sicilian Mafia Godfather, Massimo Occhupinti. He was one of the two people who were on the ship that was carrying cocaine.
When they notice the same symbol tattooed on his hand that is on the packets of cocaine, they decide to get rid of his body once and for all. They chop off his hand and put his body into a box, which is then thrown into the ocean.
They also get rid of Eduardo’s car, which was involved in the accident. Meanwhile, Gianluca’s companion, Francesco, gets arrested.
Eduardo and his friends then start selling cocaine, but they have to ensure that Arruda does not find out, as he wants part of the profit made by people from selling the cocaine they found.
Silvia meets a girl named Bruna, whose boyfriend, Ian, wants to buy cocaine from Eduardo and his friends. At the same time, Detective Frias is sent to the Azores to find the cocaine as well as the people who own it.
She raids houses in Rabo de Peixe and confiscates drugs, but Eduardo and Rafael manage to hide their packets in time because they find out about the raid from Bruna, whose father is a policeman.
Carlinhos likes the village priest, and the two end up kissing. After that, the priest starts drinking again to deal with his guilt, and Carlinhos gives him cocaine to help him, but that lands the priest in the hospital like so many others who overdosed.
With Ian’s help, Eduardo and Rafael find customers and start supplying cocaine to new clients and making a lot of money. Eduardo is finally able to pay for his father’s operation. However, when Ian mixes laxatives in cocaine, they lose their customers.
On the other hand, the police find the chopped hand of Gianluca, and Monti, the drug lord whose drugs Eduardo and Rafael are selling, comes to the Azores to recover his drugs.
One night, when Eduardo and Rafael get into an argument about Rafel asking children to sell cocaine, Silvia overdoses and is taken to the hospital. There, Rafael tells Arruda everything about his and Eduardo’s business.
Eduardo’s father can finally see, but his happiness is short-lived, as Monti finds Eduardo’s house. He threatens them, and Eduardo has no choice but to take him to the place where he had hidden the drugs with Rafael.
With Rafael, Arruda gets to the drugs before Monti. He then kills Rafael. Eduardo and his father push Monti into the water and are able to escape for the time being. Eduardo’s father asks him to run away from the village.
Silvia recovers and is forced to live with her father. She convinces him to help Bruna and Ian by selling the cocaine to the Scandinavian crowd. However, it turns out that Zé, a man who was once tortured by Arruda for not giving him his cocaine, told Silvia that her father killed Rafael.
Silvia gave Zé the opportunity to get revenge by asking him to work with her and her friends. As per Eduardo’s plan, Eduardo, Silvia, and Carlinhos get the cocaine back from Arruda, but Zé gets killed in the process.
Before his death, Zé tells Arruda that it was Silvia who cheated him. Meanwhile, Eduardo, Silvia, and Carlinhos go to stay at the house of Eduardo’s uncle, Joe. Joe went to the US but because he went to prison there, he was deported.
Although Joe is not very welcoming, Carlinhos bonds with him. Eduardo and Silvia finally get together and enjoy their time there. At the same time, Francesco breaks out of prison, and Monti kills Eduardo’s father.
Their good days come to an end when Eduardo finds out about his father’s death. On top of that, Arruda finds them, as Carlinhos had talked to his mother on the phone. He attacks them, and Joe fires back at Arruda’s men to protect Eduardo and his friends.
Silvia has to threaten her father at gunpoint when he threatens to kill Eduardo for the drugs. Arruda then hurts his own daughter for betraying him, and Eduardo stabs him to rescue her. Arruda dies, leaving Eduardo and Silvia with the burden of his death.
Turn of the Tide ending explained in detail:
How do Joe and Eduardo plan to smuggle the drugs?
After Arruda’s death, Joe promises to help Eduardo get to the US. For that, he decides to take the help of Feliciano, an old acquaintance of Joe and Eduardo’s father. He is known to be a crook.
They put cocaine in the tuna cans that Feliciano sells and send Eduardo to the US through the sea illegally. Before leaving, Eduardo goes to visit his father’s grave, where he is cornered by Frias, who has been looking for him for a while.
Silvia and Carlinhos are also brought in for questioning, but Frias fails to prove that they are guilty, as they all tell the same story regarding their disappearance from the village. Since there is no evidence against any of them, the police let them go.
Why does Eduardo make a deal with Frias?
Carlinhos goes to meet the priest to apologize to him, and Monti comes looking for him at the church. Monti kidnaps him and calls Eduardo to ask him to give him his drugs back to save Carlinhos’ life.
When Frias finds out that Feliciano is involved with Joe, she suspects that Eduardo and Joe might be storing the drugs in the cans. However, the police do not find anything at Joe’s factory, but they still arrest Joe.
To save Carlinhos’ life, Eduardo goes to meet Frias and offers to help her get to the person who is responsible for all this. She agrees to work with him and not arrest him for the time being.
Who gets the drugs eventually?
Eduardo takes the drugs to the place where Monti is holding Carlinhos hostage. The police also arrive at the scene. Monti injures Carlinhos, but Eduardo manages to flee with his friend.
As the police fail to catch Monti, he follows Eduardo and Carlinhos, who take a boat to sail toward the ship that will take them to the US. However, Silvia finds out that she is pregnant and does not show up to leave for the US with them.
Monti thinks that he finally has his drugs back, but when he opens the truck that Eduardo and Carlinhos left behind, he finds it empty. It turns out that Eduardo never brought the tuna cans that were filled with cocaine with him.
The police let Joe go and give him a package that Eduardo left for him. The package contains a Rubik’s Cube, among other things. The Rubik’s Cube has a message hidden in it, which leads Joe to a place where there are other packages.
When he cuts them open, he realizes that Eduardo left the cans filled with cocaine for him before he went to the US. Joe is surprised and delighted as Eduardo and Carlinhos are seen sailing to fulfill their dream.