General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Heirs to the Land

Heirs to the Land (Los herederos de la tierra) is a Spanish historical drama television series released on Netflix on April 15, 2022, adapted from Ildefonso Falcones's 2016 novel of the same name, the sequel to his bestseller La catedral del mar (Cathedral of the Sea)¹^•². Its eight episodes follow the resourceful young Hugo Llor as he tries to make a name for himself in 14th-century Barcelona while keeping a vow he made to the Estanyol family¹. Jordi Frades directed, and Diagonal TV, the producer of both Cathedral of the Sea and the earlier historical series Isabel, made the show³^•⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Los herederos de la tierra⁵
Premiere	April 15, 2022, on Netflix; all 8 episodes released that day¹^•⁶
Source	Ildefonso Falcones's 2016 novel, sequel to La catedral del mar (2006)²
Setting	14th-century Barcelona, starting three years after the end of Cathedral of the Sea¹^•²
Lead cast	Yon González (Hugo Llor), Elena Rivera (Caterina Llor), Rodolfo Sancho (Bernat Estanyol), Michelle Jenner (Mar)³
Director	Jordi Frades, who also directed Cathedral of the Sea³
Ratings	IMDb 7.1/10 (about 2,100 votes); Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 79% from 2 reviews⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot and characters

The protagonist, Hugo Llor, is a humble 12-year-old orphan, the son of an ill-fated sailor, who dreams of becoming a mestre d'axia, the craftsman who builds galleys and other vessels². He becomes entangled in the world of wine, a major theme in an era when people drank more wine than water because water was almost always infected and a frequent source of disease².

The series opens with the previous generation. In the first episode, Arnau and Mar worry about their safety should a new king take the throne, and a tragedy separates Hugo from his family, leading him into an apprenticeship¹. By the second episode the story passes to the children of the earlier protagonists⁹. Rodolfo Sancho plays Bernat Estanyol, the son of Arnau and a friend of Hugo⁹. Later episodes carry Hugo into Roger Puig's palace cellar, where his winemaking gives him a dangerous chance at vengeance, and into the orbit of Regina, who begs for his release when he is taken into custody¹.

One character draws directly on history: Jucef Crescas, played by Nancho Novo, is loosely based on the real-life Jewish philosopher Hasdai Crescas and his pupil Joseph Albo¹⁰. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that, unlike earlier productions about the Inquisition that depicted Jews briefly and mostly as victims, this series treats Jewish life in more depth; in one scene Regina, played by María Rodríguez Soto, says she is tired of being Jewish¹⁰.

The novel behind the series

Falcones published Los herederos de la tierra in August 2016, ten years after La catedral del mar, and he framed it as a continuation with new main characters². The novel opens with the bells of Santa María del Mar, the church whose construction drove the first book, and then moves to the Raval, the Barcelona district that was beginning to grow in that period and opening onto the city's commercial world². Falcones said the two books can be read independently, though the first supplies some references².

The historical moment is the turn from the 14th to the 15th century, a period Falcones described as especially turbulent, with the succession of the Crown of Aragon and the persecution of the Jews². Slavery and the buying and selling of people's freedom, along with conflict between civil and ecclesiastical authority, are other threads of the story².

Production and filming

Frades directed both adaptations for Diagonal TV, which bought the rights to both novels⁹. He described the two stories as structurally similar, the account of a boy who grows into a man in Barcelona, but marked by different trades: where the first was shaped by the building of Santa María del Mar, this one is shaped by the land, the vineyards, and wine production, elements of the commerce of the period¹¹.

The crew spent four months traveling through Catalonia looking for locations and shot about 70 percent of the series in natural settings, including Terrasa, Molins del Rei, Peralada, Monells, Peratallada, Santa Coloma, Badalona, Tortosa, the old town of Girona, and Gothic Barcelona⁹. This differed from Cathedral of the Sea, which was largely shot in Madrid⁹. The vineyards of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia stood in for the vineyards that existed in 14th- and 15th-century Barcelona itself, on land to the left of the Ramblas near today's El Raval, where residents walked to vines because everything around the Gothic Quarter was farmland⁹. Frades said the adaptation stays close to the book, summarizing its extensive political narrative and customs to keep the main plot⁹.

Context and reception

The series followed a television success. La catedral del mar premiered on Antena 3 in 2018 with more than four million viewers, and the sequel's move to Netflix four years later continued the story of the Estanyol family¹¹. Netflix classifies the show as a Spanish period drama based on a bestseller, rated 16+ on its own platform and TV-MA in the United States¹^•³.

Audience response was moderate. The show holds an IMDb rating of 7.1/10 from about 2,100 users, with individual episode ratings rising from 7.7 for the premiere to 8.2 for the finale⁷. Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 79% Tomatometer from only two critics and fewer than 50 audience ratings; one review found it a period drama that stands on its own with beats of ambition, vows, revenge, bloodshed, and belief, while another called the overarching plot an unfocused, soapy saga⁸. The series ran as a single season of eight episodes, with the final episode airing on April 15, 2022⁶.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026