Did you know what makes an excellent plant fertilizer? Corpses, apparently. Elmer, an assassin leading a generally mundane life as a gardener, knows all about it. In the Netflix show The Gardener (El Jardinero in Spanish), young Elmer is a quiet man who seeks comfort in taking care of the plants that he grows for his garden centre.

His whole world – apart from plants – is his mother. That’s always problematic. Not surprisingly, we quickly learn that his mother is somewhat behind his killing spree. She takes advantage of his lack of emotions, something Elmer has struggled with since being young, and turns him into a hitman.

For years, it all works out. She deals with the ‘clients’, accepts jobs and payments and Elmer is expected to ‘deliver’. One day something happens and Elmer begins to feel. When love knocks on his door, his hitman days get complicated and his next victim is a young woman who he falls in love with. And we all know how complex falling in love for the first time is.

It may sound cheesy yet it beautifully – if a little twistedly – shows complex family relationships, the limits you might go to to protect a loved one (or how you think they should be protected anyway), and how to deal with emotions when they come up. Heck, even for us who always feel them, that is a tricky thing to handle, is it not?

The Gardener is not a case of whodunnit. We know who did it from the start. It is more of a ‘will he, won’t he’ drama, ‘will they catch them’, ‘who is the bad guy, or woman’ here? What I loved most about it is that it is just six episodes. World viewers seem to have loved it as well as its views reached 12 million in just a week.

It feels a little similar to Dexter and You, other popular romance, murder mysteries, and a little gothic like Wednesday yet this show still manages to stand alone. Maybe because it is in Spanish or maybe because it is doused in colourful flowers and exquisite, award-winning garden centres.