Tuff Money

- Season 1

(2020)

Two municipal workers, depressed in a bar, spontaneously joke about being able to rob a bank van, in order to sound big. Trouble starts when their plan is taken at face value by a mobster, who threatens them to actually do the heist.

The techs find themselves cornered and harassed into going along with the crime. While the police chief's using the long arm of the law to get at them, the mobster Adi is turning up the heat the old-fashioned way, threatening the safety of their families. Meanwhile, we go inside the homes of the "baddies" and find out why they need the money so badly. Evelina takes the reins and masterminds a way to push the heist forward and make it painless for all involved. All, except Ionel, who gets tasered.

The aftermath of the heist sees our heroes trying to outrun their "partners in crime" - and failing. But it's not all rainbows and unicorns in the baddies' camp either, as the team crumbles when Adi decides to shortchange Evelina. Just as she finds an even shadier way to redress the balance, a new player comes to town, a Bucharest detective, and he might just be the real deal.

The investigator grounds Adi at the worst possible time, but Evelina and the Captain manage to outsmart him. Meanwhile, our stoplight techs are finding that money isn't the worst thing to have after all - when Ionel's cornered into throwing a lavish wedding and Doru gets a chance to come to Maria's rescue with money for a patent, will they dip into their stash.

The money starts turning up in the weirdest of places and the question of keeping it versus turning it in proves divisive in Doru's household, with Elena and Maria disagreeing over morals. Meanwhile, two other pillars of immorality in town rear their heads - one fleecing the Captain and another, denouncing Ionel.

With Ionel in jail, the investigator is closing in on the perpetrators - or so he thinks, until raids on the Captain's and Evelina's houses turn up nothing. Adi gets devastating news that makes him rethink his priorities and Doru does right by Ionel. When all's said and done, our heroes end up in cuffs, in court, in front of a judge - with a flair for the dramatic.