The tension between life and death has served as fuel for many stories over the course of millennia. And, when you throw love into the mixture, that’s when the whole thing becomes truly explosive. From Orpheus and Eurydice in Ancient Greek mythology to Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo hitting it off as a ghost and the man she haunts in a 2005 so-bad-it’s-good rom-com, the world is full of tales that pose us the age-old question of how powerful love truly is in the face of death. This storytelling tradition is followed closely by Apple TV+’s newest series, Love You to Death, a seven-episode-long romantic comedy about a man finding true love just as he is forced to face his own mortality.
Created and directed by Dani de la Orden, the Spanish series stars Joan Amargós and Verónica Echegui as Raúl and Marta, two estranged schoolmates living in Barcelona whose paths cross again as they attend a funeral. The occasion is particularly sensitive for Raúl, as he has recently learned of the existence of a malignant tumor in his heart. The doctor recommends surgery, but Raúl’s chances of getting out of the OR alive are slim to say the least. Meanwhile, Marta, a veritable party animal, has just gotten a positive result on a pregnancy test. As she decides whether or not she wants to bring a new life into the world, she starts hanging out with Raúl, rekindling a friendship that eventually turns into something more.
‘Love You to Death’ Tackles a Tough Subject With Humor

Image via Apple TV+

Despite its gloomy premise, Love You to Death tackles the peculiarities of Raúl and Marta’s meet-cute with a lot of humor. It’s perhaps the best way to stop the story from becoming too saccharine: by embracing the inherent ridiculousness and absurdity of human existence and its inevitable extinction. And Amargós and Echegui sell this humor perfectly, with Raúl being a particularly compelling character in this sense — not just because of his performer’s extremely sad doe eyes, but also because of them. Going from the comedy to the romantic side of things, Amargós and Echegui also have a lot of chemistry, and it is not hard to buy them either as friends or as a couple. Though the story has its share of problems — we’ll get to them — rooting for Raúl and Marta to find happiness with one another comes naturally to anyone watching this series.
While the role of the overbearing ex-girlfriend feels weirdly dated, Paula Malia is a great presence in the supporting cast as Georgina. Likewise, Cristian Valencia is very charming as Edu, Raúl’s best friend who does everything in his power to support him through his condition, while Clàudia Melo has an amazing dynamic with Echegui as Marta’s more conservative sister, Ana. Though not a very present character in the series, appearing for only about three scenes, Paula Escoda is a true revelation as Iveth, Marta’s intern at the advertising agency she works for. Iveth is meant to be an off-putting character, and every second Escoda is on-screen is a second of unease.

Related

The 30 Best Apple TV+ Original Series, Ranked

The best of the bunch.

That being said, it’s not just Georgina’s role that feels strangely old-fashioned and out of place in a 2025 sitcom. There’s an episode in which Georgina comes back into Raúl’s life after finding out about the cancer, prompting Edu, who never quite liked her, to say “We’re all going to live together, like Friends.” And, indeed, that iconic sitcom’s sensibilities are often reflected in Love You to Death. Actually, scratch that: to be more specific, there is something very How I Met Your Mother about Love You to Death — something a little edgier, sometimes even offensive, but still very formulaic and, most importantly, of another time.
This can make the experience of watching Love You to Death very odd in our current TV landscape. It’s as if the show was born in a place outside the space-time continuum, with elements like Raúl’s dudebro coworkers and Marta’s remarks about not being a pedophile as she watches a playground full of children. Much like when we rewatch those older series, some jokes land, and others just feel deeply uncomfortable. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something comforting about this sort of humor. Occasionally, you will find yourself laughing out loud at Raúl’s shenanigans as he tries to avoid Marta and Georgina in his workplace, or at Marta’s accidental poisoning of three children with marijuana-laced cookies.
‘Love You to Death’ Does Have Some Storytelling Issues

Image via Apple TV+

While this outdated sense of humor is not enough to make the quality of Love You to Death dwindle, the same cannot be said about some issues that make the whole story a bit wonky. When it comes to Marta, the series purports to be about whether she can change her life to become what is expected of a mother: a committed woman who prefers to stay at home in lieu of spending her nights at dingy clubs. She and Raúl are meant to be opposites that attract: a party girl and a Mr. Play-It-Safe, as Alanis Morissette would put it. This doesn’t exactly work.
Apart from Marta’s scenes with Ana, who is also pregnant, it’s quite easy to forget that her character is expecting a baby. No part of her story arc actually relies on that, and her pregnancy could have been completely cut off without any harm to the plot. Sure, her parents walk back on kicking her out of their apartment because of the baby, but this could have played out any number of ways. Marta herself doesn’t seem very changed by what has happened to her, and, to add insult to injury, when the identity of the father is revealed, it comes almost as an afterthought.
To be fair, though, it’s hard to know how the cancer and the pregnancy change Raúl and Marta because, in reality, we only get to know them after it all goes down. We spend less than half an episode with an unpregnant Marta, and only about two minutes with a cancer-free Raúl. It would’ve been best for the show to feature at least a whole episode dedicated to their lives prior to these events, so that viewers could really understand who these characters are outside these life-changing circumstances. The way things are, we never get to see how wild Marta truly is, or the real extent of Raúl’s alleged cautiousness. They both seem like pretty regular, well-adjusted people. For a story about change and meeting someone else in the middle, this is a pretty obvious slight.
Still, there’s a solid rom-com to be found in Love You to Death. While the humor can be outdated and Marta is frustratingly underdeveloped as a character, the series’ romance is still quite engaging, thanks in no small part to the chemistry between Amargós and Echegui. Sure, you might cringe from time to time, but you’ll probably also enjoy considerable parts of the whole experience.
Love You to Death premieres February 5 on Apple TV+.

Love You To Death

Despite its flaws, there’s a solid rom-com to be found in Apple TV+ Love You to Death.

Release Date

February 5, 2025

Cast

Pros & Cons

Raúl’s drama is heartfelt and earnest.
Amargós and Echegui have a lot of chemistry as Raúl and Marta.

The humor feels outdated and, sometimes, even offensive.
Marta’s plot feels so flimsy that it is almost disposable.
Some revelations seem like they were added as an afterthought.