This weekend, once again, I found myself picking up on messages coming from recent films and series in which women of a certain age, completely unsuspected, are forced to do the dirty work. Figures that society tends to render invisible, fragile, or marginal instead become instruments of a justice that no one seems willing to carry out.

One film tells the story of an elderly woman who continues to eliminate “human pests” — those who commit acts of violence and are rarely held accountable. Another story, a recent miniseries, portrays an aging mother who pretends to show the first signs of Alzheimer’s in order to create an alibi and avenge the violence her daughter suffered at the age of sixteen.

In both cases, old age is not weakness but cover; memory loss becomes strategy; being underestimated turns into power. These are stories about revenge, certainly, but above all about memory, responsibility, and a system that too often lets things slide, forcing someone to get their hands dirty on behalf of everyone else.