so as not to get distracted by Miki Evans

This scene with Digna (and again: what a great scene partner is Ana Fernández!) was, to me, more painful to watch than 182 eps of Fina’s absence. Not because it couldn’t be construed narratively (with some squinting) as a soapy step on a swerving way that could still lead towards Marta as the one true goal, but because it showed the opposite. On the visual level, it chucked the narrative from the sky (at least at first watch, but let's dig into the rewatch edition).

In terms of character motivation it could be said that Fina still needs to adjust, Fina is traumatized, Fina has consistently avoided talking Marta out of a misguided attempt to protect her even before she left (baby plot), Fina found a freer life now, and whiles she still may love Marta, she doesn’t want to go back to living in the shadows around her. That's consistent, in character, and requires no narrative beam-me-up maneuver.

In terms of narrative, Fina gets more nuanced dialog lines here about how she still loves Marta („I realized our love was intact“ - which it is clearly not, or she would allow for it to adjust to their reality and not keep it frozen in nostalgia and obligation, but there is still something there), how she only came clean to Bianca about Marta after Marta’s letter arrived, how she almost fainted at said letter, how she is, with Bianca, "as happy as someone with my past can be" (i.e. someone who got ripped away from Her Wife and her whole life about a year ago?), while Bianca is, ambiguously, "everything I long for" in her Marta-ish qualities, and to whom "above all, I am indebted". It sounds starstruck, not impassioned. Plus there is the fact that Fina is staying in Toledo even when a much better life is waiting elsewhere. (really, it is a lot less hurtful at rewatching if you focus on the dialog lines)

That this doesn’t transport with this degree of undertow is a show-vs-tell issue (pointed out also at yesterday’s Liquor Cart by @bloomsberries): Fina tells Digna she still loves Marta, but all the viewers have seen as of ep 562 is a Fina supremely uncomfortable or muted or reserved or cagey whenever she is in Marta’s presence (double hurt: she is old Fina around everyone else: grumpy with Miguel, laughing with Claudia, snarky with Tasio, daughterly with Digna). There is no visible conflict regarding Marta, no switch between happiness and then guilt, between adoration and then distance, between desire and then doubts. It's consistently unhappy. In contrast, the only time Fina looks genuinely happy (except when talking to Claudia) is here, when she talks about her new life with Bianca the Chacracore Copy: "we live in the countryside" (and I think back to that pastoral scene painting that hangs above Fina’s guestroom bed and Hey Prop Department are you sure you don’t need any of these knives back?)

This discrepancy between telling and showing is so consistent between Performance and Directing that it seems a conscious choice, and I assume it is to build the distance between Marta and Fina to breaking point clearly and without any detours, even if the writing would offer a chance for more nuance in delivering and framing the lines.

Would Fina giving Marta one look that isn’t caged but longing ruin the entire distance Directing is currently building? Hmm. You know what: that is a fair question. We have seen what these two can cause with just one look and it might indeed ruin the impact and lessen the maximum heartbreak these characters (and we) are hurtling towards. Or perhaps there simply wasn’t enough time to go for more nuance? This is a telenovela, after all.

For now, Fina has a new girlfriend with whom she shared a tranquil life until just a few days ago (posttraumatic rebound idyll with the Chacracore Copy), who told her to go break up with Marta cleanly (and, who knows, perhaps it will turn out it was Bianca who set Fina free in sending her back to Marta? Because after hearing their tale, Bianca connected the dots and was smarter than Cloe?), and who makes her smile and about whom Fina says - over a lush, romantic little sound layer that I already hate with a passion - that she loves her very much and is very happy with her. (Why are you in Toledo then, Fina? Why? I don’t see it.)

Let’s see how you write your way back from this one, Writing Room! Although right now, analyzing those dialog lines, I do think that the Writing Room has our backs. Directing and Performance seem more out for blood, but in the end: that’s the name of the game.

SdL is very good with feeding the constant craving of the soap format, with letting a viewer come close to a release but never fully reach it, at least when it is about the big story. At the core, it is contrasting aims: tension towards relief (the viewers and their feels) versus never-ending tension (crews doing their job). We just got a crumb cake peak (#561!); we’re back to Yearning Square 1 at the bottom of the mountain. Or were the crumbs too few and we just got lost in the woods, or in the pampas as it were, and now some gingerbread chacra witch is going to gnaw our bones clear?

If the crumbs are too few and not visible enough, a narrative teeters or even tanks. How to build obstacles that are side plots but don’t unseat the core narrative? How to dole out crumbs that sustain but never satiate, yet still renovate enough to keep viewers coming back? This Writing Room knows how to do that very well. And it’s congenially mirrored in the show’s setup, too (as @madronash pointed out): the show’s core is women dreaming of freedom and struggling towards it. It’s not about them ever attaining it for more than a moment.

Yet in Mafin, SdL had/has a perfect North Star narrative that was compelling entirely through character and chemistry. Look how these two characters keep choosing each other against all external odds! And now the question could be, perhaps: will they choose each other against all internal odds, too? In absence of external odds? (And for now, they are parading „no!“, but why set up such a domino if not to topple it? The aircraft carrier is back on its truck on the serpentine road...)

The Writing Room and even more so Directing have decided to kick the North Star around to renovate the story, and I assume they will put it back in the sky, but it is a marked departure from the promise of their narrative setup. Fina’s face up there just did the work. How do you maintain „I still love her“ as a baseline while your dialog lines and your face and your body language deliver „I love someone else now and have a better life with them“?

Sure, the argument can now be: Fina, it seems, basically got attached to a Marta copy who wields emotional power over her ("lifesaver") but who also offers her a freer life, and it’s more about that life than about the person offering it (and Fina says she still loves Marta, but again: we don’t see any of that in her face or in Directing post 652, and there are no prop hints, either. Or rather: there are prop hints in the opposite direction (I am still not over the suizos, but at least they were present?)).

But the painful thing is: this Fina, who is so reluctant and uncomfortable next to Marta, would be better off back in Argentina.

(Fina eventually choosing Marta regardless - if that’s where the longterm storyline is going - could be the next crumb stop, but what would be the plot situation for that? Something trite and external like an illness or jealousy or a push from Bianca, or something more rewarding about Marta being Marta? Here we go, curve, here we go…)

Final Note: I love Digna basically becoming the interim director of the perfumeria in the shadows now. Her little notebook and glasses at the beginning go the scene!

Also, final silver lining given by this scene's context in the entire episode: Editing has our backs, too. The scene between Digna and Fina about a woman coming between Mafin is cut right around a scene of Andrés and Valentina arguing about Begoña’s role in Andrés’ life. All right. It’s Endgame Couple Therapy Meta Session.