Mrs. Daphne Fielding

If you think I wouldn't be the kind of lesbian who orders vol. 2 (essays and poetry) just to check out the poems on paper, uhm. Well. Also if you think I wouldn't write a post about it (the edition is beautifully set, on bible-thin paper).

Within Chacel's oeuvre, the poetry is indeed the smallest section, collecting the 1936 anthology "A la orilla de un pozo" with the 1978 "Versos Proíbidos" and a few varia (odes, and my my favorite subsection called "Sonetos de circunstancias")

What strikes me most, in particular about her poems (mainly sonnets) to dedicatees, is how Chacel uses them like gifts that remember a contact that is often, against her background of exile and emigration, lost in reality, but mourned and also maintained in her verses that are not abstract, but personal that way.

Much of Chacel's imagery is either very Old Testament (there are seraphs and queens such as Ester), up to Dantesque Christianity (angels, hell, heavens), or Classic Antiquity (deities, heroes, temples, etc.). Some bits of surrealism.

And since "what may Marta have been reading and have it resonate in and with Fina's absence, what is the beauty she was dying to share with Fina?" is a more rhythmically balanced puzzle than the show at the moment, I figured I'd do a few days of Chacel poetry screenshots that stood out to me in terms of Mafin. Just to calm my nerves.

(I won't put them in the main tag because Spanish mid-20the century sonnets may not be up everyone's alley, no matter whether Marta enjoyed them).

I didn't realize that before, but the "A la orilla de un pozo" collection actually starts with the "Tu, de las grietas dueña y moradora" sonnet to Concha Albornoz (not the only one, there is another one in the later works):

Marta is – other than Tasio at the end of the previous episode – delighted to give credit for saving the company to Andrés, but she is also very interested in whether “la Señorita Dubois” will continue to work for them.

La Señorita Dubois certainly is a piece of work here, and she takes great joy in getting back at Marta by rattling her composure at last – not regarding Cloe herself (Cloe knows she never mattered enough for that, and she sure is kicking Marta in the shins for it here) but regarding Fina. Cloe uses all the knowledge gained from Fina yesterday to stab Marta repeatedly while making it look like she’s just brushing a piece of lint off her jacket.

Horay, the company stays in town, and so does Cloe. Marta, have you forgotten that Cloe cannot be your friend? You have.

And Cloe saying she is glad that she doesn’t have to think about her immediate future? Uhm. Just about the one after removing Fina from the picture, is that it, Señorita Dubois?!

Cloe hands back the Chacel, watching Marta’s reaction like a hawk, even though Marta tries to hide her devastation behind her bourgeois emergency protocol.

But Cloe has come to take Marta down. “Fina’s nice, you’re lucky to have her.” – And, of course, Cloe knows what Marta knows: Marta doesn’t actually have her at the moment. Ouch.

And Marta doesn’t even try to keep her poise, she is already that insecure. “Have you talked about me?”

And Cloe’s airy laugh and “Marta, I really need to head up to Accounting”? That’s just taunting. Finally, Cloe can deal Marta back some of that instability and loss of self-esteem. (Why are all of Marta’s (ex-)lovers so petty?)

And Marta, still with the Chacel in hand and the doubts written across her face, is the perfect target. She is already internalizing the “I am messing up everything I touch” narrative. And just like Fina, her choice in sounding boards is as bad as Begoña’s taste in men. Can’t you wait until you’re home to talk to Andrés, Marta?

The little Meander Motif is back while Cloe drips venom: “We didn’t criticize you, we just talked about what you are like.”

And, oh dear, Marta takes the bait – “And what am I like, supposedly?”

Bossy, and making poor meek little Cloe bend to her will, apparently - if we buy into what Cloe says (if anyone was bending anyone against their will there, it was the other way around… which the Writing Room hopefully knows as well as we do). Marta would have been controlling the when and the how.

And the first thing Marta – supposedly controlling Marta – worries about is that Cloe might have done something she didn’t want to.

And Cloe is good with tying in the new keyword she learned yesterday: that’s love, isn’t it, devotion and being run over, and, well, then one ends up feeling insecure. An aghast Marta apologizes, while the aghast Mafin viewer wants to smack Cloe across the room.

Cloe makes a judgmental little face and sighs in disappointment, playing Marta like a fiddle, and now Marta worries Fina might have felt that way, too. And she really shouldn’t talk about that to Cloe, of all people. Cloe says she’s sure that Marta and Fina will be able to work things out and Marta thanks her, but the Empty Fifth Chords sound up, and Marta still holds onto the Chacel and I think chewing on glass would be less painful at this point.

At exactly 00:25:00, Marta lets the Chacel drop onto her desk, and that thud is a door closing.

Images of a rainy night and a lonely Eduardo in mourning segue into Marta on the couch at home alone, reading Chacel, missing Fina (the Haunted Flutes appear at 00:41:04)– probably just like when Fina was gone. And Fina is still gone, in a way, and Marta now believes it is her fault: she would be cold and distant again, trying to control everyone around her. Which is a 180 to what is actually going on (such as: breaking down in front of Fina, admitting her fears, still giving Fina space).

Andrés, also abandoned by two women, is there for the pep talk.

When Marta says she cannot sleep, he immediately knows it is about Fina and he amplifies what the audience knows to be true: Marta is not a bad person, and she needs to calm down, but Marta has entered the Gaslit Zone again: she keeps beating herself up over the Bianca call (she doesn’t tell Andrés about it, just that she “did things wrong”), she says she’s micromanaging Fina’s life, that she’s the problem, that she’s running everything she touches, that Fina will grow tired of her --- which is not a normal fear to have in a relationship where your partner is, well, present and emotionally available.

Andrés tells her she’ll be ready to fight for Fina’s love again, tooth and nail, come morning. Marta says she isn’t so sure, but the pink elephant in the room is the “Marta has to fight for Fina to be deserving of her” narrative having entered the chat.

These love-doom spaniels siblings will still need to give each other all the hugs they can manage. And there is, again, Marta looking over someone’s shoulder in doubt while hugging them:

Marta thinks about admitting her fears to Fina. And, once more, in the flashback, Fina’s accuse of “you lied!”, with no acknowledgment of “but I lied much more profoundly and made it out to be your fault”, is present as something that shifts facts, but while making the audience aware that this is the characters gaslighting each other, while both the Writing Room and the audience know the truth.

It’s a challenging twist to pull off, very ambitious for a “let me put it on in the background” telenovela, and I believe it is specifically tailored to the hyper-attentive Mafin crowd that pours over every dialog line and also offers a wider playing field to the actresses who carry it.

With that in mind, let’s make some sense of Fina committing the lesbian treason of returning a book of poetry that Marta read while missing her, and told her so, and that she has gifted to her while asking her to read it together.

One trajectory at the moment seems to be destabilizing Marta: she gets doubted and attacked professionally and personally on all sides, with the exception of Andrés. The fighting with Tasio (who is unfair and self-centered and unwilling to take on responsibility, because he would be suffering already, cue world's tiniest violin) continues and Digna intervenes, also putting Marta under pressure who is thunderous, and also in her cabecera outfit complete with the rose pin, all hail Directora 2.0.

Marta and Tasio exchanging apologies sounds like both of them telling the other to go fuck off into the sun, and Marta making Tasio apologize twice while keeping perfect manners is a little treat for every woman watching this show who lives among men (and also for the performers, I guess, who nail this moment perfectly), but it is of course less delightful in deepening the parallel setup between Tasio and Marta (estranged wife, ex-lover working at the company, history with drinking that might rear up again at any point) that seems to point towards Marta in her disdain for Tasio stumbling over one of these blocks herself.

But for now, we get this: Who is the center of this shot, framed by every vertical? Who? Queen Marta de la Reina, that’s who.

There is an imbalance in Digna making them both cede when Tasio is far more at fault, and that is another bit of that gaslighting setup where the audience knows a character is treated unjustly but the other characters don’t acknowledge that slight (yet).

More treats in this scene: Marta calling Carmen her friend! (Marta only gets absent friends, lest she get some comfort and less drama in her life because then what would become of her plotlines?), and Marta calling hiring Paula at the company noble, but also, it being the company, an “estupidéz”, and that delivery is so good I want it as a phone chime.

Fina keeps walking into the office geared up for a fight. Today, there’s no Marta, just Cloe, but all women who used to date Marta wear a red check today, and Fina has the Chacel poetry volume that Marta gave to her in her hand. Premeditation.

Fina is discombobulated when Marta isn’t there, but anyway she just came “to return this book”, and just leaving it on the desk of the ex (the poems that Marta wanted to share with Fina as places she inhabited in her absence, missing her, and… *GASP*) is actually worse than giving it to Marta. This exhibits a more studied lack of care.

The gesture is cruel, and intentionally so. And to get into the dialog that follows, which mainly puts Marta down in the voices of her two (ex)lovers, I tried to piece together’s Fina’s mind space.

Fina, in this very office, the day before, has received the blow – to her understanding – that Marta doesn’t love her back equally, that she isn't good enough, that Marta in fact doesn’t value her return as a gesture and requires extra reassurance, not moving an inch while Fina has had to move across an ocean for her, twice. Now FIna doesn' t belong anywhere.

Marta has – in Fina’s mind – thrown the care and the trust in their relationship away with her doubts, and Fina handing back the poetry that Marta gave to her as a link, as a space to inhabit together, is a retaliation on exactly that level: she is throwing the care and trust in their relationship right back at Marta, as equally discarded. ("See how I care that you see that I don't care, Marta? Are you looking? Are you?")

It is supremely petty, cruel because it is planned, but also supremely desperate. Again, like in #594, there is no open thinking space in this office. Fina comes in on lockdown, finds something to sustain her anger (which Cloe feeds to her), and leaves on lockdown with her world view intact, even though that world view is a paper-thin veneer she clings to over an ocean of Marta Marta Marta that she desperately tries not to sink back into. No vulnerabilities!

But there is not love without vulnerability, Fina. Jokes about not knowing how to do the dishes and muffins and kissing instead of talking before you hide back out in your couch cushion fortress because you can absolutely not deal with the immensity of what you feel will only carry you so far in pretending that you have your life under control.

Fina’s conversation with Cloe is not a fight, but actually nice at first, with the two of them bonding over photography. Fina’s portfolio falls to the floor, they both kneel down to pick up the photos, and the top one is a clearly personal photo of the woman they are both in love with. Lesbian levels of awkwardness.

Okay, Prop Department, we’ve got to talk about this choice:

Logistically, this will be a Fiestas extra from when they shot the “family photos” in the outfits from Andrés’ wedding, back around episode 40. But to go and dig up a photo of Marta in that dress which is The Dress Fina Took Off Of Her In Illescas When They Slept With Each Other For The First Time? My God.

The Extra Intense Lesbian Award goes to the Prop Department today, especially in terms of narrative implications: Fina didn’t take pictures back then. Isidro was alive and had his own camera still in use, so narratively, Fina took this photo, and Marta put on this dress for her again, to pose for Fina, at a much later point. And with the garden outside, we could argue that it passes for the Mafinca (even though it is the Casa grande set), but even if not: Fina took this photo before she left for Argentina and now still uses it as a centerpiece of her portfolio. This is SO lesbian extra I cannot even.

The sound layer offers the “darkroom/Fina at home/Fina’s professional fulfillment” Swell Chords of #363 over the portfolio, and Cloe and Fina bonding over photographers – look at Fina’s happy face here! (around 00:11:50, there’s the new hopeful Love Motif Shard turned to Major, even) – adds an interesting twist of placing them at the same level of artistic expertise, something that “provincial Marta”, as Cloe once said, may not be part of, because Toledo is not Paris and not Buenos Aires.

And Cloe looks genuinely happy, too, for a moment, but then the scene takes an odd swerve that simplifies the character of Cloe again. She asks Fina whether things are all right with Marta, and Fina looks immediately trapped and wary.

Fina may be very carefully mad at Marta at the moment, but that is her curated anger, at her girlfriend, and Cloe has no place in that. Is that a hint of jealousy, Fina? Realizing there’s someone else who could talk photography with Marta if you push her away long enough?

Cloe apologizes and says several times she doesn’t want to meddle, and like all kind of over-performance it points to the lack of substance below: she wants to meddle, and she is smooth in doing so, offering an ear for Fina to talk about Marta “being peculiar”, which Fina can do better with the slighted ex than with the shared mother figure or a friend who is Marta’s employee.

Yes, Fina, you need to talk, but this is a no good, very bad choice. Your choice in sounding board here about being angry with Marta ("our anger", she says, but Marta isn't angry, Marta is just crushed and sad) is about as bad as Begoña’s taste in men, and that’s our general badness meter on this show.

To Cloe, Fina admits she is disappointed, which is more narrative than she has offered to Marta, and Cloe is goading her on: with so much love, there would be more fights (uhm. No?), and she would absolutely understand being disappointed with something Marta did (Cloe, remember how you were always more disappointed with what Marta didn’t do?). Uh-oh.

Fina starts talking, and it may be an insight into her mind at the moment: she again scoffs at her former self, calling it docile, and saying that now she has changed, and now she will defend her views.

Which is preposterous, since Fina has stood up to Marta and everyone, not caring about putting herself at risk, since the first episode. You can’t fire Claudia. You can fire me, but I am not going to be less gay. Sorry, Damián, but I won’t be shipped off to Barcelona without your daughter. All the way up to I don’t want to be put into your will, I want you to be mine in life. Uhm?!

Sure, there is a grain to latch onto: Fina chose to be quiet after the wedding to Pelayo and throughout the baby plot, but it was her choice, to protect Marta, and none of it was ever docile.

The question is: who fed Fina that narrative and made her believe it? How does it sustain Fina’s before/after tale? (is Fina perhaps afraid of realizing that she didn’t change that much at all, that she is still ready to feel so much, still willing to expose herself to so much hurt, and, relatedly, still so in love with the same woman?) And why is Cloe so interested in confirming it?

The last one might be the easiest to answer: Cloe wants Marta, and perhaps she also does not want anyone else to have Marta if she cannot have her.

Cloe offers the phrasing of “You’re not her shadow any longer” to Fina, and Fina latches onto it while Cloe, over the Wrong Flutes on piano, again says “Me, too”.

They are both making statements that the audience knows to be false, and I think that’s not careless writing, but very conscious mulhollanddriving this plot into the next curve. Neither of them have ever been Marta’s shadow. Fine, Fina has had to live in the shadows around Marta (from which Marta, e.g. over Jaime’s return, but also through the entire horrid marriage from Pelayo, has tried to save Fina), but she has never been a shadow. Neither has Cloe, who has tried to mold herself to Marta in hopes of being wanted more, but that’s not being a shadow, and it also isn’t on Marta. The inconsistencies here are so glaring that I don’t think it’s retconning. It better be intentional seed-planting.

Cloe seems to enjoy the tale-spinning, “Marta was my weakness, we had a very intense thing, but you were always in the middle of it and PS. she’s difficult,” as if to sketch out the path for Fina into a breakup. While the audience knows that the one thing Cloe always wanted and never got from Marta was their thing being more intense.

And Fina does some explaining, too, as if she had the right to judge – the “my anger at Marta can only be understood through her insecurity” is patronizing and disrespectful. But building on #594, Marta’s insecurity, for Fina, is a proof that Marta doesn’t trust her and doesn’t love her as much any longer, so that insecurity is the thorn in her side.

The Fragmented Meander Motif appears turned to minor around 00:16:00, and Fina’s choice of words is telling: “The armor fell off the knight, and underneath is a fragile heart, like yours and mine.” And that is the final line before Fina ends the conversation and leaves, not without the final dig of “it's better you give her back that book” ("See again how much I don't care, Marta, I need you to notice!"), and of course Cloe reaches for the book and the broken link it signifies before Fina has even left the office.

But back to “the armor fell off the knight, and underneath is a fragile heart”. I see you, Serafina Valero in your umpteenth armor turtleneck, and I hear you voicing your own worst fear: losing your armor and exposing your fragile heart.

And you fear this exposure so, so much that you need to despise Marta for doing that so fearlessly, in front of you. It’s why you had to rebuff her and frame it as disappointment to you because it is, again, the one thing that has you paralyzed with fear: to be open, to be vulnerable, to need. (The twist of it eventually being, I hope, Fina realizing that she cannot protect herself from Marta and doesn’t want to, either. Otherwise, she would already have run. This way, she will have a lot of damage to apologize for, and we will need Manuela to refill the Liquor Cart twice a day instead of only once.)

The Wrong Flutes return, as flutes, left open in the end as Cloe looks after Fina, as if she plots something.

Cloe sowing discord on her way out while both Marta and Fina trust her would be a very soap-y parting gift, plus they already have enough issues on their own, but to have an outside opponent again would be a reprieve at this point.

Meanwhile, the Chacel: it seems to be an actual edition from the look inside the book (contents, set poetry, references), but the cover info doesn’t add up. Hmm…

The only one firmly in Marta’s corner right now is Andrés, and Marta being so proud of Andrés convincing Hugo on the phone, intercut with Claudia and Miguel trying to enjoy their disaster picnic, was all kinds of heartwarming.

And then it’s Cloe, in the end, bringing the good news about the factory staying in Toledo, but of course still directed by the 51% French, and Cloe will stay on, too – only that we know via the actress’ exit dates that she won’t, so if it’s not a professional cul-de-sac making her get out of Toledo in about twenty episodes, what will it be then?

Miedo me da.

Editing puts Fina exploding at Marta in between Claudia and Miguel moving closer to each other as a parallel “couples trying to figure each other out”; and that’s the most optimistic read I can draw up at this point.

The scene is brutal, but it helps to remember that Fina is not openly reacting to anything that happens in this scene and in this office. Fina walks in in full lockdown mode and she walks out in full lockdown mode and not even Marta in tears gets through her armor of ire.

There is no reasoning with this Fina, there is just wondering what happened to her to be so deadly afraid of any vulnerability that she would rather push away the woman she loves than face her fears. But while Fina is abrasive, she is not cruel here (we’ll get to that over the Chacel. Oh brother.)

Fina doesn’t even ask “Did you take Bianca’s call?” It’s Attack Mode from the get-go: “Why didn’t you tell me you talked to Bianca?”

Fina is plaintiff, jury and judge here, and the sentence has been dealt out before Marta even says a word.

Righteousness is never a good look, but Fina seems to need it just as desperately as her anger – something to be right about, something where she holds the answer, something she can control?

And Fina certainly doesn’t hold back. She starts with “So you have deceived me,” and that is so disproportionate (and that’s how it lands with Marta) that it is clearly about something else. Perhaps it’s about having tried to fit in back in Toledo and being unhappy with it, but she hasn’t tried to talk about, instead hiding the unhappiness and anger behind her new favorite blanket term of “independence.”

There is no actual conversation happening here, and Fina saying things – such as that it’s over with Bianca – will of course not calm Marta, who has lived through weeks of Fina saying one thing but doing another. (I love you, but I don't want a home with you. You are my partner, but I want you at a distance while I shop for couch cushions. I returned for you, but also I decided not to mention I have another girlfriend in Argentina.)

The sequence has an interesting balance in that Fina seems – while she can finally lash out at Marta for having done something wrong! – still defensive and under pressure: she says she hasn’t ended things well with Bianca, she does not want to appear insensitive, she even asks Marta for empathy towards Bianca (the same Marta who was crushed when Fina admitted to being with someone else). Marta is not in the mood.

Of course “I only broke up with her because I chose you” is not a reassurance. It registers to Marta as “I was able to choose someone else and could do so again.”

Above all, it’s not “I broke up with her because I love you, not her,” and that’s what Marta might need to hear, but above all, what she would need to experience. Because for Marta, it is “I will always choose you”, and Fina right now signals to her that she was able to choose someone else.

Yet even though Fina is angry and confrontative and insensitive in this scene, Brunet gets Fina across as caged and helpless, lashing out with fear and in disbelief, and seeming utterly lost. It is not intentional cruelty. And her “attack first” mode is still very much Fina, as is Marta staying cool: “Sorry if I don’t worry about the woman who had you while I was suffering.”

But Fina repeats her manipulative-without-meaning-to move from the muffin coffee date: “Tell me what you need. I showed you that you can trust me, haven’t I?” (Uhm. No. You haven't.)

And this is a good piece of writing because for Fina (“but I stayed!”) that staying is a proof of loyalty, while for Marta, who is kept at arms’ length, that trust in FIna's loyalty has eroded specifically due to this unavailable Fina. And here Marta is asked to spell out, again, what she needs: that she wants affection and compassion and companionship.

They are unintentionally gaslighting each other: Fina cannot believe how Marta doesn’t recognize her sacrifice of staying. Marta cannot believe that a woman who frames staying with her as a sacrifice does really love her. Both their reactions are relatable.

But between the two of them upholding their armor, Marta is the one to cede, from a standoffish “I already told you I’m sorry” (which, indeed, she hasn’t said, and Fina doesn’t wait a second before she latches onto that and throws it in Marta's face with a disappointed sigh) to honestly admitting her fears, under tears.

But this Fina is unable to hear it because that would mean opening herself up to being vulnerable (no one makes her more vulnerable than Marta, which is why she is the hardest on Marta, and only Marta), and here she has found one chink to place her spur of righteous anger, and she will not let go of it.

Their more open conversation gets a string sound layer, and Fina asking Marta “What’s happening to you?” is actually the question Fina would ask herself, if she had access to her own empathic nature.

Marta is still mostly the same. The audience knows it because they’ve seen it across nine months, but they don’t know what has happened to Fina to be on emotional lockdown (other than Pelayo exiling her to the other side of the world). But there are little chinks visible also in Fina’s armor, and Brunet does a great job in portraying that surface ripple of things that do not get through to her consciousness: the way her face moves when Marta sincerely apologizes. It’s in the way her brow and her jaw cede a bit of tension for a second (00:27:51).

Fina doesn’t want to soften, but part of her does. And then she shifts back to her categoric judgment in reaction: The woman I fell in love with wouldn’t have done this (not if you had treated her like a woman you love, Fina, but we get that you cannot do that right now). This has the same importance as keeping the relationship with Bianca a secret. (It has not.)

But as the scene goes on, Fina, if anything, looks desperate and lost opposite Marta's pain:

Fina’s Haunted Flutes are back to underlay Marta’s fears of Fina and Bianca on the phone all night, reconnecting (00:28:29). Marta, who has been unable to move on from Fina, will of course be scared by the fact that Fina could move on, and Fina returning and staying cannot fix that. Staying is passive. "Staying" is not “actively being there with someone, communicating openly, and growing together.”

Fina, on the other side – and damn, upon rewatching it, this is super hurtful but this “ships that miss each other in the night” is very well written – is offended by Marta’s trust issues. No one snuck out of Fina’s bedroom in the middle of the night, she doesn’t understand that fear of abandonment. And “I am staying” likely feels for Fina like “All I want is to run and not have ties, and yet I am here! I am digging in my heels every day to not go back to someplace safer and more rewarding professionally and less complicated emotionally, all because of you and if that doesn’t earn back your trust I don’t have anything else to offer, you don’t love me like I love you.”

That’s why Fina calls Marta blind, and why Marta says she’s not. Because while Fina may say that she is available, and may *think* she acts that way, the audience sees that Fina is in fact not available emotionally at the moment, at least not to Marta, and that echoes in Marta’s reactions.

On the other side, there is Fina calling Marta “insecure” – which she will scoff at in the next episode – but it is not something Fina rejects as a sign of weakness, but as a sign of distrust and lesser love.

The Empty Fifth Chords are back because, no, of course Fina does not know what to say to that confession. Because she doesn’t see “Marta is crying because she loves me, because she is dead afraid of losing me and scared by my constant pushing her away”. What Fina sees is “Marta doesn’t trust me, which means she doesn’t love me like I love her.”

What a twisted mess, which ends with Marta apologizing in more fear while Fina moves away once again, and Fina is incapable of recognizing her own lack of empathy (and there is a big difference between recognizing another human being is in pain and afraid, and forgiving that person for having done something hurtful. You can definitely have one of these without the other).

Fina’s own emotions seem to yell at her at a distance, with only anger getting through, but it is also clear after this scene that they are there underneath. This is not indifference. This is just another facet of fear, locked down so deep that Fina herself cannot hear it (or desperately tries not to hear it).

Girl. You have to talk. You would need a therapist.

Later, Marta's long glace at the liquor tray already showcases that this was the beginning of the end:

In addition, this is the start to a "people attacking Marta as a person" arc: Tasio accuses her, very unjustly, of trying to end his marriage as a retaliation of his business decision over the family company. Of course Marta would never (we hope).

All that aside, Marta countering Tasio's whining of "I just lost my wife!" with "You should have kept it in your pants" was supremely satisfying, and I only hope that it wasn't a parallel setup to have Marta pushed to breaking point and at Cloe (please no).

Marta is moving towards breaking point: she snaps at Tasio (who needles her, again, about the “caprice” that is the Mafinca), enough to slam a hand against the table, and Marta barely ever snaps.

Next, Marta has another sad coffee appointment with Cloe, which is at least not a coffee date, but Marta is sad either way: her father has sided with Tasio, their new business plan has gone up in smoke due to that, her expertise was dismissed in the progress. The entire color set-up is muted: black, burgundy, ecru. Very Winter Is Coming.

Marta remembers that Cloe struggles with seeing her as a friend (the Wrong Flute weasel their way back in at 00:13:14 of the Mafin Drive Cut when Cloe says she doesn’t know whether it’s a good idea to stick around for a job with the dlRs), but then says that she sees Cloe as a friend and wants to keep her close by – the Wrong Flutes keep sounding – and that’s unfair, knowing that Cloe struggles with being around Marta but not being with Marta and Cloe leaves, feeling pressured: another pendulum that will swing back, and not in favor or Mafin.

And Cloe gets staged as positive again by defending the dlR clan against Félix the Moustache: they’d never kill anyone for their business. And then the next word after the cut is “Tasio”, who is an accessory to murder by stealing that pillbox (welcome to the family for real, Tasio). Nice one, Editing! Cloe tells off Félix and says she wants to get up with a clean conscience every morning – which might also be a moral setup from which to fall again.

Marta does a dramatic, melancholic farewell walk through the store (stopping at the point where she and Fina once first touched hands over a letter to a half-forgotten husband) and of course makes everyone nervous with her little scene.

The banger at the end of the episode is Fina (cut right before Gabriel judging Begoña and yelling at her about unfounded rumors) skulking into the Casa grande. Put this in the dictionary next to the lemma "skulk":

Digna’s first question is “Did you talk to Bianca?” (really, Digna? How about “Are you looking for Marta? She’s not home yet but surely would love to see you”??)

Fina has spoken to Bianca, and while we haven’t been privy to that call, we’ve heard the receiving end of a Bianca call before, so God knows what Bianca made of “I gave them a message for you, and there was a woman who didn’t deliver it?” (Bianca likely recognized Marta’s voice, they spoke before and Marta introduced herself then).

And we have seen the talk between Bianca and Marta: Marta said Fina moved out. She did not say “I don’t know her new address.”

Manuela, asked whether she took the call, asks, “But was it about work? Was it important?” And Fina has to admit that it wasn’t about work, but she insists that it was important.

Digna is old enough to see a thunderstorm moving up (the Empty Fifth Chords are back around 00:44:42, pointedly spaced apart, as if searching), and Fina, with all her anger that she keeps repressing, finally has found a justified outlet: Marta kept something from her! How dare she!

And Fina’s first rection isn’t “oh God, my ex called, I hope she didn’t say anything to make Marta, who is my partner, uncomfortable, I should ask her about it and make sure she is okay.”

No, it is instead anger at Marta, who isn’t even mentioned, which makes the scene all the more threatening. this judgmental "told you so!" disappointment face is hard to stomach because it is not an open reaction to a situaiton. it is seeking and finding confirmation for a narrative Fina clings to:

Fina is done feigning that she is okay with having returned and fitting back in in Toledo and accommodating Marta, and she finally has the excuse to explode.

This set jaw says: I will burn things down no matter what anyone says.

Framing this anger as disproportional and knee-jerk, and showing Fina as looking for a fight from the moment she steps into the house (and very good portrayal of simmering tension by Brunet here, amped by Digna’s “oh dear this will be ugly” face), is a setup that will later, when the damage is done, allow the narrative to retreat to a position of “she was out of her mind when she did that, this was a trauma reaction, she was unavailable to reason or empathy”. Which is clearly broadcast here, but it still whatever comes will be very unpleasant to watch because Fina will barge in in full armor, and that is different from her anger of before, when she got mad, but never locked herself down.

But, puzzle piece: We understand here that Fina desperately needs an excuse to be really, really angry, and she has finally found it. We also understand that this anger is  not really about that phone call or about Marta keeping silent.

Yeah, that hurts.

And I am sitting here looking at the “1 cap per ep” posts 593-596 waiting for me, and I had the impulse to handle something beautiful with care, to balance my discomfort of watching this plotline unfold.

And then I started to remember poems women shared with me across the years – some given by friends, some by lovers – and I remembered poems I gave to them, pieces of beauty shared, and it got me thinking about what Chacel Marta as a character might connect to in particular (while not printed as an anthology, a lot of the 1978 collection was apparently written in the 1930s and 1940s and published scattered across journals?), or which poems would resound with Mafin beyond that, in the narrative, but also for the audience.

And I don’t know about you, but I could really use some poetry after this week.

So feel free to reblog with your own addition and to share some favorites and some beauty. All original languages welcome! (I think we can all handle a translation program and the original rhythm is always magic.) Extra points for women writers. Super extra points for queer women writers. – I just felt like tending to something beautiful in the face of poetry being handled so callously, and with intent to hurt. Queer women respect the poems that move them!

*****

These lines are from Ingeborg Bachmann’s (1926-1973) “Explain to me, love” [“Erklär mir, Liebe”], written in 1956. It’s not really a hidden gem since it’s well-known in the German-speaking countries, but the mood of summer bounty and an overthinking mind simply being overcome with being a body in love has early Mafinca garden vibes for me.  

"Your hat lifts quietly, as in greeting, floats on the wind, The clouds are enamored with your uncovered head, Your heart has work to do elsewhere. Your mouth is swallowing up new languages, the quaking grass is taking over across the land. Summer blows starflowers, on and off, You lift your face, blinded by seed heads, You laugh and cry and die of yourself, Whatever else could happen to you? Explain to me, Love!"

(translation mine; original below)

[Dein Hut lüftet sich leis, grüßt, schwebt im Wind, dein unbedeckter Kopf hat’s Wolken angetan, dein Herz hat anderswo zu tun, dein Mund verleibt sich neue Sprachen ein, das Zittergras im Land nimmt überhand, Sternblumen bläst der Sommer an und aus, von Flocken blind erhebst du dein Gesicht, du lachst und weinst und gehst an dir zugrund, was soll dir noch geschehen –

While there’s no scene between Marta and Fina, both get pushed into position towards future conflict.

Marta, in addition to her insecurities around a Fina who still won’t talk to her (and whom she still hasn’t told that Fina’s ex called, asking for Fina), is pitted against Tasio. She is outmaneuvered at the company – where her father sides with Tasio in the end (at 00:03:46 (Mafin Drive Cut)), the Family String Quartet Theme seems ominous– and even at home, Andrés asks Marta to be understanding of Tasio, while Marta is alone in her anger at a man who cheated on his wife (who is her friend to boot) and hired his former affair at the company.

The potential parallel there – Marta used to date Cloe, who works at the company and who she has tried to rehire; Marta is in a relationship with Fina (as much as Fina can be in a relationship at the moment) who is out of a job and says she may have to take any offer, even outside of photography, to maintain herself – is played up too much to be a coincidence, but how it will play out, or if the card will merely be shown and not fully played, is still unclear.

Either way, Marta is under pressure and alone with her anger and insecurities at work, in her family, and also in her relationship, where she still keeps quiet about Bianca’s call. Powder keg.

Fina, meanwhile, gets a blue/red signature talk with Digna that places some “facts” with a bit of retconning, instrumentalizing (again) the figure of Digna to antagonize.

One small hurtful detail at the beginning is how the park walk begins with a shot into a tree, with light filtering through the leaves, and it feels like the Mafinca garden for a moment, but it is Digna and Fina taking a walk through the park – at peace, as the tree shot seems to imply? We hear Fina’s voice first, she sounds happy and at ease as she says, “the apartment is almost done!”. She wants to invite Digna for dinner (no more talk about inaugurating the kitchen with Marta here).

The scene gets a full four minutes: Fina first gets to repeat that she has trouble finding work and will consider things beyond photography, but as soon as Digna suggests Marta help her pay the bills until she finds a job – as a couple sharing their lives and their worries and who support each other in any way when need arises – the walls come done.

Dinner? Yay:

Dinero from my wife? Nay:

(Ouch)

Fina says she knows she can count on Marta, but she doesn’t want to. And that is played up by Digna’s bewildered, “why not?” (indeed, why not, Fina. And the answer is: Fina will live next to someone, but not with someone, at the moment because, above all, she wants no strings attached) – she also doesn’t want Digna’s money, but she is less vehement about that.

Fina brings up her striving for “independence” again, and we get the Fragmented Meander Motif again (00:34:35), and Digna doesn’t look convinced by it, either:

But Fina, with Digna, gets to be the most open about her baggage since her return so far: she would have been forced to leave everything behind and start from scratch elsewhere, unable to relay on anyone, with a lot of anger (!), and now she doesn’t want to owe anyone anything.

The only line missing there in the middle is “I was unable to relay on anyone, and I am so traumatized by the experience that I am scared to need anyone, so now I don’t want to owe anyone anything.”

Fina’s Home Motif accompanies Digna lauding Fina’s development, she would be different (“Where’s the Fina we know?”), her father would be proud of her (00:35:20).

What feels like retconning is Digna insinuating that Marta would have a problem with Fina’s autonomy – Marta who in the 370s encouraged Fina to pursue photography even if it would mean she work or live elsewhere because she would never want Fina to miss a chance because of her. Uhm? – and Fina saying “Yes, she does” as if Marta would still protest much there. Then again: Marta’s unspoken reluctance (about Fina distancing herself) will transport as rejection (of her “autonomy”) to Fina.

Fina is not enthusiastic about Digna insisting they need to respect each other more than their personal interests (Marta keeping that call from Bianca a secret: looking worse by the minute, too). That does not sit well with fight-or-flight, no-strings-attached Fina and she looks away with a frown when Digna insists and asks whether Fina believes they can reach that kind of understanding. Fina’s line says yes, but her face says “no”, and it’s another great double layer delivery by Brunet.

Fina brings up Bianca, as someone she has hurt. And her “you know I don’t like to hurt people, and I don’t like to seem ungrateful” does not apply to Marta right now, whom Fina keeps hurting, and whom Fina rebuffs at every other bend in the road.

Fina’s Haunted Flutes of the Pampas sound up (00:36:42), but what Fina describes doesn’t sound like concern for Bianca, but concern about settling a guilt (another set of ties that she wants severed!): She says she is mad (not sad!) that “I couldn’t transmit to her how important she has been for me.” Note the past tense.

How grateful Fina is to Bianca, and will always be, “for saving my life in every sense”. That doesn’t sound like it was ever a balanced relationship. It also doesn’t sound like longing for a reunion, but for closure. It sounds like wanting to settle a score, pay off a guilt and be free.

The camera cuts away, to Fina’s incongruous red heels that mirrored Marta’s dress in the guestroom, that are the same color as Marta’s shirt.

Digna suggests Fina call Bianca for closure, which is an altogether terrible idea – sure, hearing you meant a lot to someone after the fact feels revindicating but after the fact, and we are no way after the fact yet. 5 years is after the fact. Perhaps 10 or 20. Fittingly, Fina worries she might hurt Bianca again (a worry she might extend to Marta now and then. Ehum.)

Digna calling Fina and Bianca a “bonita historia” gets that wistful, gleaming little love motif again (00:37:28) that already played when Fina told Digna that Bianca’ friends never judged her (we never learned whether those friends amounted to more than three sheep on the chacra) and I guess it will make many returns when Bianca rides into town.

Fina insists again that she wants to cook for Digna, and Digna asks, "are you learning to cook?" as if Fina hadn't cooked at the Mafinca at all. (not all the guisos were metaphorical)