#sdl 596

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: