#sdl directing

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 to 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.

((Most of this I have already said, though less congruously, in tagging eze’s beautiful gifsets: how Fina is not fully in this bed, much as we want her to be and Marta believes her to be. How Fina doesn’t fully move in and clearly needs more time. How Marta would need the parachute that Fina still hasn’t strapped out of. How Fina grapples less with the intimacy of sex than with the intimacy of talking and trusting. How Fina is again trying to solve things on her own and keep Marta’s peace by keeping silent, but when will Fina be at peace? How the nuance in dialog keeps a subtle shadow. But also how that shadow lifts once there is an outside obstacle to face.)

Fina is currently at ‘we’re lucky’ and searching gazes, while Marta is blissfully unaware of the distance they still have to bridge.

One of them is fully at peace. The other is not.

What is more painful: one of them is at peace because of the other, but that other is a chimera because the other is not the same any longer. Fina has changed, but she doesn’t let Marta meet this new version of her and see whether their connections holds. She tries to keep Marta happy by being as much of the old one as she can. (This will explode. Marta will be devastated. Fina will finally have to talk openly about what she wants.)

 One of these two is blissfully happy, but with a person that isn’t quite there any longer. And Marta doesn’t see it and doesn’t want to see it;  Fina cordons herself off, not giving Marta the chance to catch up, either. It is unfair to both, and as adorable as they are here, I think they are slated for a (temporary) breakup.

Editing agrees and puts them in between Salva’s vandalized bar and Nieves’ and Pablo’s chasm called a breakfast table, and Pablo’s first line after Marta and Fina disappear with smiles under the blanket is, “do you still think about telling them the truth?”

Next to the angsty undertow, the scene is adorable and toes the line. The camera work is intimate, not showing the room, just the bed and them. It could be anywhere. The sound intro (00:05:27 in the Mafin Drive Cut) quotes the final of the Warehouse Swagger Motif.

Overall, there is little motif work on the sound layer, just at two key points after this, the rest is illustration. The long periods of quiet also add to the intimacy of the moment, and to the peace Marta confesses – vulnerable and honest without any safety net (she will crash so hard oh God) – Fina’s presence gives her.

But what does Fina do in return? She stays, but she stays silent, she stays, but she does not reach out. Marta – which I found to be a very poignant detail – strokes her own arm at this:

...and when she reaches out, her palm remains turned toward herself while Fina does not reach up to take that hand:

Fina keeps her hand under her face, the blanket drawn up, a less open pose, and when she looks at Marta – especially in the moments where Marta looks away, thinking out loud and sharing herself without reserve while Fina does not – her gaze is searching, and searching, half-muted, half-desperate. (Brunet should get far more credit to how she plays Fina with the handbrake on) And when Marta looks at her, she retreats behind that smile that doesn't give away too much.

And Fina covers up her opaqueness with joking, which hurts doubly since it suggests an intimacy that isn’t fully shared: it takes the weight out of it. "“I don’t make noises!” and "Watch your nails!" rings with 574’s “I love you mo-ore!”

And that is easy to say because it needs no explanations and leads to kisses that prevent talking, and that is not lying, but it is avoidance. And it is suggesting an intimacy that isn't fully mirrored emotionally at the moment.

“That’s why I put you in the room at the end of the hall,” Marta says when they are almost discovered, and Fina jokes, “We weren’t in any state to change rooms last night,” to which Marta agrees, “No, we weren’t.”

But that is the closest to their legendary chemistry we get here (they wouldn't need a bed, they could undress each other with one glance across the the storeroom); it remains at simmer stage and it is acts told, not shown: Directing and Performance keep it banked.

Still, the moment they are almost discovered is the moment they are the most at ease with each other: there is an outside threat, and they immediately band together and have each other’s backs, under giggles. They are instinctively good together when they aren’t brooding. The domestic intimacy is light and truly playful.

After this, it is the only moment in the scene where Fina moves closer physically, shifting on her elbow towards Marta, even if not by much. And when Marta is “curious” and wants to talk, Fina, despite trying to state the opposite, is not ready to share. Marta attempts to talk, to work through her doubts and her jealousy; Fina evades it.

There is a difference: Fina had consciously discarded the possibility of Marta, while living through a lot of new things. Marta never discarded the possibility of Fina.

For Marta, physical and emotional intimacy fall into on here, whereas Fina has learned that she can separate the two. She has done so sleeping with Marta while she was still half in Buenos Aires in her head; she is doing it again here when she is still unable to talk, but clearly does not want to hurt Marta, and not talking is so easy. She may have been doing it with Bianca, with some part of her heart locked away in Toledo so deep she could ignore it?

The Haunted Flutes of Chacracore return at 00:07:16 when Fina speaks of her life with Bianca, and when Marta tries to sound out the competition: “Rich Bianca?” (that’s easier, more playful, than “So, was Bianca rich? Did you replace me with someone who could offer you all the same things? What remains about me that is unique to you?”)

There is a romantic little flute motif at 00:07:45 when Fina talks about her meet-cute with Bianca that makes me want to knock a box of flacons and soaps off a counter. And when Fina calls their conversation an “interrogatory” because Marta asks and she answers (which is normal when you try to reconnect, after one person has made a wealth of experiences half around the world?), there is a sound comeback to the Empty Fifth Chords (which I use because it sounds so much like Evil Sith Lords) which is the music which signals the chasm between them. Is this bed as wide as the Salazar breakfast table?

When Marta says, self-deprecatingly “Oh, so it was love at first sight then”, the Empty Fifth Chords do a shift to minor (00:08:07). Ouch

(Fina's look here? Doube ouch.)

But when Marta states, “The important thing is that we’re together”, their first love motif – True Flutes Awakeing – makes a full return (at 00:08:43). Unbreak my heart, Sound Department!

And before Marta pulls the blanket over their heads, Fina even gets to do a little “Sssh” like back in the Darkroom.

Well, not everything has changed, even though the mood is so different here, with Fina staying on her side of the bed and answering to Marta’s “The important thing is that we’re together” with “We’re so lucky”, which is not the same. And it is not the same as Marta’s “we are fortunate” (and it is much less than Marta's "Fina is my destiny", said to Andrés, later in the episode, with a supremely relaxed bearing.)

“Claro que sí,” Fina agrees.

But she doesn’t start with any statement. All the starts come from Marta. Fina reacts. And her reaction is not, “being with you is the most important thing for me, too.”

It is important, sure. It was important enough to come back to Spain, and to stay, but Fina is still holding back, still searching for who she is, now, next to Marta. Not yet fully with Marta (and that will take time, and they would need to talk, but this being a soap, they probably won’t talk).

None of this here is at “Quiero que seas mi mujer” and “I will endure whatever it takes to be with you”.

And while Fina is protecting Marta from having to deal with the pain and the insecurity over the distance between them, it is not “that’s what I’m doing: protecting my wife”, as Fina once told Pelayo.

And Pelayo’s legacy – and that bind of a wedding ring – may get its due yet, just as Fina’s abandonment issues but also her growth.

Is this still “I will always chose you”, aka the North Star Narrative?

Time and scripts will tell. But I think so. Because what is more romantic than "She is my destiny" (as Marta says to Andrés about FIna later in this episode)? It's "I will always choose her, and trust her to choose me in return."

Pelayo is dead. Which invites questions: why take this obvious route that was broadcast miles-wide in advance? Why no rugpull here?

And instead of a beating: death, without a confession. So what does that mean for the narrative domino chain?

With Pelayo dead, Marta and Fina (and the viewers) have no chance of a carthartic confrontation (though some of that was transferred to subtext in the murder, I will get to this in a minute) - perhaps also to keep them clean of the murder/manslaugther that would likely occur upon Marta learning the truth?

In narrative framing, Pelayo seemed to move towards a planned confession on his last day (the show likes to give even their darkest characters some struggles with ethics), in an episde highlighting regrets: foremost, Digna telling Julia that regret shows a person has feelings and ethics; Pablo regretting his affair, but also having told Nieves about it; Tasio regretting he missed his luncheon, but not really because he is too hapless to think of consequences. Pelayo's struggle with guilt, made explicit several times in talks with Darío, pointed towards a confession which in the end doesn't happen. Pelayo only gets to teaser the reveal that we know will come next week (the AF spoiler), in addition, he was consistently shown as unempathic towards Marta since his return - perhaps making a conscious point of his guilt being about how it makes him feel, and not about considering how Marta feels.

What is the narrative path now, since "Marta finds out slowly on her own" is out of the window, just as much as (with that phone message to Mexico) "Marta moves heaven and earth in a slow search for Fina"? From where will they now draw up the tension for their reunion arc? What is the plan? Did Pelayo die so soon because they couldn't book Albacirrín for more days? - There must be a plan. I have no idea what it is. Well done, novelita.

But: even if Marta and Fina were denied a direct confrontation, they got their Pelayo comeuppance in the murder, on a level of image parallels, text parallels, and sound parallels.

Image parallels:

the stabbing of Pelayo is shot similarly to the stabbing of Fina in episode 56 (blocking of the characters and camera angle, knife trajectory - also mentioned at the Friday Liquor Cart by @veganpepsibaby)

the dying of Pelayo and the way Marta holds him in her lap, pressing a cloth to his wound, cradling his head, is shot similarly to Marta holding Fina in the same situation in episodes 56/57. But Fina survived that sitation. Pelayo does not. Their narrative twists and tilts on him.

on a meta level (applying only to the viewers) there is the re-use of the prop knife: Pelayo gets stabbed with the same white switchblade that killed Santiago, i.e. with the very proof that Pelayo kept and used to blackmail Fina (even as they are supposed to be two entirely different knives in the story).

Dialogue parallels:

Pelayo offering Álvaro money and Álvaro scoffing at him, going off about "the rich ones who never care" is the same dialogue as Marta offering money to Santiago in episode 375 while he threatens her with a knife and also scoffs at rich people who should pay (this might be lazy writing, but if not, it also drives home a point of difference: because Marta survived that situation because Fina was there and saved her. Pelayo does not survive. There is no one there (except Marta whose cries for help are in vain), while Pelayo's partner is all the way in Mexico. Meanwhile, we get reminders (one as image, one in dialogue) of Mafin saving each other in parallel situations.

another interesting parallel is the Mafin catchphrase "Mírame" which has been present at several points where Marta and Fina sorted out differences and which ultimately affirmed their love and their choice to continue to grow together (Marta says it twice to Fina before she tells her, for the first time, that she is the love of her life). Álvaro in 542 says it to Pelayo twice as he watches him die (more on that below), thwarting a phrase that for Mafin is coded as a phrase of connection and love, into one of derision, with any love absent.

Sound parallels:

again, this could simply be a shortcut of "oh, that's our standard tension music", but the slow, dramatic rise of trembling strings employed as of 00:46:17 (Mafin Drive Cut), as Pelayo hints at "I have have done something horrible" is the same string tremble carpet used in 540, over Marta's slow realization that she is looking at photos taken by Fina and finally has a clue of her whereabouts. - The close succession of the motif's use, just two episodes apart and at length (it stretches over half a minute in both instances), seems to point towards a purposeful parallel.

Bottom line: while Marta and Fina had no part in Pelayo's murder, elements of their narrative were used to accompany the death of Pelayo, who has separated them. Subtextual justice, perhaps?

..................

At this point, you can simply stop reading this post. Following: lots of photos from the murder for analyis and for discussing subtexts evoked by visual conventions.

There was a fascinating discussion at the Liquor Cart on Friday about how Pelayo's murder is ripe - intentionally or not - with Western visual conventions of 1940s/1950s/pulp movies of punishing gayness, and about what reactions those can create for (queer) women who have been socialized with Western tales of gender-specific sexualized violence.

Since Pelayo isn't murdered for being gay, why are these conventions so promiment in his murder, creating subtextual parallels? The parallels land because even while Álvaro doesn't know that Pelayo is gay, the viewers know. And many of the queer viewers may be aware of the early tropes of gay representation in film, as e.g. discussed in "Celluloid Closet" (book & documentary).

For me personally, the parallels were too much. Watching a gay character die this way felt gratuitous and disturbing, even if the character was a villain who narratively deserved to die. (again: the only ones in the know of Pelayo being gay are the viewers, and the people making the show, so this is directed at us, and I felt made complicit of a violence I abhor, and made to pity a character I did not want to pity - a point made similarly by @madronash). Personally, I would have enjoyed Marta realizing the truth while Pelayo had to face her, and I would have wanted him to suffer the consequences for longer. I didn't want a confession (not even the intention of one!). I wanted him to pay. But here we are, and I am curious to see where the novelita will go next (@anandabrat, elsewhere, remarked that this sets up Álvaro as the new central sinister villain, a danger to everyone - good point).

Upon rewatching the murder scene, I have to admit that it is very well done in terms of craft, and that the lights, blocking, costuming, camera angles, and story tropes such as "persecuted by a bulky, menacing man in a park at night" that we discussed at the Liquor Cart (thanks again for that exchange!), are only half the tale here. I was so focused on Pelayo's character during the airing that I didn't pay attention to how Álvaro is directed to deliver this scene. Together with the camera work, his performance gives the murder - this "slow, intimate death" (@roadie60), cruel in how it is drawn out - the undercurrent of a twisted sexual encounter.

This starts when Pelayo is thrown down the stairs, ending in the position shown in the next cap, before the camera then cuts to Álvaro staring down at him in focused excitement. - For the hunt, for the soon-to-deliver kill, for murdering someone rich? Several choices on story level. But there is excitement. Álvaro then delights in the physical attack at close distance, making his victim look at him: that creates intimacy. Both these affects are touchpoints as Pelayo dies.

This is how Pelayo ends at the bottom of the stairs, prone and face-down, with the light-colored, narrow trousers he wears drawing focus.

Pelayo has always been coded by slighly flamboyant dress: narrow suit cuts, more daring colors such as the plum overcoat, the teal paisley shawl at his recent reception. This underlines his gay-coding here even if it is not metioned in this scene.

From the sinister silhouette of Álvaro at the top of the stairs, the camera cuts to his POV next. We are staring down at the soon-to-be-victim through Álvaro's eyes while the light outlines Pelayo's ass:

When Pelayo realizes that he is not getting away, Álvaro keeps a grip on his throat (not his hair, not his lapels) - and not from the front, as would be logical to cut his breath, but from behind, around his neck.

Pelayo, struggling for breath, offers money; Álvaro scoffs and vents in a tirade against "the rich", taunting Pelayo with what he will do to him. The countershot rests on the gradually rising fear in Pelayo's eyes who does not look up fully while Álvaro is unhinged and emotional. This is not a quick stab-and-run, not a random mugging gone wrong. The camera makes Pelayo pay and invites the viewer to dwell on it (which may well have been the plan: "this character deserves to suffer, so we will show it.")

Álvaro snaps out the knife - a theatrical moment to stage the phallic object, hinting at the penetration to come.

The most poignant move may be the next, as Álvaro passionately spouts his hatred at Pelayo: the camera angle is wide enough to frame Álvaro's grip on Pelayo's neck, and at 00:43:25, just for this cut, it shows how his hand moves further around Pelayo's neck, into an even more intimate position (my first association is that moment two minutes into a tango when you reach the level of connection with your dance partner where you allow this degree of intimacy):

Then there is the slow stab: a penetration, while we see Pelayo gasp for breath. And while this murder embrace continues, Álvaro demands, two times, "Mírame" (look at me) - which fits with making it a horror take on the Mafin catchphrase, as discussed above, but it is also an intimate request, at close distance, from one man to another whom he is watching as he dies and loses control.

When Álvaro steps back and drops Pelayo, the camera first cuts to Álvaro's face, showing him panting heavily (00:43:41).

And then when the camera cuts to the fallen, panting Pelayo, notice how the camera cuts the angle right underneath his outlined crotch.

The next cut is once more the knife in Álvaro's hand - the phallic object that has done its deed - before the camera cuts once more to Pelayo on the ground, arching his back, helpless and still panting.

With the way Álvaro is directed in this scene, the images and their sexualization seem intentional. It would be so interesting to know what a crew that so clearly knows their Douglas Sirk and their Maltese Falcon, set out to do here. And if Pelayo's final suffering is this, then the visual conventions used, whether intentionally or not, do not highlight class, or the manipulation that characterized him, or his cowardice (he could have run, Álvaro could have stabbed him in the back, quickly, stealing his wallet with a taunt as he died?) but they highlight his slight, elegantly dressed body as that of a man dying in an encounter with another man.

This is made even more apparent by the more at-a-distance camera work that characterizes the ensuing scene with Marta, who appears up on the hill crest in the sidelight that catches on her red coat, red like the blood that awaits her down the stairs:

The images of Marta hugging Pelayo to her point toward the Pietà conventions: centering the grief of a mother (in this case, likewise platonical, a lavender wife). There are no sexual undertones to it and their absence makes the intimate tension of the previous scene all the more evident.

The positioning of this Pietà (cloth to the wound, cradling head) centers Marta's shock and grief while the blocking is close to the one of Fina's stabbing in ep 56. Yet the intimacy is a bit more distanced here than in ep 56 since here, Marta is shown wearing gloves (excellent move if intentional!):

The camera then delivers two shots of Marta crading the prostrate body of Pelayo in a Pietà, once cropped close (no crotch included), and one at full body, as shown in the final two shots below.

At 00:46:17, we get the the same tremble string rise as under Marta's realization that she found a trace of Fina in the Mexican newspaper. Here, it underlines the linked information of Pelayo alluding to his crime. I found it notable that he, in his dying breaths, does not say, "please forgive me", but "you have to forgive me". And he didn't get that. Yes, he got to die in her ams. But who was also struggling for her life in Marta's arms like this was Fina, and FIna got to live. With Marta.

Sidenote: the moment Belmonte enters this scene, and then unpacks that guttural voice work, pushes everything up another notch.

And here is that final position, with Marta and Pelayo not filmed like lovers, but alluding instead to an image convention that is religious and not sexual. Additionally the camera here relents and pans out for the final shot, removing the viewer from the scene and suggesting a less intimate involvement now:

For this episode, the crews really pulled all the stops to orchestrate a reunion that delivered on all counts and then some. We didn't get one reunion scene, we got four, in different modes: overwhelmed, solemn, intimate, and domestic with family. The riches of this! (I know, "but just one episode!" - but, have you see this one episode? So much bliss to commit to memory, like a Restore Point in case the sharkfins start appearing!)

After tag-reblogging every gifset that @clairedsfield has made for the occasion, much of this will be a repeat, but here are some (more) thoughts in terms of blocking, editing, writing and performance. And this is shorter than planned already; I had nearly twice as many caps, but Tumblr apparently has a "30 images per post" policy. Who would have thought, usually I only max out on tags (for which I blame @clairedsfield's gif sets).

The episode starts off with a perfect overlay of Marta's head with the the head of the Perfumerias de la Reina Spirit Animal woman's head on the hallway poster: same height, same hairdo as Marta walks out towards Fina's voice. Camera Team on point!

Next, the Sound Department brings back The Mafin Main Theme ("Pasión Oculta", which I would still rename "Mi Mujer") - not as they see each other down the hallway, but it is timed between intro and main motif to the exact moment they fall into each other's arms at 00:02:00 (all time stamps, again, thanks to the Mafin Drive Cut and the wonderful work of @caskettmyheart and her team: @mafin-libertad, @thexfridax, @galacticdesperado, @lifeisbettergay, @newsfromthegutter - I hope I didn't forget anyone!) and AAAAAAHHHH.

Marta is even lifting Fina up for a second, and Cloe in the background may finally be getting a clue (though probably not, with how press is trying to hammer home "triangle" on the meta level. But look at this: There is no third wheel!) as the Mafin Theme plays quietly underneath their entire first dialog, timed right through (it's usually not overlayed with dialog).

Sound Department says, "They're home." (Sound Department, please have some champagne with us)

Also that moment of "coming home to the scent of you", in the hallway of a perfume factory... yeah:

Look at how they are the absolute center of the following shot, with a history (or future) behind them, and in perfect balance. All verticals align, their heads just above the marble paneling:

And since I am only getting around to typing this a week later (sorry, there were many, many caps to take): even taking into account the five episodes that follow this one, the heartfelt "mi amor" that Fina offers first of all? That's it. That's the actual endgame.

You can pry The Forehead Fusion of Forever from my cold dead hands. Also that smile (and Camera still manages to balance them against the poster on the wall).

After following Marta from despair to desolation to being duped to finally determined to find Fina, here is the full circle moment of perfect bliss for Marta: that one exhale, a half-smile through kissed-off lipstick, and the crease in her brow easing out at last. Marta is at peace for the first time since Fina left, and that was beautifully performed and caught at close angle to reveberate with the audience.

Where does one cut from that overwhelmingly perfect, and perfectly overwhelming, reunion?

To Damián in shirtsleeves and a loosened tie (reader: he can pull it off), sharing a glass of something with Digna over romantic jazz (Camera and Prop Department love their fancy cream-colored record player and so do I!) and both respecting Marta's decision to travel to Buenos Aires to search for Fina:

But there's more to it - Editing does get in a meta commentary here - because the scene then shifts back to Marta and FIna, seated in The Office, and this is intercutting the established long-term couples (marriages!) on the show:

Of course it has to be this office space, calling up the many talks they have had in here before, especially at the table in the front, with its visual weight of the crystal ashtray.

Here, they have gone from quietly intimate to flirtatious to defiantly choosing each other, and that is, hopefully, also a comment on their connection and their commitment going forward. Because in this scene, the Writing Room drops the first small drop of ink into our celebratory champagne, small enough to to pass unnoticed, but by the next ep, the color will have unfurled and dispersed within the bottle.

It's Fina saying she doesn't know how long she will stay, and Marta taking it like a blow to the stomach: "Do you mean to go back, to Argentina?"

And Fina's reply of "I thought so" twists the knife a little further (look at Marta'a face!):

Fina's (successful! rewarding!) new life abroad is a dramaturgical move that now allows the Writing Room to smoothly write out Fina at any point, back to her artists' collective in Argentina.

Yet, with a freer life now at her disposal, it also makes Fina's reason for returning and staying apparent - after having thought that she would never see Marta again, having given her up and set her free; after then receiving her letter which has apparently been enough to make her take the first plane available; after then falling into Marta's arms without a single moment of hesitation: it's Marta.

Still, this is a point where Brunet gives Fina a first bit of hesitation, torn between two lives now: she doesn't even know where she will sleep, she says, and Marta is so sure now, so uncompromising in her commitment: you will sleep where I sleep (every day of life I have left, if you want to).

And here, Fina is muted in her reaction: moved, but looking as if she were not at liberty to commit with the same conviction and joy.

But still Fina goes on to proclaim that Marta is her love and her home, and that does not come across as dishonest. If Fina has realized out in the hallway, after a year of believing she would never see Marta again, upon seeing her, that she cannot walk away? That is also a proclamation.

Whatever struggles lay ahead, home is where the heart is, and the Writing Room, after Fina was always the more open-hearted one, the one with her heart on her sleeve, the hothead, next to a more reluctant Marta caught in her family's and her job's expectations, now passes that particular torch to Marta and it's great.

This change of positions allows them to put Marta in the situation of the fearlessly committed Romantic Lesbian Heroine (tm), and the way she proclaims here, without a blink, that she will discard their shared home if Fina wants to be elsewhere? If the Marta of the earlier 300s could see herself here! if the Marta who canceled on Callas could see herself here! Swoon.

On a sidenote, the only hands that are allowed on Marta's Jaw are back where they belong. Nature is healing:

The scene's concluding kiss is shot in a way that centers Fina's bracelet, which is new.

And someone else on this show has a newish bracelet, from a woman who has kept her company, but doesn't love her, and that's Cloe. What if Fina has a bracelet from someone who could never be Marta? (as @veganpepsibaby has asked):

Moving from solemn to intimate and gently flirtatious: the third sequence is set in the Mafinca. The Bedroom, the Bed, and it is a close follow up to their last shared scene before Fina's departure (episode 377), in this same bed. And under the same blanket!

The Mafin Blanket, which I will now always look at as the sea of waves crocheted to carry Fina home, across many months (all thanks to Penelope/@anandabrat), makes a return.

And there is the second tiny drop of ink into our champagne: Fina's brooding look.

On the one hand, I could argue that back home in bed with her wife against all odds, there should obviously nothing but bliss for Fina, but on the other hand, they need to work through so many things (Santiago, Pelayo, their time apart and the battles each one of them has fought on their own, Fina's growing wings abroad, towards freedom and a new career, Marta's newly fierce commitment to their relationship that will have to adjust to these changes).

Of course course these two could not just fall back into each other (there are things to work through!), but instead of going the slow route, Writing and Directing gave us the "they fall back into each other at first sight of course!" anyway. But, also of course, it cannot be more than this one moment, yet Marta and Fina (and the audience) got this one moment.

They also got a pajama upgrade. Look at the sleeve width on Fina's shirt: those are men's pajamas. Fina's new gay wardrobe is a joy. (honorable mention for Marta in the roses and pale pink. I still choose to believe they belong to a set with trousers).

Look at Fina touching Marta's shirt, and then reaching out to touch her face, and how her expression changes to wondrous...

...and then shifts into a smile when a sleepy Marta curls into her.

The trust and intimacy is echoed on the sound level: as of 00:09:28, the Love Awakening Motif plays, breaking through the fog (also that of Fina's mind apparently).

Those chords were there when Marta first dreamed of Fina in the store in episode 19, and they are there when Fina looks at her here and Marta wakes up stating she had feared that Fina's return had been but a dream. (It was also there in episode 548, when Marta dreams of recovering Fina in front of the bouquet of white roses, after Darío tells her about Buenos Aires.)

The Love Awakening Motif continues to play, with its second half of the little fifth drop-and-rise motif that has turned into Marta's Search Motif, but it continues to play as Love Motif underlining their conversation here, including Fina admitting that she thought she would never see Marta again (also a hook, to explain further ahead, how she has built a life abroad on that assumption?):

Something else that is returning here: hands! In this case, how Marta reaches out and maintains contact.

This entire bed sequence highlights the intimacy, familiarity, and vulnerability these two share (and, thinking dramaturgically: upsetting that and making them have to rebuild it makes for a fall from heights unparalleled), yet it is different in that Marta is so fearless and open here, the one leading and not following, in this new dynamic.

At 00:10:26, a variant on the Love Motif sounds and then continues to meander, notably switching to major at 00:10:40 when Fina tells Marta that she realized there were beautiful things out there in Argentina for her, too, which made her hold on.

To Fina, it may seem that Marta is the same since she is still in the same place, but when Marta mentions the blackmail over her diary, there is a brief moment of surprise: it hasn't been a sad but cushy cage of roses for Marta, either. She may not have passed hunger, but various betrayals (Gabriel, Pelayo, presumambly Fina abandoning her):

There is an interesting line on that difference in how they have lived their rupture: Marta framed it, under Pelayo's gaslighting, as Fina abonding her and their love, whereas for Fina, it was being forced to rescind their love, but, true to her letter, also as setting Marta (and herself) free to fly and live. And that is a very different mindset to live with after a separation. One that might come up again?

The shot opening out to the bedroom has Fina's short red coat as the spot that pulls the color focus, but it is very amusing that the coat is placed on top of the trousers, as if she would have taken off the trousers first. Balancing this on the front right is Marta's pinstripe jacket (has Fina unbuttoned it again?), and the glimpse at her broader belt (gay points!):

On the sound level, there are Pelayo's Sinister Gaslighting Woodwinds at 00:11:50, when Fina says she is convinced he was already planning to get rid of her the moment he helped them with Santiago's body, which leads to Marta's confession of "he made me think you left me" and Fina being aghast at the thought, saying she would have never.

The woodwinds sound up again at 00:12:20 - for Fina, their separation narrative seems to be "I told you I loved you and always would, but that I had to leave and you should go on living."

Oh, Fina Valero. Do you understand how much Marta de la Reina, Romantic Heroine and Intense Lesbian, loves you? Not yet, I gather.

Marta repeats her words of episode 377 (when they were last in this bed, under this blanket. Excuse me, I need a minute and a tissue. Full circle! The fullest of circles is what we have come!): "I want to spend my life with you."

Over more hands (I have missed how these two performers have their characters put their hands on each other!), at 00:13:03 the Love Theme returns as a warm, low meander, when Marta declares she wants to be happy and enjoy Fina ("disfrutarte"). And Fina here may be muted because she is conflicted, but she is not cunning.

That smile there? If that is a conscious lie, I never writ nor no man ever loved.

As they cuddle up, pondering whether they should start to believe in destiny again (it's not destiny! It's you two continuing to choose each other! That's the magic! You didn't wait for kismet, you both bought plane tickets!), the Love Motif continues to meander warmly (00:13:12), and if we had any doubt what the next kisses will lead to, the Camera moves from the bed (and the soft fall of The Mafin Blanket) to the writing desk where a desperately crying Fina wrote her farewell letter (seen in flashback in episode 378) and centers a pair of open scissors on its surface. *snort*

Never mind where the international letters suddenly come from (cutting out stamps for collection and saving would have been normal at the time), this is the Prop Department and Directing/Editing winking at us (straight audiences mostly won't get the joke), and possibly rolling their eyes with us at the double standard of showing queer love-making.

Same, dear backstage queers. Same.

Finally, domestic bliss. The daughters get to tell mama that they are home and reunited!

Ana Fernández proves again to be a phenomenal scene partner, with Digna's nerves highlighting Marta's deep happiness.

One small detail I noticed at 00:42:42: when Marta tells Digna that everything is all right - "todo está bien" - it is the same cadence and the same facial expression as when Marta once told Fina on a park bench in Madrid, during their happy escapadas era in the early 100s, "todo está bien". And for this moment, it is:

And the joy these three manage to convey here at the reunion. The sheer joy between Fina's exuberance, Digna's tearful surprise, and Marta's glowing happiness! (I've said elswhere that I would bottle this if I could, and I stand by it.)

And then there is the small detail of Marta being the one to make the coffee and performing the wife, and the domestic lilt of it (no one brought out The MdlR Apron for this, which we know is at the Casa Grande, but we still need some ammunition for further down the road!), and being so pleased to be able to do so. Oh, and how Fina automatically turns to look at her and smiles then.

And note how at 46:07, Marta sits down as closely as possible to Fina (Fina and her fabulous navy pants, and Marta twists her own legs so that she sits in parallel to Fina rather than forward. Any closer? Impossible in front of mama, she'd have to climb into her lap.)

And there's one moment - the Restore Point to save before the rollercoaster will start its downward track again since this is a telenovela and I know I said 'this will not last but at least there is this moment' - at 00:46:49, of that instinctive communication and connection that Brunet and Belmonte have always managed to build so convincingly for their characters. One moment of domestic bliss and immediate understanding (and matching turtlenecks. Just look how happy they both look here), come what may:

Was it just an episode? Yes. But it was this episode, and it was perfect. They (and we) got it all. We really got it all. We got so many variants of this cake, after the tragic epic 377 fall and the 182-episodes--long slow build towards this reunion.

We got So. Much. Cake. (or, as @roadien60 phrased it, so many muffins, as it were)

Mindblowing really, even more so given the constraints and speed demands of the genre, that so many people on all crews care enough about this narrative to pull this off. My profound thanks to everyone involved in making this come true.

*************

Author's note:

Fina ha vuelto, and that's the point the "1 cap for ep" series has been building towards since I started it at the beginning of Season 3, with the aim to highlight the level of craft going into the story.

I will continue to write entries for this series (I will need to process. I will need to process so much!) but perhaps not for every ep or not as in-depth, since the time commitment on this is huge, and time is scarce. And I am not as willing to put in the time when instead of moving towards Mafin, it's about pulling the very foundations of Mafin into doubt. (I still believe they are endgame, as far as contract run times will allow, but the latest curveball towards internal conflict as of episode 562 - independent of how well it is written - is giving me anxieties.)

The point was to add to the tag in a constructive manner in uncertain times, when we didn't even know whether Fina (and Mafin) would make a return. Now that Fina is back, there is more and different activity in the tag, so this little series, which has been a tribute to upholding the narrative on all levels of craft, can shift to the backburner.

This one:

First of all, it's delightful to see how this show has established its groove to a point where it can now allow itself tongue-in-cheek things like these - "How about we make a little rom-com montage with Marta waiting not by one phone, but by many phones?" With a little tune that sounds as if Doris Day were about to bust out "Mr. Sandman".

But then take the opening shot above - Prop Department: another paperback from the publisher that has those characteristic orange sleeve rectangles? - where the view through the doors, then at the foliage curtains and then at the white window curtains creates a deepening room that repeats, on a visual level, Marta's sensation of endless waiting. Love it.

Next to phone #2, they have even put a Detective-ish Looking Glass! (Prop Department, did you have as much fun setting this up as I had watching it?)

But Marta has become pro-active in her search for Fina, ever since that photo feature, so she calls---

---in vain!

It's not open comedy, but: to deliver, within 4 eps, symbolist melodrama, gripping stage-vibe drama, a camp hat tip to Almodóvar AND this slightly angsty rom-com vibe? Mad props to this crew for its range.

But we get even more rom-com here, with the "let me talk to my wiser confidant who will counter my angst with A+ encouragement" trope: another Belmonte/Fernández delivery, much lighter in tone than in 547, but just as smooth (and, hello Costuming, delivering another red/blue instance!)

"It would be understandable if she has moved on, I don't even know whether she still loves me"...

..."She loved you so much she defied her only family to be with you, she would have done anything for you!"

Yes please. I do not tire of reading 3438726481621 variants of this particular fanfic.

Also, remember the white rose bouquet in 548 next to that Apollo-and-Daphne (I presume) statuette visible righthand behind Digna? That bouquet was an intentional one-time placement for the Mafin/Isidro recall, because it is gone here (it would be half behind Digna otherwise):

But! More rom-com tropes! The Sibling detective team scouts the Hispanoamerican press. Marta is indignated that her talented wife does not have a single photo featured on this day!

And finally, the awkward setup of Cloe being present when the Buenos Aires Editor finally calls, and Marta has to ask about one Serafina Valero in front of her ex-affair (who again looks hurt by the mere mention of Fina's name, but then listens to the Pelayo crimes and encourages Marta regardless to keep looking and making use of Darío despite his shady morals).

The narrative setup is curious. While there are no Wrong Flutes in this scene, and while Cloe doesn't get to say "Only because we aren't together, it doesn't mean that X", the way Cloe is filmed looking uncomfortable with the mention of Fina, it is another reminder that Cloe is still in love with Marta: poor queer Cloe.

And "poor queer Cloe" returns at the end of ep as an undercurrent when Rodrigo is so clearly jealous of her and immediately suspects that Cloe has enticed Valentina away from him (coupled with the preview of Cloe getting attacked at the store at night by him, this trope may be expanded upon) - so queer Cloe under siege might be more of an issue?

Marta, meanwhile, doesn't think beyond Fina Fina Fina and while she is desperate when the editor call leads nowhere, there's also an idea of a proud "That's my wife!" smile for a moment at Fina having refused any help from Pelayo. She knows her so well.

Fantastic performance where several choices come together:

First, Costuming keeps that "Lone Warrior(ess) of Justice" as a beacon of light intact by continuing to put Marta in that off-white silk kimono blouse that calls up associative parallels of honor, fights and the heroic: from Samurai aesthetics to their derivates in Morpheus-trains-Neo in Matrix to Karate Kid.

On performance levels, Belmonte plays off the staged tantrum for Gabriel (as the villain) with a Dietrich-esque level of reduction: there is barely any movement, not even facial movement (compare this, eg. to the prowl and elevated tone she used in the S2 finale when she last put Gabriel in his place in this office before swaggering out and getting the Hero Walk with dynamic camera movement).

This is unusal for a genre that banks so much on affective spill-it-all, but the power here really comes from containment: this is the pillar of the company, degrading the stomping rumpelstiltskin that is Gabriel simply by not engaging.

There is minimal head tilt (whereas that cants are usually prominent in women characters in arguments, as a classic appeasement move), minimal eyebrow rise, for the most part no parted lips, and absolutely no moving around (also how that blouse is tailored to her shoulders should be illegal):

Even the smirk at her opponent's lose of composure is all the more effective because it is minimal (okay, minimal tilt of jaw. But again: minimal)

When the camera pans out and Marta as the heroine is propped up by Cloe's admiring gaze, she still remains standing motionless:

And then the weight goes into the single gesture - the mandated order from Paris that likely wouldn't need a paper carried in, but it is such a great move: Congratulations, here's the your Certificate of Lacking Professionalism, signed by yourself.

(also such a boss move when Gabriel stands up and demands, "What did I say, Marta? What did I say?" and she doesn't even engage, so he has to provide the answer himself, "Over my dead body!" - yeah, I think we could arrange that.)

Another boss move: Marta walking out, but even while being yelled at, she will make time for the chivalrous gesture of holding the door for another woman (even if said woman is her recent ex, because Marta has principles, and her confident, unhasty walk - not an open swagger but... - broadcasts that she is very aware of it. As are we, Marta. As are we.)

The Mafin reunion, split between episodes 560 and 561, seems to have been an instance of "Let's light all the fireworks, at once, for one blindingly perfect (and perfectly blinding) moment!"

Once more, this is the episode cliffhanger (and from the May 13th interview with Brunet/Belmonte know that there was an awareness of the impact and weight of this sequence for so many across departments, including TPTB descending for the shooting), seemingly unattached to any previous scenes, but perhaps not.

The scenes directly preceding this one are Gabriel and Beatriz making out (old habits die hard, battered marriage reconnecting, what happened in Mexico does not stay in Mexico) and Andrés and Valentina undressing each other towards a giddy first time encounter. From there, the hard cut is directly to Marta on the phone, checking her Madrid hotel reservation for the night while the previous scenes echo as a hope of what Marta might hope to rekindle with Fina (note how the perfume alter ego/Directora Spirit Animal With The Same Hairdo on the poster to the very right is kept in the frame):

But who should walk in but Cloe, with both of them establishing that it is late and so likely no one else is around. And Cloe, who has been told and shown in humiliating frequency that Marta still loves Fina, asks, wounded, first "So you are going, in the end?", and second "Are you going there to search for her?"

And when Marta answers both in the affirmative, this is the reaction face:

Girl. Please get up up. I'll buy you drink. How many more 2x4s to the heart is it going to take?

Perhaps one more: tall, brunette. Marta's wife. She's out in the hallway, by the way.

Marta does spell out, "My only concern is for Fina," and Cloe does wish her the best of luck - teary-eyed, of course, since keeping her own drama out of it is just not her style, and the Wrong Flutes underline this (00:46:44 in the Mafin Drive Cut) - and she only cries openy out in the hallway, where (Writing Room loving its contrast setups (looking at you, 561 going on 562)) Cloe runs into Fina.

Little suspense move of Directing in that the audience only sees a teary-eyed Cloe asking, "Are you looking for someone?", and the next cut is back to Marta in the bust shot above, hearing Fina say her name out in the hallway. The lights turn to the celestial (the Lights Crew really going all out there, how many HMI were that?!), the sound carpet adds a celestial waver, too and - after months of suffering and hoping with Marta - the audience is kept close to that character's affective spectrum as she drifts out into the hallway still before realization sets in.

The timing is a great bit of craftmanship from Editing: Marta's expression of disbelief, still no realizing what happens, followed by a pan across Cloe's pained face to Fina's nervous face, and Fina saying "Hola, Marta."

And only then the camera returns to Marta, Marta who is wearing those same pinstripes that Fina once unbuttoned over "lunch" and didn't button up again properly, and catches the moment where disblief turns to realization; Belmonte transports it trademark-small with an inhale and a widening of eyes.

And the Sound Department can say "FINALLY!" and unpacks the intro to the Mafin Core Theme (as of 00:47:45), in the thick string-orchestrated version (the one that was first heard over Fina's flashback reel in episode 377 on the couch, just before she left).

I am not sure how Sánchez does it, but when it comes to Luz, complacent femininity is out of the window and instead, it's "Baby you can sleep while I drive and also I'll definitely come to your window".

I mean:

And Luz, who is certainly no one's damsel in distress, will actually play damsel in distress, although to one (1) person only:

Another win for the subtextual lesbians.

Yes, right in front of my tortilla (cue the tortilla dyke jokes in 3..2..1..):

As @clairedsfield has pointed out: this counts as a love scene (hands!).

If you told me that this is the moment Begoña finally pops the question? I wouldn't be surprised. How much more could she lean across the table in her handholding?

And then we're at: "let me - the most femme-coded innocent heroine of this entire shindig - get your coat for you, to make sure you're warm, and taken care of". The unexpected levels of mold-breaking daddy energy are a delight.

The decisive dialogue lines!

"Your problems are as important as mine if not more. Beause you are my friend." ("friend". also of Dorothy). And then there's that bossy little nod Begoña throws in, and Luz just starts crying.

And that's even before we get to "whatever you decide to do, I'll be by your side." Also if you commit a felony. (how am I supposed to be normal about these two?)

...I am guessing Luz said "yes".