Omg, I haven’t talked about it, but I did notice that. I did notice the parallels in Juls and Val defending their girls, and Juls tried to step in when Lucho went after Val, but god, Val is the immediate target so often. I thought that might have been one of the reasons they zoomed in on her during the Lupe scene, but she didn’t seem to be reacting to it in the end.
She’s been through so much and it’s kind of impressive that she gets to show it? I’ve mentioned before how Juliantina seems so separate in how natural it is, even from the other AAM stories, but it shows even in this. Lucia gets kidnapped like it’s her job and she bounces back, while Val literally had panic attacks, didn’t want to leave the house, was still spooked by every little noise, still feared the cartel, her family held multiple worried conversations about her, Camilo had to come talk to her, she needed meds to calm down. How often does that happen?
And yes, the presence and thoughts of Juls eventually took over and maybe that’s a bit too TV romantic, but it’s not like it was an instant thing, she even hung up on her initially. It was actually her defense of Juls, during the talk with Lucia, and the niggling thought that their relationship might not be real, that actually distracted her. That’s fair enough. And if it led to sitting on top of Juls while looking at her jawline as Camilo babbled about transmigration, well, we’ve seen Barbara Lopez, that’s actually pretty realistic.