I’m so glad you mentioned this, because I hadn’t really given it much thought, but it’s such a noticeable change, and honestly such a delicious progression. It’s when she starts to see Marcela for who she is instead of what she is.
Vera evaluates people and sums them up, decides if they’re worth her time or not and usually they aren’t. Kind of justifiably, most people in her life have let her down. As soon as she met Marcela, she judged and dismissed her. Quite literally, this is their very first meeting:
Look at that! Her attention shifts to her and in the same breath flits past. She doesn’t even register her.
And so she goes from one label to the next, this heavily tattooed girl obviously about to ask her for money to violent gangster and possible drug runner. Even when she makes a dramatically positive impact on her, Vera (understandably) isn’t in the headspace to do much more than think of her as her savior and then secret-keeper. She’s definitely not seeing Marcela after she saves her and is dealing with the immediate trauma aftermath.
But, and here is the moment I actually think it changes for her, in ep 4 as you said but even before they drop her off at the barber shop, when Ro asks if the cops are chasing them because of her brother, Vera realizes this person she’s dragged into this possible crime and secret with her has her own issues, has her own mess she’s dealing with, she’s not just somebody who’s significant to Vera because she threatened and inconvenienced her, or even as someone who saved her, she’s all these things while still dealing with her missing brother and being this layered person who even now is keeping her secret about what happened the night before, all because Vera asked, even if it makes her look bad in Ro and Carly’s eyes. And this is the look she shoots her then:
And you’re right. She’s genuinely intrigued, wide-eyed with it.
And then as you said, by the time they dropped her off:
She definitely sees her now.
And then actually, as you’d maybe expect, when they get to the house at Huatulco, aside from her hackles immediately going up at her stepmom, we also know what memories that house carries for her, and she retreats back to behind her shell, too brittle to really be taking in things and expanding her worldview. When Marcela gets pepper sprayed, Vera again doesn’t even look at her. And every time Ro and Carly manage to calm her down, her stepmom does something to take her out of it again.
But once they leave, you have these moments piling up:
Like, she keeps being thrown off balance and realizing there’s more to Marcela, again and again. Which is probably the best basis for a romance involving someone like her, who’s so confident in her ability to gauge and judge people, realizing that she can be so wrong, often because people can surprise you in good ways.
Definitely some romantic interest creeping into that wide-eyed contemplation now. By this point, she’s already learned she can trust Marcela, she’s found out the ways in which she’s deceptively savvy and kind. All of that goes into how intrigued she is and how willing she is to find out more, and why. For Vera to really fall for someone, they’d have to interest her at every level.