Ugh, that’s one of my absolute favorite scenes. There’s so much they want to say and so much weight in their interactions now because of their recent history and both were so open with each other and had worked so hard to get there, considering the kind of people they are, and now have their masks on again because both are so afraid of getting hurt because they know the potential to be is there!
What I loved most was the clear shifting of balance back and forth, as different emotions took over. Vera’s up first, as you said, on the attack, using the ring. Marcela is on the defensive because she knows she was in the wrong but she blusters through. And then exactly! It’s not about the ring at all. Now there’s a shift because what Vera really wanted to know was about them. Why did Marcela leave? Was it because of her? Were they friends? If so, how could she just leave like that? And Marcela sees that vulnerability and something inside her responds, but she can’t give in, there’s no way forward for them here, so she tries to end it, claiming they’re too different. A confrontation that started with Vera wanting her ring back ends up with Marcela yelling at Vera before Vera hurts her by bringing up those same differences, which now would cause so much more hurt after their time together.
I know! He was such a confusing damn character, I thought he was on his way to redemption, and then he’d do something so horrible. Post-kidnap he seemed like he’d turned over a new leaf, he seemed to genuinely care for Juls and while I question the necessity of telling her why exactly he’d been horrible to her as Chino “Your mom cheated on me and I didn’t think you were my kid”, not a single part of which is okay, maybe having an actual tangible reason was valuable to Juls, to know that it wasn’t her fault, to know why. And he really did seem like he wanted to be in her life and in a good way.
I feel like the writers wanted to show two different things with him, his natural charm at times, why Lupe stayed with him all those years, and this his specific journey as Beltran, how he was learning to care for Juls through caring for his other kid (who was also not “his”), some steps forward, some back, but man, his steps back were SO huge.
Oh, hee. It took me a while to realize that happened! On first watch, I was so surprised the sex scene was happening at all and it was so damn dark, I didn’t catch it. It was only later when I was giffing it, brightened, that I noticed it, and even then I thought it was a nose kiss.
And then when I was RE-giffing after the proper rips came out, I was like, awww, look at them gazing at each other all soulfully and then bam, Vera licks her nose! And then her forehead? I guess in fairness, Marcela was licking her all over too, heh.
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 seeMarcela 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.
Omg, right?? God, ep 10 was just so good, from start to end. I was so pleased when I realized what they were doing, Marcela and Vera’s argument and then you cut to this soapy melodramatic treatment of star-crossed lovers, reinforcing how MarVera are supposed to be seen similarly. So deliberate and effective.
