#talking about them I reaaaaally hope they get to interact in canon soon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

niuxita21 · 4 years

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I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this every time I watched an episode of El Embarcadero because this isn’t my Livejournal in the late 00s and early 10s and no one wants to be subjected to my word vomit on every scene, but the reveal at the end of episode 2 had me SHOOKETH and also, more importantly, today I found out I may have been exposed to The Unmentionable so, you know what, life’s too short.

DUDE. DUUUUUUUUUUUDE. The decision to end the episode on Alex kissing Verónica as some sort of shocking reveal? *chef’s kiss* doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it OMG. Let’s break it down, shall we?

1) First of all, just the notion that the relationship between those two is deemed significant enough that the reveal that they kissed, this time under no false pretenses on either side and each one knowing exactly who the other is (unlike the last time), is considered powerful enough to end an episode on is just... wow. They really are betting on the audience being this invested in them because, if they aren’t, then the ending completely falls flat because who cares. That’s INSANE (in a very good way).

2) Obviously I’m not super crazy about the idea that Alex had to have sex with Conrado, but therein lies the true beauty of the aforementioned timey-wimey storytelling on this show. If it had been told in a linear fashion, it would have gone something like this (taking into account only the footage that was shown): Alex kisses Verónica, the viewer loses their shit thinking their ship is finally canon, then cut to other stuff and the next time we see Alex she’s back at home thinking about Conrado (?) and what Verónica said about people fucking the way they eat. Then she leaves the house and one automatically assumes, oh fuck, she’s really going for it, she’s gonna show up at Verónica’s hoping to have sex with her! How did we get so lucky?? Only to find out that, nope, Alex actually went to see Conrado and have sex with him, and the episode ends there, in a complete and utter disappointment because we finally thought we were getting somewhere with this couple and it just seems like a very cruel bait-and-switch.

3) Now, the way it ACTUALLY played out with the non-linear narration paints a completely different picture: The last time we see Alex she was running away from Verónica flirtily recording her on her phone and then she’s suddenly back at home thinking about Conrado (?) and what Verónica said about people fucking the way they eat. Then she leaves the house and this time you think, OK, I guess she’s finally gonna give him that signal that he’s been begging for, I mean, the whole episode had pretty much telegraphed it. It’s disappointing but she’s a grown woman who can fuck whoever she wants and there’s clearly still nothing going on with Verónica beyond friendship so, hey. So the sex goes pretty much the way one would expect, save for a couple of interesting details: Alex’s “I wanted to see what it was like to have sex with someone who wants me that much”. Once again, gurl, whaaaaa? That is one of the LEAST heterosexual reasons to have heterosexual sex I have EVER heard lmao, wow. In retrospect, that should have been a sign. Then when she’s sitting on Conrado’s bike and he’s rambling about how he hasn’t had sex in so long and she just tells him to shut up. Again, I’m not sure, but I think that’s gotta be some kind of TV Trope code for “I’m having sex with you for reasons other than being attracted to you so if you stay silent I can forget who it is I’m actually fucking”. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting it because I am the queen of digging for crumbs.

ANYWAY, so in the midst of the sex scene, it starts being intercut with footage from earlier in the day/episode, and we actually get to see what it is that Verónica recorded of Alex after she went out the door of her house earlier, when we thought it was the end of their screentime together for the episode. I mean, it’s all very insignificant and flirty and SO SO DUMB that it makes my heart sing, BUT the sole fact that we start seeing it at exactly this moment completely changes our perception of Alex and Conrado’s sex scene. On the one hand, the constant intercutting between Alex having sex with him and Alex straight-up fucking BEAMING at Verónica while she records her with the most ridiculous hearteyes I think we have ever seen her with kinda gives the impression that Alex is thinking about that while she fucks Conrado, which is pretty big in itself but still just an interpretation. However, then comes the REAL kicker. In the flashback, Alex says “I think I’m starting to feel what Óscar felt” (whatever THAT means ????) and then... she makes Verónica put the phone down and fucking KISSES HER RIGHT THERE AND JUST AS IT’S GETTING GOOD THE EPISODE ENDS AND I AM LOSING MY FUCKING SHIT MAN.

But anyway, I just love that it comes across as, like, the TWISTIEST OF TWISTS and I can’t really articulate why. It’s just a kiss that we could have probably seen coming and yet, somehow, it feels earth-shattering? Like we were working on the assumption that she really wanted to have sex with Conrado for her own personal reasons and in the end it turns out that perhaps there was something more complex at play that is going to complicate her relationship with BOTH Verónica and Conrado. And also, it’s much more hopeful than the disappointing punch in the gut it would have been if we’d seen Alex go fuck Conrado knowing that she’d kissed Verónica earlier that day. As a fan of non-linear narration and how effective it can be, I am just GEEKING OUT about this. The GENIUS of it all, I can’t stand it.

4) Another thing that I think is super cool about this because I am a nerd is that, after Alex kissed Verónica the first time, while Verónica still thought her name was Martina, I was so disappointed in the erratic camera work that didn’t let me see shit (as you know) that I consoled myself thinking that at least I had another “first kiss” to look forward to, their first kiss as Alex and Verónica and not Martina and Verónica. However, I conceded that the show probably wouldn’t deem it as important a milestone in their journey as I had and it was entirely possible that it wouldn’t be given the deference it deserved. But LO AND BEHOLD, the show thought it was actually SO IMPORTANT that it made it a shocking reveal ending for an episode instead of tossing it in the middle and then having it ruined by the Alex/Conrado sex scene. I’m just... do you know how RARE it is to find a show that seems to be on my same wavelength regarding the importance of the narrative beats of romantic couple? This ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve shipped tons of stuff under the sun and I don’t think I have ever felt so seen, lmao.

5) Lastly, a honourable mention to the scene where Verónica starts recording Alex. First of all, Verónica being SUPER FLIRTY and teasing Alex about being uptight and thinking things too much and calling her “Ms. Architect” and djghkjhskjh I can’t believe this show is being so good to me so soon. However, I think my favourite thing is how, as Verónica starts approaching Alex while saying all this, Alex gets this wide-eyed look on her face, like her whole body is vibrating at the prospect of Verónica getting close to her. And then this:

LORD, the way she’s so hyperaware of the fact that Verónica is touching her and how she follows the trajectory of her hand even after she takes it away. I just fucking love that little attention to detail. AND THEN, as Verónica gets her face reaaaaally close to her, you can totally see Alex’s eyes darting downwards towards her lips three times, by my count, looking SO FUCKING SMITTEN I wanna claw my face off so that little smile of hers is the last thing I see.

And towards the end she isn’t even smiling anymore, she just looks ready for Verónica to kiss her whenever she wants (which she actually does, even if it’s a chaste, almost “friendly” peck just to tease her because that’s how Vero rolls and that’s why we love her). I just fucking love this entire sequence because smitten!Alex is something I didn’t know I needed in my life and, tbh, it’s also the reason why in the end I couldn’t care less about the sex scene with Conrado, because she has never (and probably will never) been shown looking at him like that. We just keep winning!

I also love how, after that, she casually takes the apple from Verónica’s hand and starts eating it, in that same easy intimacy that we’ve been seeing between them since last season, like when Verónica automatically poured her a wine glass while “Martina” was dicing peppers (I think?) for dinner or when Alex poured one for herself and Verónica came in and drank from it and then they just shared it back and forth. Their chemistry is just astounding.

Anyway, to think that, after watching it for the first time, I was actually kinda disappointed in that, after the goldmine that was episode 1, this episode was sorely lacking in interactions between these two and Alex spent the majority of the time with Conrado (*yawn*), plus the fact that the episode was only 42 minutes long and we lost a good chunk of it to dudes talking about Óscar’s dirty businesszzZZz. But upon reflection, this scene and the twist ending continued to give me things in my wishlist wrt these two: a flirty scene where Alex smiles at Verónica in the most smitten way possible and a first real kiss. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I would have added anything except making the kiss at the end go on for a bit longer and not be cut so abruptly, because even that was shot exactly how I wanted (LMAO I’m so anal, but I have such trauma from poorly shot f/f kisses and I have zero tolerance for that shit). Other than that? Utter perfection. I’m genuinely starting to worry about when things will start to go downhill but shhh, let’s enjoy this while it lasts.

#thoughts no one cares about

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