Gosh, I really love the acting choices Barbara Lopez puts into this moment, especially the last two gifs. Because you can literally see her making the decision, first to accept that she’s staying, then to soften and give comfort to Val’s distress, but it’s that last little moment of hesitation that sort of kills me, because Juls just stops.
And you can see the exact moment when the switch flips in her head, when the movement starts being not just about comforting Val, but also about taking something for herself.
Juls has always been very deliberate about the way she occupies Val’s space. So much of Barbara’s acting has been with the intense stares and expressions in her eyes. You can feel the longing to touch, but so rarely does she actually initiate it. She doesn’t push. She doesn’t initiate, and if she does, it is to provide comfort (their first hug, the second kiss, the cafe scene with the hair strokes). Or it is in a context where touching is allowed (hello hugs, teaching to dance, learning to swim).
Go back and look but like even when they first share a bed, Juls LITERALLY has her arms wrapped around herself in bed so she doesn’t touch Val in her sleep. She’s really uncomfortable when Val is high and gets right up in her space, because she doesn’t like that Val doesn’t have all her mental faculties to make real decisions. It takes the extremest situation of her mother’s kidnapping and Lupe getting shot before she’ll even contemplate asking Val to be with her and allow herself to need.
In part I think it’s because of “she has a boyfriend” holding her back, but also it goes to how much Juls doesn’t feel like she fits well into Val’s world, so she holds herself apart. Half the time, she’s going for the door, but like even when they are in the same room, Juls lets Val come to her. She waits for an invitation. (Maybe because she sees how much Val hates that Lucho doesn’t respect her boundaries at all so she subconsciously lets Val have space).
But now, here, we get this deliberate touch and a lovely bit of hesitation and it is just GORGEOUS. Because I’m pretty sure this is the first time Juls has touched Val, casually, just because she could. For no other reason beyond she likes touching Val’s skin, and there is a bit of marvel in the newness of it all for her that she’s allowed to do that. That here is someone who loves her, who wants her, and who wouldn’t just allow her to casually touch her, but would welcome that feel, that closeness of skin to skin.
I don’t think Juliana has ever let herself believe she could have the things she wanted, not permanently, and she certainly isn’t used to letting herself be loved. Allowing Val into her life has allowed her to grow so much, and this is just one more step in that progression.
And look, Juls is the realist to Val’s optimist. Nothing about their situation has changed. As far as Juls knows, she is still going to have to leave town with her mom to be safe. She doesn’t know how much time they have left together and that is sort of killing her inside, and the smart thing to do is protect her heart- but how does she even begin to protect her heart from this? Would she even want to, when it comes to Valentina?
So in that moment of hesitation, you can see when she makes the decision to allow herself to feel and savor this moment. To make a memory of this to carry with her. She relaxes into the feeling and lets herself stay.
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