Decorative moping by both love-doomed spaniel siblings here, but the scene has, as all Marta/Andrés scenes, a lovely flow of companionship.
But while it's a scene about Andrés being heartbroken about Begoña (again), the scene also is written (and performed) to evoke Fina and her place in Marta's life (again), and it offers a look into how a still heartbroken Marta struggles to make sense of Fina's departure, her form of bearing it, and her own life sans Fina. (I cannot keep up with all the Red Herrings at this speed or I wil end up doing this instead of writing M:NM!)
Even as heartbroken disaster siblings, these two have such excellent goofy chemistry. "I asked Begoña to start sleeping with me again, I know it's a no-good-very-bad idea, but..." - "Oh no, bro-hoe. You didn't."
Marta - and hello again, softer gray-striped business two-piece skirt suit with an idea of Donegal and terrycloth, but also with firmly padded shoulders - makes the important distinction that Begoña has so much more to lose, as a married woman with kids. And this already prefigures Marta talking about Fina and herself a minute later.
Also how cute is Andrés doodling Begoña on the accounting sheets? - Aww. It made me miss Marta and her pen and her diary; I wonder if we will ever see her do some longhand again?
The conversation turns to Fina when Marta finally snaps, "I lost the love of my life, too, you know?"
And, one episode after we've seen Marta make out with Cloe in the office, birthday gift of jewelry included, this reaction makes clear that Marta a) doesn't think of Cloe in such terms, and b) continues very much to think of Fina in such terms.
MB delivers the line not with nostalgia, but bitten out with little patience, like an open wound that will not heal or scar but that she has chosen to step around since it will not close either way. (excellent choice, from a Mafin perspective)
"Do I need to stop?" Andrés asks Marta, still on trying to find a way to be with Begoña, and in Marta's replies, we get insights into her inner landscape like we haven't seen since her opaque return from Madrid.
While she has continued to say that she cannot forget Fina (e. g.to Digna) and needs Fina (e.g. to Carmen), there has been nothing on how she conceptualizes having been - for all that she knows - abandoned and trying to go on in the aftermath of that.
So what she tells Andrés is:
"Fear ended my relationship."
=> i.e. Fina's fear over the Santiago murder and possible discovery drove Fina away. So if Marta believes that? She also believes that Fina's fear was bigger than their love, or at least than Fina's love for her, and than her ability to provide safety for Fina. So Marta apparently thinks of herself as abandoned, and as having failed Fina.
"Nobody wants to live with that fear and sacrifice."
=> Marta, following this logic, assimilated Fina's departure as Fina not willing to pay that price and MB delivers those lines like an argument that Marta needs to say out loud to convince herself of it while her gaze seems to underline "but I would have. But I would have!"
"You need to stop if it puts other people at risk."
=> after just telling Andrés that Begoña is far more vulnerable than he is, Marta seems to draw the parallel of class privilege: she may be the married one here, but Fina would be at risk of facing murder charges, so she does - in a mirror of Fina leaving to protect Marta - seem to conceptualize respecting Fina's request in her farewell letter (to not come looking for her) as putting Fina's safety above her own desire to continue their (risky, and more so for Fina than for her) relationship.
And this mutual framing of self-sacrifice will probably implode in their faces and need a lot of reunion negotiation. (Bring. It. On!)
When Andrés complains that his life would have no meaning without Begoña, Marta says, "You have to think about the other people involved."
=> again, it's not a wistful reply, it's delivered impatiently, and that choice in directing and performance makes the line come across (to me) as "If I cannot cling to the belief that by being without her, I am protecting her, my life does not have any meaning, either, and I do not want to look at that fact."
(again, keep in mind that this is a day after Marta gave her supposed current girlfriend a birthday date night that said supposed girlfriend is very swoony about, but Marta, in terms of love and how she frames her own love life, is clearly not thinking about the previous night, but solely about Fina).
Concluding: I've spend decades in tropey fanfic, with much delight. But this multilayered build-up of mutual pining and self-sacrifice may just take the cake.
In the background of the breakfast & class conversation, Marta walks down the stairs.
At this point, the Mafin parallels and Fina Red Herrings are simply piling up, ep after ep, like torches lit along the entryway, and I am gleefully chasing after each of them.
Ep. 500 gave us a Cloe birthday sequence that implied Marta and Cloe hooking up at a hotel later (or in the office after all) - the sequence echoed the Despachamiento Mafin scene and, on the sound level, called back to both the Farewell Bed Scene (377) and The Car Wedding (269).
In this scene, we continue on to a morning after parallel: after the Car Wedding, Marta snuck into the house at dawn after passing the night at the Mafinca with Fina, and Pelayo was livid.
In 501, Marta - sans sneaking - comes down the stairs in a new outfit, so presumably she came home and slept there, or at least had time for a nap and a shower?
And that moment continues because Marta sits down and hello, new entry in the gray business suit collection! This one a little softer, looking like knitted wool/bouclé/terrycloth, with a more relaxed torso fall and 3/4 sleeves. Another small rounded collar - though again with enough neckline to show the pearls - and another brooch (this time, not a flower? but what is it? #4 on my list).
But the really interesting thing here in terms of paralleling is Marta asking Carmen about going out the previous night, and Carmen answering that they stayed in, "in the room of the girls".
And Marta's immediate reaction to that - an envious gaze and "you must have a had a great time" - makes all of us remember who used to live in that very dorm room (and with whom Marta has had trysts in that very dorm room).
This is paralleled by a segue cut into that dorm room on the same early morning and Claudia mentioning Fina (and how she was stalked) yet again, to Valentina.
This is just the first neuralgic point that says "Fina!" in this ep, however.
There is a second parallel later in the episode, when Marta and Andrés talk about having lost the loves of their lives (the affair with Cloe clearly doesn't touch that territory for Marta, nonwithstanding that she set up a birthday date for Cloe the night before), which is then followed by a scene of a swooning Cloe telling Valentina how much she is in love with Marta, and that it would the strongest connection she’s ever felt (uhm, Cloe. Girl. There's still quite some space upwards on the romance flagpole for you. Like, eh, being requited, for starters?).
They're setting up the difference in commitment and expectations between Marta and Cloe with an insistence that rivals my own degree of petty glee. Keep those Red Herrings coming, Writing Room, I will collect them all. (This feels like collecting all the Korok seed in BOTW and unlocking a special rainbow armor.)
It's great to see Tere return, and it's great to hear her!
I got the impression that the actress has a slight speech irregularity, so even more yay for giving her lines at last, and for normalizing performers who may have speech pattern idiosyncracies that would impact standard castings.
I really hope we get to see (and hear!) more of Tere as Begoña settles into the dollhouse life.
[organizational note: I will start tagging these as 'mafin wider context' going forward because some of these entries are not really Mafin. And while my initial idea was to make the Mafin bits more resounding by addressing aspects surrounding them, it's a bit difficult to tag that way. I'll add 'mafin' when it's Mafin and put the rest in the general SdL tag]
Second, the "Carmen will leave over class dissociation" plotline is very elaborately laid out. With breakfast dishes and at least three different kinds of carbs.
The scene between Carmen and Manuela was both sweet and poignant and I am curious to see how they will serve up this story as if unfolds further.
