#542
Marta, a spot of blood-red in a dark park. Also Marta in the last quiet moment she has before she will be pushed into an abyss again, and that realization will first move through her face here in just another second (peak drama Belmonte is back, and with how well she does this kind of work, they won't let her get back to comedy anytime soon). The priest-like stole Marta wears will serve as a prop to still blood, but also frames the saintly role she will take on in a minute in the art history image convention of the Pietà.
(Under the cut, there is first a Mafin/narrative analysis, and then a more thorough analysis of the image conventions used to frame the murder. Both sections are clearly separated)
Pelayo is dead. Which invites questions: why take this obvious route that was broadcast miles-wide in advance? Why no rugpull here?
And instead of a beating: death, without a confession. So what does that mean for the narrative domino chain?
With Pelayo dead, Marta and Fina (and the viewers) have no chance of a carthartic confrontation (though some of that was transferred to subtext in the murder, I will get to this in a minute) - perhaps also to keep them clean of the murder/manslaugther that would likely occur upon Marta learning the truth?
In narrative framing, Pelayo seemed to move towards a planned confession on his last day (the show likes to give even their darkest characters some struggles with ethics), in an episde highlighting regrets: foremost, Digna telling Julia that regret shows a person has feelings and ethics; Pablo regretting his affair, but also having told Nieves about it; Tasio regretting he missed his luncheon, but not really because he is too hapless to think of consequences. Pelayo's struggle with guilt, made explicit several times in talks with Darío, pointed towards a confession which in the end doesn't happen. Pelayo only gets to teaser the reveal that we know will come next week (the AF spoiler), in addition, he was consistently shown as unempathic towards Marta since his return - perhaps making a conscious point of his guilt being about how it makes him feel, and not about considering how Marta feels.
What is the narrative path now, since "Marta finds out slowly on her own" is out of the window, just as much as (with that phone message to Mexico) "Marta moves heaven and earth in a slow search for Fina"? From where will they now draw up the tension for their reunion arc? What is the plan? Did Pelayo die so soon because they couldn't book Albacirrín for more days? - There must be a plan. I have no idea what it is. Well done, novelita.
But: even if Marta and Fina were denied a direct confrontation, they got their Pelayo comeuppance in the murder, on a level of image parallels, text parallels, and sound parallels.
Image parallels:
the stabbing of Pelayo is shot similarly to the stabbing of Fina in episode 56 (blocking of the characters and camera angle, knife trajectory - also mentioned at the Friday Liquor Cart by @veganpepsibaby)
the dying of Pelayo and the way Marta holds him in her lap, pressing a cloth to his wound, cradling his head, is shot similarly to Marta holding Fina in the same situation in episodes 56/57. But Fina survived that sitation. Pelayo does not. Their narrative twists and tilts on him.
on a meta level (applying only to the viewers) there is the re-use of the prop knife: Pelayo gets stabbed with the same white switchblade that killed Santiago, i.e. with the very proof that Pelayo kept and used to blackmail Fina (even as they are supposed to be two entirely different knives in the story).
Dialogue parallels:
Pelayo offering Álvaro money and Álvaro scoffing at him, going off about "the rich ones who never care" is the same dialogue as Marta offering money to Santiago in episode 375 while he threatens her with a knife and also scoffs at rich people who should pay (this might be lazy writing, but if not, it also drives home a point of difference: because Marta survived that situation because Fina was there and saved her. Pelayo does not survive. There is no one there (except Marta whose cries for help are in vain), while Pelayo's partner is all the way in Mexico. Meanwhile, we get reminders (one as image, one in dialogue) of Mafin saving each other in parallel situations.
another interesting parallel is the Mafin catchphrase "Mírame" which has been present at several points where Marta and Fina sorted out differences and which ultimately affirmed their love and their choice to continue to grow together (Marta says it twice to Fina before she tells her, for the first time, that she is the love of her life). Álvaro in 542 says it to Pelayo twice as he watches him die (more on that below), thwarting a phrase that for Mafin is coded as a phrase of connection and love, into one of derision, with any love absent.
Sound parallels:
again, this could simply be a shortcut of "oh, that's our standard tension music", but the slow, dramatic rise of trembling strings employed as of 00:46:17 (Mafin Drive Cut), as Pelayo hints at "I have have done something horrible" is the same string tremble carpet used in 540, over Marta's slow realization that she is looking at photos taken by Fina and finally has a clue of her whereabouts. - The close succession of the motif's use, just two episodes apart and at length (it stretches over half a minute in both instances), seems to point towards a purposeful parallel.
Bottom line: while Marta and Fina had no part in Pelayo's murder, elements of their narrative were used to accompany the death of Pelayo, who has separated them. Subtextual justice, perhaps?
..................
At this point, you can simply stop reading this post. Following: lots of photos from the murder for analyis and for discussing subtexts evoked by visual conventions.
There was a fascinating discussion at the Liquor Cart on Friday about how Pelayo's murder is ripe - intentionally or not - with Western visual conventions of 1940s/1950s/pulp movies of punishing gayness, and about what reactions those can create for (queer) women who have been socialized with Western tales of gender-specific sexualized violence.
Since Pelayo isn't murdered for being gay, why are these conventions so promiment in his murder, creating subtextual parallels? The parallels land because even while Álvaro doesn't know that Pelayo is gay, the viewers know. And many of the queer viewers may be aware of the early tropes of gay representation in film, as e.g. discussed in "Celluloid Closet" (book & documentary).
For me personally, the parallels were too much. Watching a gay character die this way felt gratuitous and disturbing, even if the character was a villain who narratively deserved to die. (again: the only ones in the know of Pelayo being gay are the viewers, and the people making the show, so this is directed at us, and I felt made complicit of a violence I abhor, and made to pity a character I did not want to pity - a point made similarly by @madronash). Personally, I would have enjoyed Marta realizing the truth while Pelayo had to face her, and I would have wanted him to suffer the consequences for longer. I didn't want a confession (not even the intention of one!). I wanted him to pay. But here we are, and I am curious to see where the novelita will go next (@anandabrat, elsewhere, remarked that this sets up Álvaro as the new central sinister villain, a danger to everyone - good point).
Upon rewatching the murder scene, I have to admit that it is very well done in terms of craft, and that the lights, blocking, costuming, camera angles, and story tropes such as "persecuted by a bulky, menacing man in a park at night" that we discussed at the Liquor Cart (thanks again for that exchange!), are only half the tale here. I was so focused on Pelayo's character during the airing that I didn't pay attention to how Álvaro is directed to deliver this scene. Together with the camera work, his performance gives the murder - this "slow, intimate death" (@roadie60), cruel in how it is drawn out - the undercurrent of a twisted sexual encounter.
This starts when Pelayo is thrown down the stairs, ending in the position shown in the next cap, before the camera then cuts to Álvaro staring down at him in focused excitement. - For the hunt, for the soon-to-deliver kill, for murdering someone rich? Several choices on story level. But there is excitement. Álvaro then delights in the physical attack at close distance, making his victim look at him: that creates intimacy. Both these affects are touchpoints as Pelayo dies.
This is how Pelayo ends at the bottom of the stairs, prone and face-down, with the light-colored, narrow trousers he wears drawing focus.
Pelayo has always been coded by slighly flamboyant dress: narrow suit cuts, more daring colors such as the plum overcoat, the teal paisley shawl at his recent reception. This underlines his gay-coding here even if it is not metioned in this scene.
From the sinister silhouette of Álvaro at the top of the stairs, the camera cuts to his POV next. We are staring down at the soon-to-be-victim through Álvaro's eyes while the light outlines Pelayo's ass:
When Pelayo realizes that he is not getting away, Álvaro keeps a grip on his throat (not his hair, not his lapels) - and not from the front, as would be logical to cut his breath, but from behind, around his neck.
Pelayo, struggling for breath, offers money; Álvaro scoffs and vents in a tirade against "the rich", taunting Pelayo with what he will do to him. The countershot rests on the gradually rising fear in Pelayo's eyes who does not look up fully while Álvaro is unhinged and emotional. This is not a quick stab-and-run, not a random mugging gone wrong. The camera makes Pelayo pay and invites the viewer to dwell on it (which may well have been the plan: "this character deserves to suffer, so we will show it.")
Álvaro snaps out the knife - a theatrical moment to stage the phallic object, hinting at the penetration to come.
The most poignant move may be the next, as Álvaro passionately spouts his hatred at Pelayo: the camera angle is wide enough to frame Álvaro's grip on Pelayo's neck, and at 00:43:25, just for this cut, it shows how his hand moves further around Pelayo's neck, into an even more intimate position (my first association is that moment two minutes into a tango when you reach the level of connection with your dance partner where you allow this degree of intimacy):
Then there is the slow stab: a penetration, while we see Pelayo gasp for breath. And while this murder embrace continues, Álvaro demands, two times, "Mírame" (look at me) - which fits with making it a horror take on the Mafin catchphrase, as discussed above, but it is also an intimate request, at close distance, from one man to another whom he is watching as he dies and loses control.
When Álvaro steps back and drops Pelayo, the camera first cuts to Álvaro's face, showing him panting heavily (00:43:41).
And then when the camera cuts to the fallen, panting Pelayo, notice how the camera cuts the angle right underneath his outlined crotch.
The next cut is once more the knife in Álvaro's hand - the phallic object that has done its deed - before the camera cuts once more to Pelayo on the ground, arching his back, helpless and still panting.
With the way Álvaro is directed in this scene, the images and their sexualization seem intentional. It would be so interesting to know what a crew that so clearly knows their Douglas Sirk and their Maltese Falcon, set out to do here. And if Pelayo's final suffering is this, then the visual conventions used, whether intentionally or not, do not highlight class, or the manipulation that characterized him, or his cowardice (he could have run, Álvaro could have stabbed him in the back, quickly, stealing his wallet with a taunt as he died?) but they highlight his slight, elegantly dressed body as that of a man dying in an encounter with another man.
This is made even more apparent by the more at-a-distance camera work that characterizes the ensuing scene with Marta, who appears up on the hill crest in the sidelight that catches on her red coat, red like the blood that awaits her down the stairs:
The images of Marta hugging Pelayo to her point toward the Pietà conventions: centering the grief of a mother (in this case, likewise platonical, a lavender wife). There are no sexual undertones to it and their absence makes the intimate tension of the previous scene all the more evident.
The positioning of this Pietà (cloth to the wound, cradling head) centers Marta's shock and grief while the blocking is close to the one of Fina's stabbing in ep 56. Yet the intimacy is a bit more distanced here than in ep 56 since here, Marta is shown wearing gloves (excellent move if intentional!):
The camera then delivers two shots of Marta crading the prostrate body of Pelayo in a Pietà, once cropped close (no crotch included), and one at full body, as shown in the final two shots below.
At 00:46:17, we get the the same tremble string rise as under Marta's realization that she found a trace of Fina in the Mexican newspaper. Here, it underlines the linked information of Pelayo alluding to his crime. I found it notable that he, in his dying breaths, does not say, "please forgive me", but "you have to forgive me". And he didn't get that. Yes, he got to die in her ams. But who was also struggling for her life in Marta's arms like this was Fina, and FIna got to live. With Marta.
Sidenote: the moment Belmonte enters this scene, and then unpacks that guttural voice work, pushes everything up another notch.
And here is that final position, with Marta and Pelayo not filmed like lovers, but alluding instead to an image convention that is religious and not sexual. Additionally the camera here relents and pans out for the final shot, removing the viewer from the scene and suggesting a less intimate involvement now:
Summarizing, I cannot tell what image tropes the creative crews drew on intentionally and what are simply established conventions they reached for while working under a tight schedule, without purposefully employing their history, but for anyone who is minimally invested in mid-20th century Western film image and queer representation, this episode sure packed a punch.