Having the Mafin cake and eating it, too: the Angst Frosting edition!
The backstage crews went all out with the Mafin reunion - so much that they employed the "it was only a dream" soap trope to be able to tell it not once but twice (or, if the episodes following are any indication, thrice, with a slow burn in third position) and fit in all the angst tropes teased in #557 when Marta worries about Fina alone and sick, guilt-ridden about not having done more to find her.
#559 starts out with Mafin: the True Flutes Mafin Love Motif sounds up over the introductory cityscape (00:00:08 in the Mafin Drive cut) before even see a sad, worried Marta clinging to her coffee cup:
The white, diffuse light already points at a dreamscape when a smiling Manuela announces a visitor, and Marta, in her Jersey of Fury, doesn't want to see anyone. But not even a minute after the first motif, there's the True Flutes/True Love/ Fina Motif with the piano ping and the the yearning flutes at 00:01.06:
The Sound Department is not taking prisoners today, as Fina walks in (flower dress from Season 1! Soft femme-y knitted cardigan! Flowing locks! Marta's dreamscape will have to adjust to a much gayer new reality!) and Manuela excuses herself with a knowing smile :
Manuela being in the know and supportive of Marta's and Fina's relationship is the most heartwarming part of Marta's dreamscape.
The sound layer switches to a high waver while and Fina is integrated into the dreamscape like a stand-in by having all her reactions muted (avoiding eye contact, reduced mimic, smaller scope) whereas Marta gets to act out all her angst scenarios.
As the first trope, a desolate Marta who doesn't want to see anyone gets to do the slow head turn to see Fina whom the audience has already witnessed walk in behind her.
On the sound level, the Yearning Flutes keep underlining the first re-encounter, with a high string level as a soft, slightly otherwordly cover.
Marta rushes into a huge, Fina's reaction is... there, but muted.
At 00:01:53, the sound layer adds a low, warm variant of the Meander Motif that has accompanied Marta's months of worry and wondering, but the peace is a chimera as much as this Fina:
But this entire sequence is not about Marta and Fina, but about Marta and her Fina-related fears, and the Writing Room and Directing both let Belmonte knock over all the Angst Dominos set up in episode 557:
Marta is afraid Fina will be disappointed; she explains frantically how she searched for her; she apologizes for not searching more or sonner; she feels guilty that she was duped and didn't know better; she gets to spell out that she was so, so worried. (all right, Writing Room, who of you moves on AO3?)
Escalating, Marta's dream mind adds all the drama a soap (or a fanfic) could cook up: Fina saying that she is very ill. Fina saying that she will die.
At that point, opposite a desperate Dream Marta, Dream Fina turns into Nightmare Fina: telling Marta that she is too late, that she is to blame for having trusted Pelayo, telling her she is breaking up with her.
When Fina recedes, the Camera Team pulls off a claustrophobic fishbowl shot of Marta (at 00:03:00), moving a little up and then following her at a disjointed speed, which is similar to how Marta was shot following Darío confession and stumbling away from him.
Only here Marta is not stumbling away but staggering forward, but it is again the entrance hall, with flowers and this time, instead of an altar with a photo, an open casket with Fina, but it is close to the hall scenes in #547 in how they are shot.
The honestly pull the Capulet Morgue move of "I am breaking down at your coffin in anguish" I am in awe at the tropes and all the possible angst scenarios they they put into this.
And then the chuzpah of wiping the slate clean - it's but a dream! - for another chance to do it all over again in the following eps? Amazing. So. Much. Mafin Cake!
PFlag Damián wakes Marta from her nightmare, and the first thing Marta does is check the entrance hall to make sure it has just been a dream and that there is no casket with Fina, and this is fanfic angst nirvana:
The next trope is not hurt/comfort, but "telling to the ally I will ride off into battle to rescue the girl", the ally is Damián, the knightress to the rescue is Romantic Heroine Marta and this continues to be amazing.
Pelayo's ominous woodwins make and appearance on the sound layer when Marta declares she will travel to Buenos Aires, as soon as she can get a plane ticket (00:05:19), flailing company be damned, and the woodwinds sound up at again when Fina's supposed illness is mentioned (00:05:26).
The point that makes Damián give in and accept Marta's departure? Marta comparing the situation to him looking for Digna. He doesn't protest, he understands (how far have we come!) and there's the strings that usually lead into the Romance Farewell Motif at 00:07:05:
Someone in the Writing Room just won the Angst Jackpot.
To lighten the mood, the PFlag parents get to plot how they will explain Marta looking for her wife with an open return ticket to at the company. We need a cover in front of Gabriel! (00:15:10).
Digna - I love this pose! - is running everything (again). And Damián lets her because he knows she's right (again).
Another small wink to Fina's return: the photographer in the park at the minute 39 mark that was there at the very beginning of the season, with Marta and Cloe taking a walk in the park. Fina has always been there. Fina wll be there again. Soon.
(today's edition with a special nod to @mafin-libertad, with thanks for her motivating feedback!)
