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“Las Aparicio” recap: Episodes one and two

Las Aparicio is sort of like … if you take Desperate Housewives and you kill off all the men and call it something entirely different, like: Lots of Widows and a Confused Lesbisexual. I’m sure that was one of the titles they threw around before settling on Las Aparicio. Aparicio is the family name. And it’s all about the women. Let’s meet the Fab Four:

Rafaela Aparicio — Matriarch, widow three times over, and badass rich lady. She’s all feminist wisdom and attitude. She’s all, “Grrrls, we don’t need no men. Burn them bras! RAWR!” But waaaay more subtle than that. ‘Cause she’s a lady. But she will cut you.

Alma Aparicio — She’s the eldest daughter. She one of those people that makes you feel really unproductive and like you haven’t done anything with your life. She’s a doctor (Ph.D. not M.D.) and she owns a gallery and she runs a male escort service and she teaches classes. See? Don’t you feel like a loser?

Mercedes Aparicio — Mercedes is the mother of one bratty pre-adolescent girl named Isadora, who will probably grow up to be awesome like her mother but isn’t quite there yet. Mercedes is recently widowed because her husband died while sleeping with another woman. Mercedes is a bit broken and confused and angry at her husband and also angry at men that treat women like crap. I love her sort of a lot.

Julia Aparicio — Julia’s the youngest daughter and so she’s not yet a widow because she hasn’t gotten married yet. But she’s dating a fantastical jerk who sleeps around on her. She’s got a lot of feelings about all of that. But mostly, she’s got a lot of feelings for her awesome lesbian best friend, Mariana.

The story of our beloved las Aparicio begins in the family mansion where there’s a party in full swing. Except, wait, it’s not a party. It’s a wake. It’s a wake for Mercedes’ husband (the one that kicked the bucket while doing the nasty with some other woman). Here is where we learn that the Aparicio women are rumored to be cursed because all of their husbands meet an untimely death. My guess is that Doña Rafaela is a retired wizard from Hogwarts and she put a spell on the family that would protect all the women from a-holes. But I doubt it’s a curse. It’s more likely that they all died from being stupid.

Throughout the next two episodes, the following stuff happens:

Mercedes

Isadora, Mercedes’ daughter, is angry and bratty about her father’s death and she naturally blames her mother. Mercedes doesn’t tell her daughter that her father was a lying, cheating jerkazoid. But Mama Rafaela is all like, “The girl needs to learn at an early age that men suck.” (But again, more subtle than that, because she’s classy). And she goes on to tell Isadora that her father couldn’t keep it in the pants. All her daughters are like, “OMG MOM!” But Rafaela stands her ground.

Mercedes goes on to visit her ex-husband’s law firm where she’s met with one of her husband’s partners who is very anxious to buy off her husband’s part of the firm. Mercedes probably would have sold it had the guy not been such a sexist ass. See, Mercedes has a lot of feelings. And they’re angry feelings. She does not, for example, like it when men belittle her, treat her and other women like objects/property, and act like they own the world.

So she decides that instead of selling her husband’s shares, she’s going to go back to work (she’s a lawyer) and take his place. This does not go over well with the men in the firm, who try to intimidate her into walking away. But after an inspiring talk with Rafaela — who essentially tells her to tell them to suck it (but again, classy-like) — she goes back to the firm and makes it clear she’s there to stay.

Alma

Meanwhile, Alma is busy juggling her three hundred jobs. One day, after class, one her students approaches her and they talk for a while. The woman confesses that her husband doesn’t make her feel desired and goes on to admit that she’s got this fantasy about being a prostitute. Alma tells her she can help. We eventually find out that she runs a male escort service. Although, it’s more of a Pleasing Women Through Their Fantasies service.

She trains the men herself, which confused me terribly at first, because we see Alma all dressed up in fishnet stockings and other Lady of the Evening-wear, getting picked up off the street by a guy in a car. Then they go to a room where they have sex. And I was like “What is going on here?” But then it all became clear. She was just training the new guy. Duh. The other thing to mention about Alma is that she picked up a guy in a bar and now he’s totally smitten with her and kind of stalking her, but in a sort of sweet way. Sort of.

Okay, enough about Alma and Mercedes (even though they’re awesome). Let’s talk about Julia. And when I say Julia, I mean Julia and Mariana.

Julia (and Mariana)

Julia is in this unfortunate relationship with a guy named um … I forget. Armando. Whatever. He sleeps around and she knows it. He tries to explain to her why he can’t be faithful by saying he’s a soccer player and women flock to him which just makes her go WTF at him. He then tries proposing to her, which doesn’t go over any better. She refuses. He asks her if there’s someone else and she pauses eeeeever so briefly before saying no. She’s obviously unhappy with him, but she doesn’t break up with him.

Mariana then interrupts this totally effed up conversation. Mariana is Julia’s best friend. Beautiful. Chef. Lesbian. A general bundle of awesomeness. Julia’s interruption effectively kills the conversation and Armando goes away. Julia thanks Mariana for her awesome timing. She grabs Mariana’s face and says, “I love you.”

It’s really hard to recap these two because so much of it is in the looks and not in what is actually said. Like the look on Mariana’s face when Julia says, “I love you,” is sort of shock mixed with hope mixed with resignation. And all of that happens in the blink of an eye.

Later, on the two of them are in Julia’s bed, drinking wine and talking about love and relationships. Julia is lamenting how difficult love is and how much relationships suck and Mariana just goes along with it. Julia takes off her bra at one point and talks about how women used to burn those as a way to reclaim their independence, and Mariana tells her they should burn it while yelling, “We demand better relationships!” And then they both laugh and lie down on their stomachs and talk about how growing up they’d had plans to live together and how they would both become orthodontists and have four dogs and ten cats.

Mariana says that she doesn’t like cats and Julia complains that she loves cats and her mother wouldn’t let her have any so they must have ten cats. And Mariana says, “You can have one.” But at Julia’s pout she bumps it up to two. And they giggle.

Then Julia looks at Mariana all pensively and asks, “Why couldn’t you have been a man?” And Mariana replies, “Don’t be stupid. If I were a man, you wouldn’t love me.” And then Julia says, “You think?” And then kisses her.

It all gets very heated from there as they keep on kissing and start taking off each other’s clothes.

But Mariana puts a stop to it, reminding Julia that she’s not the lesbian, and leaves Julia looking all turned on and confused.

The next time we see Julia, she’s in her kitchen cooking and her mother drops in. Their housekeeper, Aurelia (who, by the way, is also our narrator), is there too. Aurelia asks why Mariana left iso late. Julia says that Mariana had a prior engagement, which seems strange to both Rafaela and Aurelia because it was the middle of the night.

But Julia follows it up by saying that Mariana was meeting Dani (her ex) and that they were probably getting back together. Aurelia then goes on to say that she doesn’t really know how lesbians “do it” — although she tip-toes around the particulars of what she means, so it takes Julia a couple of seconds to get what Aurelia — and her mother, who joined in — are talking about. Julia gets all defensive and says, “If you’re so curious, why don’t you ask Mariana? What would I know about it? After all, she’s the gay one.” And walks off. Aurelia and Rafaela just look at each other.

Later on, we see Julia arrive at Armando’s house/apartment/brothel/whatever. He’s in bed, naked, and I throw up a little in my mouth at the memory andtheygoontohavesex. Sorry, it was difficult to get that out.

Moving on, we later see Mariana cleaning up in her apartment when Julia arrives. Julia looks all down and depressed and awkward and Mariana’s attitude is a mixture of passive-aggressiveness and casual nonchalance. Julia first apologizes for not showing up that day to help her cook, but Mariana says it wasn’t a problem, while moving all around the apartment cleaning stuff up. Julia follows her and asks if Mariana wants to talk about what happened. Mariana replies, “Nothing happened. We drank too much. And I clarified that the one that likes women is me not you. And that’s it.”

Julia explains that she feels awful and that when she feels awful she always goes to Mariana to talk about it. But she doesn’t know who to talk to when what she feels awful about involves Mariana. Mariana tells her to go talk to Armando about it, since, after all, she has to listen to all her stories about him.

Julia: I did go see him today, actually.

Mariana: And what? You slept with him and after you came you felt empty inside, no?

Julia: How did you know?

Mariana: Your face.

And then Mariana touches her face and notices there’s a hickey on Julia’s neck so she goes to touch it but Julia sort of bats her away and then they stand really close to each other and Julia looks like she’s going to BURST WITH FEELINGS.

Julia: I’d rather be with you than with anyone else in the world, what do you think that means?

And we see that look in Mariana’s eyes that sort of hope mixed with fear mixed with uncertainty, but it’s over in a flash because they’re swiftly interrupted by another female voice. And here we meet Dani, Mariana’s ex, who is her ex no longer. Ah, lesbians. And Mariana welcomes dear Dani with a kiss and Julia just looks like she wants to crawl into a hole and die, but she’s forced to swallow it all up and pretend she’s happy that Julia and Dani are back together. But it’s quite obvious that she’s not happy at all.

Later, we’re back in Armando’s abode and we see Julia sitting at the edge of the bed and Armando is behind her, kissing her neck, and she’s staring off into space, imagining Mariana and Dani together.

When Mariana and Dani kiss, she turns and kisses Armando

fin.

To say that I love this show is an understatement. It’s awesome.

Ingrid Díaz is the author of Alix & Valerie, a professional blogger and non-recovering coffee addict. In her college days, she was a purple-haired LGBT rights activist. These days, she aims to change the world one lesbian love story at a time. You can read some of her work at www.midnightisland.com.

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