“Vida” Episode 106 Recap: A Kiss That Never Says Goodbye

Over the course of Vida’s first season, there have been quite a few moments where I had to pause the television slack jawed in disbelief and mutter to myself, “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to see this on TV.”

There’s an intimacy and carefulness in its love letter to QTPOC and Latinx communities, particularly dedicated to those Chicanxs who hail from the west coast and Los Angeles. Tanya Saracho talked about it with us before the show even began; how she personally made runs to the botánica for candles to dress that altar or how she’d obsess that the Last Supper clock be placed just right on the wall. The show’s been lauded for being television’s first entirely Latinx writers room. When filming what’s already become an infamous, ground breaking queer sex scene, they spent days discussing every aspect and camera angle — even the background music choice. They took their role in representing a queer feminist gaze seriously. That care has bled through every piece of dialogue, every actors’ eye glance, every set piece of the last six weeks.

Still, I don’t think I’ve felt as raw or intimately seen in Vida than I did in the opening sequence of its finale. Lyn has visited Doña Lupe for una limpia, a spiritual cleansing. Lyn’s visited her earlier in the season too, so we knew she’s cool with brujería (witch work). That’s not quite the same as watching Lyn stand vulnerable, eyes wide and ethereal, as Doña runs an egg over her body; swirling steam and cigar smoke around her, cleansing her with alcohol.

Brujería, faith in the spirits and the unknown, is one of those things that a lot of Latinx families believe but don’t talk about. Not out loud. Especially not in front of outsiders and definitely not in front of white people (you know, like the white audience of a television show). We might make vague references here and there, we might share a knowing eyebrow over a superstition — but, like most religious beliefs, it’s personal. Hundreds of years of colonization and white imperialism have shamed us into believing our own indigenous practices are backwards or malevolent. At the very least we’ve been taught that they’re a little silly.

Watching Lyn in that bathtub, it was so devastatingly beautiful. I hate to admit that I felt a little blush of embarrassment creep up my cheeks. I imagined, how would I explain to all of you reading along that I believe an egg can cleanse a soul? That I don’t believe witches are fictional playthings for Halloween. I’ve kept an altar at my bedside since I was 16 years old. I believe in candles and cigar smoke and that my ancestors guide me. I believe in brujas. I believe that we have our own magic and have within us the tools for our own healing.

So does Lyn.

In this moment she’s is presented to us stripped down and without judgement. Beads of sweat clinging to her body as Doña Lupe discards her bathing gown. Lyn must find a street that she will never cross or pass again, and leave her bathing gown there. It’s wrapped in a bag that contains all the porquería (toxicity and pain) in her life. She’s being set free.

Of course Lyn, being Lyn, doesn’t heed la Doña’s parting advice. She’s now separated from all the negativity, even those blockages that we unknowingly cling to as our security blankets. As such, Lyn’s new life may feel strange and overwhelming. It’s not until later, laying in bed with Johnny after blowing up his life, that it dawns on her.

“I’m the porquería.”

Yeah Lyn, we’ve all known that. Welcome to the club.

Emma’s holding on to some blockages of her own. She can’t let go of Vida, whose spirit and actions haunt her at every turn. When she first arrived home, Emma’s one goal was to bury her mother, sell the bar, and hightail it back to Chicago as fast as possible. Now everything’s murky. Her mother, who forced her away as a young girl for her queerness, turned out to be gay. The pain Vida lashed out on Emma — it was internalized to herself. Then, Vida came out, got married to a wonderful woman, and turned her bar into one of the neighborhood’s few LGBT safe spaces. How is Emma supposed to process all of that? How is she supposed to reassess everything that she thought she knew?

That’s a wake up call that we can all believe in.

Distraught, she visits Cruz (and her perfect, perfect tattoos) in the middle of the night for a hook up. She falls asleep there, the sun cresting through the windows as Cruz wakes her up with sweet shoulder kisses.

Listen, Emma never falls asleep at a hook up’s house. But with Cruz everything is safe, you know? It’s warm and gentle and soft. Emma’s built her whole world into sharp edges. Cruz brings out parts that she long thought she buried. And despite herself, she craves it.

Emma! Look at this angel face! How can you possibly leave her alone in bed? GET BACK IN BED!!

I think Cruz knows it too, and that’s why she felt it was OK to talk to Emma about selling Vida’s building. They are more than just lovers, they’re one of each other’s oldest friends. Cruz can see Emma’s growth since coming back to Boyle Heights, and she wants Emma to keep growing. She also doesn’t want to lose a neighborhood institution and a home for Boyle Heights’ queer community. Maria Elena Laas finds a way to balance those multiple motivations delicately, even when Emma blows up at Cruz for broaching the subject at all.

“I know you wanna do that thing where you take off, but you’re not doing that,” she warns Emma, sealing their fate with a kiss. Up to this point, Emma’s only ever run. It’s a habit she’s learned from Vida, who ran her own daughter out of her life.

Sweet, Sweet Lady Kisses

Borrowing some plain clothes from Lyn, Emma switches tactics and busies herself fixing up the bar. Eddy’s small shy smile as she watches is heartbreaking; she thinks Emma’s cleaning up the space because she’s ready to invest in it. She has no idea that Emma’s close to selling her family’s entire legacy away.

They go about cleaning out the dumpsters out back, poking fun at each other about how cold it is in Chicago and how strong Emma is for someone so tiny. They’re bonding. They are — finally! finally! — finding their way to each other as a family. It’s everything Eddy ever wanted. Which makes what comes next all the more wretched.

Nelson, asshole villain Nelson who we haven’t seen since the second episode (when Emma poured hot coffee on his crotch), takes this moment to break our beautiful Hernandez family bubble. He sleazes his slimy way up the back alley and immediately Eddy’s guard goes up.

What did you say about J.Lo? See, now I have to kick some ass.

Eddy goes inside, and Nelson starts spewing the same racist self-hate shit logic that he always spews, trying to convince Emma to sell the building to him at a better deal than anyone else has offered her. Emma tells him to — and I quote, “get THE FUCK off my property” — but the damage has already been done. Eddy’s not stupid, she knows why Nelson is sniffing around. Emma’s selling the building. The thing is, Emma maybe isn’t selling the building, she honestly hasn’t decided yet, but the optics look terrible and Eddy has put together all the puzzle pieces in the wrong way.

Surrounded by her awesome crew of lesbians (I wish I had more time to write about them!), Eddy confronts Emma and whatever fragile truce they had found together gets blown to bits. Ser Anzoategui and Mishel Prada dance their pain around each other masterfully. Feeling cornered, Emma lashes out, inferring that Eddy was the reason that Vida’s bar failed in the first place. That’s not true, the bar started to fail because of the neighborhood’s homophobia — Emma’s neighbor told us as much in the second episode. To take that homophobia and then blame it on Eddy, it’s the cruelest of low blows. It’s nasty. And I hate to say this, it’s a trick that Emma learned from her mother.

Eddy’s friends are hot. Where’s their spin off?

Driven out by the fight, Eddy and her crew find themselves at another bar that I swear to God I wish they’d never walked in to. They’re drinking beers and making jokes, trying to ignore the uncomfortable stares around them. They’ve been marked by their queerness from the moment they stepped through the door. This is unsafe. I know that we sometimes use the terms “safe space” in an emotional sense, which is important in its own right, but right now I am talking about safety in the primal, physical definition. They are not safe.

Eddy’s femme friend goes to play music from the jukebox when a drunk asshole hits on her. She tells him to back off, and he won’t. He assaults her, grabbing her ass without permission. Eddy steps in to defend her. He spits out that Eddy’s a marimacha, a dyke. Then he provokes her into a shoving match before the rest of the bar steps in, seemingly squashing the conflict.

What’s up, sexy?

That is until Eddy is left alone in the bathroom later that night. She’s washing her hands and doesn’t see him enter the stall with a beer bottle until it’s too late.

Lyn gets the call first. Eddy’s in ICU. She grabs Emma and they’re off in a blink. I started crying from the minute Eddy looked up in the mirror to see her attacker, but when Emma asks the nurse for Eduina Martinez, it was all over.

I just openly sobbed, gasping for air, as the nurse told the sisters that ICU was for family only. Lyn doesn’t flinch: “She’s our stepmother.” I brought my t-shirt up to cover my tears, and soaked right through it.

The police say that they can’t help, but they have no idea who they are messing with when Emma’s mad. And do you know who visits Eddy in the hospital that night, holding her hand and making sure she’s not alone? The little girl in the pink dress. The one from the hallway. The one from the rooftop. The one painted on the mural.

She’s Vida. She’s been Vida this whole time.

I love a good ghost story.

Lyn and Emma end the episode together, alone in the bar. Eyes wide open from her limpia, Lyn sees her sister differently. Emma has always carried this weight around her; she’s always been anxious and blamed herself for others shortcomings. And Lyn’s right about that, but she’s wrong about so much else. She’s wrong to think that Emma hates the bar — that she hates where she came from.

Emma breaks down into tears. She learned how to walk on these sticky wood floors. Her first memories of her abuelo are from behind that bar, she can still remember what Vida sounded like singing to her daughters from the stage. She’s proud of Vida for turning the bar into the safe haven. She’s proud of her mother for at least, in the end, being brave enough to love herself before it was too late.

Lyn asks her what she wants, and finally Emma knows the real answer. She wants to keep the bar. She wants them to do it right this time.

And with those simple words off we go, into a new chapter for the Hernandez women.

Toasting to the tears of our haters!

I thought a lot about how I wanted end this recap and our time together. What kind of bow would be appropriate to wrap this show up in as a final gift to you?

Here’s the truth: I don’t want a bow. I don’t want a final gift. I refuse to wrap it up because instead I’m going to stubbornly push fore more. I want more episodes like this one, stunningly directed by queer puertorriqueña Rose Troche. I want more of Eddy. And Emma. And Cruz. (And, yes even Lyn.) I want more of Tanya Saracho’s magnificent words. We need more of this thoughtful, gut wrenching, unapologetic, queer, brown show in our lives.

So instead, my shout out goes out to Starz: Do the right thing. Renew Vida. NOW.

And how’s this for a fun post-script: Two hours after this piece was published, STARZ RENEWED VIDA FOR A SECOND SEASON!! In honor of Lyn, cigar smoke, egg cleanses, candles, and the powerful brujas that we both know are real – I choose to believe I manifested the show’s renewal with my words. We all have the power, buried deep within us.

“Vida” Episode 105 Recap: Chingonas and Chillonas, Badasses and Cry Babies

Emma’s got a new vibrator.

I’m nothing if not obsessively detail oriented, so I paused the show a dozen times trying to pinpoint the make and model of the brand. If your curious, I feel 99% confident that Emma’s using the We-Vibe Touch. I know a luxury vibe when I see one. Anyway, you’re welcome and now back to the story, already in progress!

She sprays the toy with cleanser (always practice good sexual health and hygiene, kids!) before getting to work. Sadly, no matter how hard she focuses, or the change in rhythm she pursues, she just can’t quite reach the mountaintop. I imagine that having all the señoras from around the block praying the rosary outside your bedroom door will do that to a girl. My condolences, Emma. The game was stacked against you.

She’s got the sad, sad no orgasm blues.

Why are all these women gathered together praying the rosary anyway? Doña Tita has gathered her entire doña crew to help Eddy say goodbye to Vida.

There’s a perception that people of color, particularly older and religious people of color, are stridently and violently homophobic. That they are “behind the times” when it comes to gay acceptance. As a community, we know the truth. Folks of color are no different than anyone else. Sometimes there’s homophobia, sure. But, there’s homophobia everywhere. You’ll also find in neighborhoods like Boyle Heights a deep love for one another, respect for collective pain, and an understanding of what it means to face of adversity. It’s not just violence and bigotry. It’s a circle of old women who will hold your hand and pray with you when you feel alone. There’s beauty in us — one that not everyone is able to see. Vida gets that.

Sadly, Emma’s not feeling the community love at the moment. She’s raising the rent of the building’s tenets 3% at the end of the moth, and in true Emma fashion she’s going about in the coldest way possible. She’s taping impersonal and formal typed notices on to doors. Vida’s building is a community. They function together as a family. You cannot just say “give me an extra twenty bucks a month or you’re out.” This plan was never going to go over well. (Eddy’s rightfully pissed, ripping the signs off the doors before anyone can see them.)

Alone in the hallway, Emma sees a little girl crying on the floor with her knees drawn up to her face. She’s the same girl with the same pink dress from the pilot episode. The one who jumped off the building’s rooftop and gave Emma the finger. The one who is inexplicably immortalized in an old mural across from Vida’s bar. We haven’t seen her in a while, so she sticks out right away. And second Emma reaches down to ask what’s wrong, she runs away.

Seriously, was this girl ever even here at all?

Emma’s day is only getting worse from there. While out buying tamales from a corner vendor, she runs into Marcos — who you might remember as the gay with the fabulous leopard print one-piece with from her night out dancing with Cruz. Marcos runs up to her, happy to a see a friend, and Emma recoils so far into herself I straight up thought she was going to start shooting out icicles like she’s Elsa in Frozen. (Elsa, it should be noted, is obviously a deeply closeted Disney princess. All I’m saying is #GiveElsaAGirlfriend 2k18! Let her be free!)

 Marcos compliments Emma’s outfit. She turns her head in the other direction. — BLAM! An icicle shoots out! — Marcos makes an in-joke about turning down his jotería (apparent gayness) during the daylight hours. Emma silently rolls her eyes. — BLAM! KABOOM! There goes another one! Ice to the heart! — Marcos asks when they are going dancing again. Emma tells him it was all a big mistake — She’s building the entire ice castle, ascending the stairs, she’s about to hit Idina Menzel’s infamous high note, the cold never bothered her anyway! — That’s when Marcos lowers his voice. He wonders out loud, is this why she hasn’t called Cruz yet? She’s been worried sick about her.

“Oh wait you don’t even like Frozen? Then this analogy must have been so tiresome for you.”

“Disney represents the imperialist patriarchy. I demand more from my feminism.”

Now Emma’s really goes off. Why does everyone have a big mouth? Why are they in her business? And she doesn’t say it, but you know she’s thinking it — Why is Marcos standing on this corner talking to her and outing her with his presence. For Emma, queerness is for the cover of night. It’s for alcohol, for one night stands she doesn’t have to see again, and pain she can lock back inside when she’s done. It’s not for light hearted daytime gossip sessions with friends on sunny street corners. It’s not for girlfriends like Cruz who could really love her if she’d just let them.

It reminded me of last week’s arc between Lyn and Aurora. Lyn avoided Aurora at that party in the Hills because she didn’t want to be associated with her poverty (even though Lyn is the brokest member of the Hernandez tribe by a mile; she gains monetary wealth by living off rich men and essentially being a con artist, to put it mildly). Emma doesn’t want to be associated with Marcos’ jotería. When presented with a mirror, both sisters run from who they are.

Emma’s presented with another mirror this episode, this time from Mari. The two have been been dancing around each other as antagonists, and now they’re meeting head to head.

After borrowing a car from Eddy — who is 1) drinking entirely too much these days and 2) so heartbreakingly willing to come to Emma’s aide, just to be accepted as a part of her life — Emma sets off to meet a real estate agent about a weekly rental in the neighborhood.

The house she’s interested in? It’s the one Marisol made a video about earlier in the season — the family that lived there got displaced thanks to rent hikes. Mari sees Emma closing the deal and yells out to her, “Yo! Coconut!” (Get it? Brown on the outside? White on the inside?) She threatens to tag Emma’s new house the same way she tagged the Vida’s bar.

“And then he wouldn’t stop singing Frozen at me! Do I look like a blonde Norwegian princess to you??”

One thing I love about Emma is that she never backs down from a fight. She jumps right in Mari’s face! Insults start flying between the two, and before you know it they are pushing and shoving. The white lady real estate agent called the cops after the first raised voice, because of course she did. Mari and Emma get to spend the rest of their afternoon together in lock up.

Mishel Prada and Chelsea Rendon (Marisol) both excel at finding the softer layers of their otherwise tough shell characters. Watching them play, bottled together in a single room without distraction, is a real delight. They insult each other — Mari calling Emma a sell out, Emma calling her a phony activist and a hood rat. They needle each other and explore their tensions — Emma gives Marisol a lesson in the perils of slut shaming, Marisol reminds her that money won’t protect her from systematic racism. To the asshole gringa real estate agent, they are all the same.

Particularly touching, Marisol asks Emma about the scars on her knees. They’re the mark of a tomboy; a girl who’s fought her hard battles and won. Mari’s always been ashamed of hers, preferring to wear long pants even in LA’s heat. Emma tells her not to be. Scars are the maps of who we really are. They are the tattoos you didn’t choose.

I don’t know if this is rock bottom, but it’s gotta be close.

The biggest scar on Emma’s leg comes from her first day in Texas, after Vida sent her away. She scrapped her knee on the asphalt outsider her grandmother’s house. She ran inside, bloody and crying, and her abuelita told her, “I don’t raise chilllonas (cry babies) in this house. I better never see you crying again. Never be a fucking chillona.”

Emma doesn’t cry – not ever. We all know that. Neither does Mari. They shove hurt, compress it, until they can swallow it. This is their mirror. And for once, left without any choice except to sit there and take it, Emma can’t run away. When Lyn comes to bail her out, she tells her to spring for Marisol too.

Earlier in the episode, Mari confessed to her best friend over chamoyadas that she still hasn’t been back to their organization’s weekly meetings since Tialoc leaked that sex tape. (Side note: the slow work of the camera as it pans over the chamoyadas being made on the street corner is glorious. I love us and I love how we honor and respect our food.)

What is Mari’s friend’s name, anyway? God I love her.

Marisol’s a badass. She’s a chingona and proud of it — full stop. But, the world is fucking hard on young girls who stand tall. Men like Tialoc are waiting to strip away their power at every corner, even when you don’t see them coming. Especially when you don’t see them coming. She’s learning that lesson now. It’s painful and I hate that she’s going through it.

Spending the afternoon with Emma, a chingona in her own right, was a part the lesson. Thanks to their newly found truce, Mari finds a little extra backbone. She goes back to her weekly meeting and absolutely OWNS IT.

Meanwhile, Eddy’s out here shattering my heart. Ser Anzoategui has found such purity and tenderness in this character, and they allow it shine through at every turn. Eddy’s spiraling. And, thanks to Ser’s performance, you find deep empathy with her, so the pain is almost unbearable to watch. She spends the episode surrounded by Doña Tita and las señoras, first in prayer and then hosting a vigil with Eddy’s queer family at the bar. She even reminisces with Johnny, “Remember when I chased mi Vida when she was pretending to be straight?”

“Mi Vida” — she’s making a play on Vidalia’s name so that it also means “my life.” Vida was her life. Oh c’mon! My hand went to straight to my chest.

Eddy is a heartthrob. Pass it on.

Eddy drunkenly blows up at Emma and Lyn during the impromptu bar vigil, accusing them both of not caring about their mother’s death. All Eddy ever wanted was for them to be a family, “that’s what Vida always wanted.”

Emma’s not having it. No one else can dictate how she mourns her difficult relationship with her mother. If Vida wanted to fix their family, she should have done so while she was still alive. She not giving her any excuses.

Doña Tita steps in. It’s time to toast Vida’s final goodbye. Then she can finally rest in peace. Everyone takes a shot of tequila in hand, except Emma. She walks out — Mishel Prada’s face, choking back tears, says it all. How can you toast a woman who only left you with pain?

But Eddy and Lyn are there, standing together. They’re unsure of the tradition, tentatively looking for comfort in each other. They raise their glass, “To the after Vida!”

To the after life. Salud!

Happy New Year!

Emma ends the episode the same way she began it, alone in bed with her vibrator.

Emma’s grief; her inherited, internalized homophobia; her sexual frustrations — they are all tangled together. And that’s real, because in life how can you tell? Where does one pain stop and another begin? There’s no easy box to check or line to draw.

My loves, that’s it for me. One last thing, this is the gentlest of small warnings, but next week’s finale has a moment that’s hard to watch if you’re a person who is sensitive to violence, etc. If that person is you, be aware going in. Then we can all come back together and hold hands in the recap. Can you believe it’s time for the finale already? Six weeks went so fast!

“Vida” Episode 104 Recap: You Can’t F*ck the Pain Away

Emma is conducting business in Chicago with a bunch of idiotic white dude bros via Skype. They want her back in the Midwest immediately, but she needs more time. Says Dude Bro #1 to Dude Bro #2 when they think Emma isn’t paying attention: “Hasn’t it been a week already since her mom died?”

Emma: “Just six days, actually.” She’s never taken her vacation days from this whack ass financial company in the years before, but she’s damn sure going to take them now. She has no other choice. They’re going to have to deal.

Yep. It’s gotta go.

Her main project for the day involves working with Eddy to update the bar. The first thing that has to be dealt with is the name itself:

“It’s racist”

“It’s historic. It… like… honors the Japanese culture.”

“So why does it say La Chinita?”

“What’d you mean?”

“Why does it say ‘Little Chinese Girl’?”

“Well… ummm… it’s a Japanese Chinita”

Yeaaaaah Eddy, I think we can all agree that you are on the wrong side of history here. You’ve definitely lost this battle. Lyn suggests they rename the establishment “Vida’s”, in honor of their mom, because that’s what everyone in neighborhood calls it anyway. Personally I think that’s a solid suggestion, but for whatever reason (I assume because she doesn’t trust her little sister not to fuck things up), Emma brushes her off.

Lyn’s started the episode cutting up a t-shirt. And now it’s her dress. Where’s that creative energy in my life?

Mari has other concerns about the bar’s name change and face lift. She doesn’t want it to become another haven for gentrifiers and Chipsters (read: Chicanx Hipsters). Eddy’s not about that life either; she promises Mari that over her dead body would the bar turn its back on the community. We’re at the halfway point of the season, and Mari’s crusade to save Boyle Heights is coming into sharp focus with Vida’s main plot of the Hernandez sisters, Eddy, and their family drama surrounding Vidalia’s bar.

Emma refuses to sell her family legacy to racist developers like Nelson, who nickel and dime his own community into further poverty and sees proximity to whiteness as wealth. She’s gone as far as sinking her own money into the building just to keep it from his clutches. Now she needs to turn a profit quickly before her entire family, Eddy included, goes asunder.

Perhaps ironically, in order to do that she may have to cater to a “Chipster” clientele (though I’d argue that the changing the name of “La Chinita’s” is the obviously right thing to do because it’s out of touch and racist, regardless of which clientele you’re trying to reach). Mari and Eddy want to keep the bar from gentrifying, but doing so might come with financial cost for the Hernandezes and put them back in Nelson’s crosshairs. The intersections of race and class woven by Vida are nuanced and not easily pulled apart. That’s true in life, but not often reflected back as carefully in our media. Kudos to Vida’s writing room for pulling it off.

It’s literally called an “Instagram Wall”. WHAT ARE YALL DOING, LA??

Meanwhile, Lyn takes her stolen credit card (which I will remind you comes from her dead mother because Lyn’s level of self-centered vapid “look at me” syndrome has no limits) on a Beverly Hills shopping spree. With arms full of bags and a new yellow dress paid for with the stolen money draping her body, she runs into her next mark — a new rich white boy who’s totally her type. She bats her eyes and sucks her the straw of her ice coffee slow and suggestive, so of course that means he invites her to this house party in the Hills. ICK ICK ICK.

Speaking of, ICK. We haven’t had the chance to get into this earlier, but it’s time to talk about Tialoc — the cute organizer that Mari’s had a crush on for a while now. This guy is sleeze. There are men who you know are trouble when you first lay eyes on them, and then there are those when you think to yourself, oh maybe this one’s ok. He’s cares for his community, he has an activist’s heart, his ponytail flops in the wind, whatever. Then the paint starts to peel at the edges. You notice that he cuts off all the women in his life mid-sentence. He runs meetings as if his is the only voice that matters. And your antennas slowly but surely start ringing their alarm bells.

Last episode, when Tialoc started flirting heavily with Mari, who is obviously much too young for him, my alarm starting dinging like its life depended on it. When he coaxed her into giving him oral sex, the ding turned into a blaring horn. While she went down on him, he snuck his camera phone and started recording her in the act — without her fucking permission! Sexual assault. My heart broke for Mari. She had no idea of the hurricane brewing her way.

I told you to only interrupt me like that if Demi Lovato has started dating Selena Gomez.

That hurricane broke shore this week, when Mari was at her weekly activist meeting — Tilaoc presiding like the entitled ass that he is. Her bestie motions for her to come outside. She shows her the video. At first Mari won’t believe it. She can’t. Not her Tialoc.

Her face breaks as her friend implores her, “Don’t be that girl Mari.” Embarrassed and betrayed, she runs from the meeting. Not even going back inside to grab her phone, still charging in the corner. Tialoc waits at her home later, crying his apologies. She doesn’t take him back — yet. And I can only pray that she never does.

Emma, under the guise of “checking out the competition”, is spending her night scoping out a Boyle Heights neighborhood bar. It’s the kind of bar that Mari would definitely label as “Chipster trash”, but is also a safe space for queer Latinxs and other QTPOC’s in the neighborhood. Once again we’re complicating Vida’s narrative.

Gente-fication (the gentrification of Chicanx and Latinx neighborhoods by younger, and often upwardly mobile Latinxs) is stickier than gentrification in a lot of ways, mostly because it’s more intimate. The pain is deeper. It’s the pricing out of long time residents from a neighborhood by people who look like them, people who in many respects are the metaphorical children of those they are replacing (look at Emma and Lyn, and the role they play in within this show).

At the same time, fighting for more QTPOC inclusive spaces in POC communities is life saving in many regards. It’s pretty clear by now that that Emma didn’t grow up feeling safe in her sexuality. Would spaces like this bar have helped change that for her? She’s also part of a socio-economic class that’s actively displacing her mother’s neighbors and peers. By using Emma as it’s central protagonist, Vida seems to question, where’s the balance between the two?

Get you a girl who looks at you the way Cruz looks at Emma when she’s not looking.

One of the queer folks frequenting the bar that night? None other than Cruz, looking sexier than ever in a bandana and a white tank showing off her tattoos. Usually so well composed, Emma gets one one look at her and she’s adorably stumbling over her words. Cruz takes her by the hand and introduces her to the rest of the queer crew.

The episode interlaces with Emma’s night on the town in Boyle Heights with Lyn’s night crashing that party in the Hills. When she walks up to the mansion, she’s greeted by Aurora, a Latina maid who takes her bags. The white asshole she’s with overhears Lyn greeting Aurora in Spanish and says, “there’s nothing sexier that when you guys roll your R’s”. Later, one of the white girls in attendance hangs over Lyn in a drug haze and drawls, “I’m obsessed with your eyebrows.” She basically fucking calls her Frida Kahlo. GAG ME.

During the party, Lyn’s date scoops her up into his arms so that he can throw her into the pool, causing her feet to knock over a few champagne glasses and make a terrible mess. Everyone at the party laughs in revelry, but the camera lingers on Aurora, who has to clean it up. Lyn averts her eyes. It’s as if she’s afraid of having her own brownness associated with “the help”. That this woman cleaning the floors will ruin the façade of Lyn’s privilege. She’ll do whatever it takes to overcompensate.

The Gayest ^TM

Meanwhile, Emma is trying her hardest to fit in with Cruz’s friends. She’s laughing at all their jokes, throwing around words like “power bottom” as if they aren’t choking coming out of her. Emma’s pain — man, she really works so hard to cover it up, but it’s palpable. She relaxes more after a few drinks, grinding with Cruz on the dance floor beneath florescent blue lights.

Cruz teases her; see, it’s not so bad in Boyle Heights after all. Emma stops cold in her tracks, the momentary drunken joy of the night wiped from her face. Here it is. She can’t outrun it anymore.

“Do you think I don’t like it here? That I hate where I grew up??

I never wanted to leave. Vidalia sent me away. Did you know that? One day she found me with Lucy, this little girl who lived in the building. And we were, I don’t know, touching, I guess. Kissing. And we were like 11. And Vida freaked the fuck out. And then I went to go live with Abuelita in South Texas.

That’s the kind of shit I had to put together later, after she sent me back there the second time. That time she found fucking poems and journal entries. And fuck, why did I ever keep a journal! Stupid!… They were all about you.

And there went Vida, freaking the fuck out again. By then it was undeniable what she was freaking out about.”

She’s shattering, right there on the dance floor. Cumbia still playing loudly around her and Cruz. All the hurt that’s been bottled up inside of Emma, Mishel Prada’s letting it pour and there’s no way to stop it. Vida was in the closet. She took out her internalized homophobia on her daughter. And now as an adult, Emma’s being forced rip open the scar tissue. Hate spans generations. Boyle Heights is an open wound.

“Don’t feel bad for me. I lived happily ever after,” she quips because she can’t allow herself to cry.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

She fucks Cruz that night, hard and fast. She’s fucking the pain away, just like we saw with Sam last week. Cruz takes it for a while before slowing the pace. She doesn’t want to just fuck Emma. They mean more to each other than that.

The minute Cruz slows things down, Emma collapses into a panic attack on the floor. She runs away from her apartment, clothing haphazard and face full of tears.

Marisol, still broken up over Tialoc, rides her bike to Vida’s bar. She spray paints “Chipster” across the front. A scarlet letter, marking the Hernandezes as sellouts.

Damn.

And Lyn? She leaves the party in the Hills on the same bus as Aurora, a woman she spent her entire night trying to avoid. The two of them, alone. Going back to the same home.

You can’t escape who you are. It will always find you.

“Vida” Episode 103 Recap: Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby

I’m going to keep it all the way real with you guys. That scene. That sex scene. I don’t know how to write about it. I don’t know how to process a scene so graphic, but also brutally vulnerable, into words. My mouth sat ajar in front of the television screen, opening and closing on its own rhythm like a guppy looking for air.

Emma, in black lingerie, leans back across a kitchen island. She’s scratching the countertop, moaning as her sex partner for the night, a non-binary soft butch cutie who goes by Sam, SUCKS. HER TOES. LIKE. THEIR. LIFE. DEPENDS. ON. IT!! Yaaaaaas!

Fun Fact: Mishel Prada cleaned her toes with Listerine before this scene. She’s classy like that.

Sam (Michelle Badillo, who you might recognize as one of the queer writers for One Day at a Time!) gets off the floor and my girl Emma has her way with her. Against the kitchen isle. From behind. Slamming her to the ground and sitting on her face. You name it. It’s Emma’s world. It’s a world that is brutal and harsh and she’s still trying to find ways to crack the glass and break free.

These two aren’t just having sex. They’re fucking. Really, really fucking. Queer women don’t ever get to fuck on television. We aren’t allowed to be sweaty and naked and rough and in charge and brazenly seek our own pleasure on camera, away from a straight or a male gaze.

The most obvious comparison to this scene would be something from The L Word, even though I am very cautious bringing up The L Word when talking about queer women’s television. I have complicated feelings that it’s still the standard bearer nearly a decade after going off air. That said, it would be impossible to craft a timeline of groundbreaking gay girl sex scenes without it. That show fundamentally opened doors when it came to graphic and unapologetic depiction of queer women’s pleasure. If hard pressed to find a successor to The L Word in those terms, I’d most prominently point to the early seasons of Orange is the New Black. Alex, Nicky, Piper, and Lorna Morello put in work.

If those shows were carrying the metaphorical baton, then on Sunday night they handed it off to Vida and Tanya Saracho ran with it. She lapped them! She wrote a high femme bossy bitch top and her one night stand. She wrote them toe sucking, and Emma fucking her lover from behind, grounding her leg weight and using her knees to add extra pressure. She had Emma step out of her panties with a mother fucking purpose and then physically ride her lover’s face to ecstasy. All on camera. Bodies bare and open and not hidden in shadows. It is not an exaggeration to say that what aired on Sunday was once in a lifetime.

Also, in the aforementioned “milestone shows”, the queer women fucking were most often white. At the very least, the shows in question have been rightly criticized for the mistreatment of their women of color characters. Even more so than our white peers, queer women of color have been denied sexual agency on television — particularly within white spaces, but also in spaces of our own. Michelle Badillo told Vulture that before taking this role on Vida, she had never acted professionally before. When approached by Saracho, she had a realization; “I thought it would be so cool to be part of this tradition of powerful queer Latina sex scenes on TV — and then I was like, Oh wait, there is no tradition of that. So I thought if I can be a part of that, I’ll… do it for the history.” Do it for the history. Be brave. Create something bigger than yourself. That emotional honesty drives home throughout Badillo’s (and Mishel Prada’s) performance

Tanya Saracho agreed with Badillo, reminding us, “It’s a radical act to put two brown bodies on the screen already, but to put two queer bodies having queer sex like this is a political act.” It isn’t just about the hot sex — though the sex is very hot — it’s about creating spaces where Latinx queer bodies can feel ownership. It’s tearing down shame. It’s about saying that our love, our sex, our sticky sweat is valid. It’s about fighting tooth and nail for pleasure in a world that would rather us be criminalized for waking up in the morning.

Well… Fuck it then.

My goodness, I love this show.

After the sex, Sam lounges around in their bed, breasts still bare. They want to turn Emma on to a new music group (a sly play to get Emma’s number), but Emma leaves with little more than a knowing smile and a few words. Sam, understanding that this won’t be more than a one night thing, calls out as Emma is leaving their apartment — “I hope it did the trick for you.”

Emma turns away, her mask of ice and control slowly collecting itself once again across her face. It’s pretty clear that she doesn’t do comfort. And whatever she’s looking for at the bottom of this fuck pile, she hasn’t found it yet. But at least for an evening, she was able to be more free.

Back at home, Lyn asks where Emma’s been. She pauses. She chews her cheek, deciding if this is the right time to “come out.” Then she saddles in close with her sister on the couch and whips out her Tindr app, wordlessly showing her a picture of Sam looking 100% a babe in a white tank top and black leather coat.

Lyn’s eyes grow to saucers!!! Her smile damn near breaks her face in two. “I knew it! I totally knew it.” Lyn has also played around a little in her past, and we all know about Vidalia of course, so she jokes, “maybe it runs in the family.”

Whatever warmth Emma was letting through, freezes in an instant. “Don’t”, she warns her sister. Comparing her to Vida is out of the question. Lyn just wants Emma to know that she has support. Their moment is sweet, but also sad. Emma and Lyn want to comfort each other, but can’t quite figure out how to get out of their own way and get there. They’re both searching for something, for love, but aren’t equipped to give it.

That’s a lot of blue.

Meanwhile, Eddy can’t sleep. She tosses and turns, tears running into the crevices of her glazed, far away eyes. For the first two episodes, we’ve largely gotten to know Eddy through her interactions with Emma and Lyn. There’s only been glimpses of her life separate from the Hernandez sisters. Now Vida’s finally ready to explore Eddy on her own terms. Ser Anzoategui rises to the occasion, cracking Eddy’s grief and desperation wide open. Letting the emotions lay precariously on the ground like a live wire in a rainstorm.

That silent underwater bathtub scream? My GOD. Anzoategui is giving their everything to this role.

Emma paid off Vidalia’s predatory loan with her own money, and now she has to figure out how to make the building profitable until she can find someone else willing to buy it. “The Wife” — that would be Eddy, who Emma punctuates with a “Fuck her!” — still hasn’t shared any bookkeeping paperwork. So in the middle of the night, she breaks into the locked living room cabinet. And the books… aren’t great. There isn’t even enough money coming in to cover the most basic expenses.

For the last time: Bidi Bidi Bom Bom is not even Selena’s best song.

Wrong answer!! They are ALL her best song.

Eddy doesn’t care what Emma thinks. She knows that Emma is just here to sell and leave. All she ever does is leave.

Once again, Anzoategui knocks it out of the park! They start the monologue low in Eddy’s register, eyes red with tears, voice steady and nearly a whisper. Eddy explains, everything was going ok, not great mind you, but they were getting by — until Vida got sick. And by then — Anzoategui ramps up to a crescendo, face red — who had time to “give a fuck about about pipes or mortgages or shit like that?? She was fucking dying!” Eddy storms away, back to her bedroom. Back away from these selfish young women. Back to mourning her lost love.

Eddy was there for Vida, even when it was just the two of them facing the world. She took care of her alone in her final months and days, while Emma and Lyn were off living their grand lives with no clue that things were amiss at home. I think it’s past time for the sisters to start recognizing and respecting that sacrifice.

The next morning Eddy prays in front of the ofrenda (altar) she’s set up for Vida in their bedroom, candles and incense burning, when a tenant bangs on the door. The sink in Doña Tita’s apartment is acting up again.

*whispers* My precious.

I can tell immediately, Doña Tita (Elena Rivera, who you may also know as the Grandmother in Coco) is the real unsung hero of this show. She’s eccentric. She used to be a shoe model and warns Eddy, errrr, excuse me, ahem, Eduina, never to marry a lazy man. Eddy’s smirk as she promises in return is PERFECTION — after all it’s easy not to marry a lazy man when you are never going to marry any man at all.

Anyway, Doña Tita loves a good cigar and a good story. She’s good with plants and life lessons. It’s hard not to adore her on first sight. Most importantly, she shows up right when Eddy needs her most, to help heal her pain.

La Doña tells Eddy that in our lives, we all die three times. The first time, when we breathe our last breath. Next, when they put us in the ground. And finally, when the last person alive who knows and remembers us, says our name for the last time. Eddy doesn’t respond, crying quietly in the kitchen. It’s then that I realize — Doña Tita might warn her little Eduina never to marry a man, but she’s not missing anything. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

Later that evening, it’s time to open up the bar. Carla, Johnny’s pregnant fiancée, comes barreling in looking for Lyn — who purposefully posted a photo of herself laying with Johnny’s naked arm, easily identifiable by his tattoo, on Instagram. Carla ultimately backs down, but out of respect for Eddy and her bar, Emma playing backup (it’s the first time she’s come to Eddy’s defense!) — not for Lyn.

Loca, I’m begging you — look at your life. Make better choices.

Did I also mention that Lyn literally stole a credit card out of her dead mother’s mail? WHO EVEN DOES THAT? I guess we’ve found the Hernandez sister that’s hardest to root for. We need a new word for “The Worst.”

At the end of the night, Eddy finally finds some well deserved peace — on the roof of her building, smoking Vida’s old Cuban cigars with Doña Tita.

Vida was saving the cigars for a special occasion, and she died before she ever got to enjoy them. They had so many plans together — they wanted to remodel the bar, to tell the truth to her daughters about their relationship, to set things right with Emma. Eddy wonders, why do we do that? Why do wait for “later”? Later never comes.

Damned if Tita gets it. She knows that she’s old and her days are numbered. That’s why she touches every leaf, every petal, grabs the earth by the handful — and when she can, she grabs an ass or two while she’s at it.

God give me the strength to be an old Abuelita one day, smoking on a cigar dipped in rum. Amen.

Ok you guys, that’s it for me! Thank you for your patience with this recap being a bit late. You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had! And it’s only Wednesday! But no matter what else life throws at me, hanging out with you is always a highlight.

I hope you have a beautiful, relaxing long weekend.

“Vida” Episode 102 Recap: Thank You for the Sweet Thing

Marisol is back at it! Boyle Heights’ defender is riding her bike with the confidence and determination of Supergirl flying with her cape flapping in the wind. She stops at a new art gallery in the neighborhood and pulls out a can of red spray paint.

Well, then. That’s one way to send a message.

Back in her mom’s apartment, Emma has a rude awakening of her own — Lyn’s hand slapping across her face. It turns out that her little sister snuck in her bed during the middle of the night. They both overhear Eddy clanging around in the kitchen, and of course they hate it because they have no souls.

Dressed for the day, they wordlessly plot for how to best make a break for the front door without having to actually talk to or deal with their mother’s widow.

Undeterred by their general awfulness, Eddy greets both sisters with a sunny “¡Buenos Días!” and plates full of chilaquiles. She even Googled how to make them vegan because she remembered Lyn’s dietary restrictions! Do you know who’s a perfect human? Eddy is a perfect human! This is my hill and I’m willing to die on it. She is trying so hard you guys, and neither Lyn or Emma will give her an inch, let alone a mile.

Happy Mother’s Day, Eddy. I’m sorry your step daughters are The Worst^TM

Guilted a bit by Eddy’s expression (Seriously, I don’t know how Ser Anzoategui brings every shattering heartbeat to the front of their face like that, but damn, kudos!), Lynn gives in and takes a few bites. Her eyes roll back in orgasmic bliss from the taste, a brief reprieve in the cold war between the Hernandez sisters and their mother’s widow. Emma moves in to shore up defenses. She reminds Eddy that she’s looking to sell the building.

As the sisters rush out the door, Eddy clears her throat. Her eyes are still lined with tears of grief. Nevertheless, she straightens her spine.  She doesn’t want to be a burden or difficult, but she never agreed to sell the building. She would never, ever do that to Vida. The will leaves her with 30% ownership; she has a right to have a say.

Emma’s smile goes predatory as she steps into Eddy’s personal space, just a bit. Before the two can have it out, Lyn butts in as peace keeper. The three of them can discuss options after Emma meets with Nelson, the developer. And in the meantime, Eddy will — apprehensively — give Emma access to the budget and financial documents. But no matter what, Eddy promises as the Hernandezes walk out the door, she’s NOT selling.

The face of a lioness about to eat her prey.

Lyn’s plans for the day include catching up with her boyfriend Juniper. He flew in from The Bay to pick up his truck, which she drove down for the funeral. Honestly, he’s the exact kind of self centered, faux-hippie, weed smoking, bro-type white guy that I’d expect for Lyn. We’re first treated to his dumb face while Lyn is going down on him. In the very next scene, while he’s still full frontal nude, we find out that he’s breaking up with her.

Juniper wants back the keys to the truck, but also the credit cards that he’s been letting Lyn live off of. He packed all her bags and brought them with him to LA, making for an even colder hand off.

Ok. It already says a lot about Lyn that she’s been living off of this jerk, so I don’t want to excuse her. But, not nearly as much as it says about him. Lyn nails it in her withering final lines, “You waited to dump me until after I ate your ass… Know this about yourself Juniper, you broke up with me two days after I buried my mother. That will always be the truth about you.”

Vida’s writing room is once again out here flexing their prowess. In another show, a line that bold would have flopped on hard on its face. Instead, it smolders.

Also you can just tell, this dude is a selfish lover. Lyn deserves better.

Crying and dragging her bags up the steps, Lyn visits her next door neighbor, Doña Lupe. Doña Lupe specializes in reading tarot cards, cowrie shells, candle lighting, and other forms of brujería and Latinx spiritual practices. It’s a knowing detail that Lyn turns to her when her life feels upside down.

La Doña tries to help Lyn see that her quest for love is bigger than any one man (preach, sister!), but Lyn misinterprets her advice and instead sets her sights on Johnny. Marisol catches them fucking in the office of his auto shop. She’s rightfully pissed and worried that Johnny is letting Lyn back in his life. Lyn’s still grieving, and she’s carelessly using Johnny as she works out her emotions

Mari’s role in Vida’s narrative is complicated. On the surface, she doesn’t yet seem strongly connected to the Hernandez sisters or the main plot of the story. At the same time, her presence looms. We can tell that she’s far from a bit player. She’s the embodiment of the harmful, changing demographics of Boyle Heights and the resulting consequences of those changes for its local residents (in this episode, she films a YouTube broadcast about a local family displaced after their landlord raised rents to court “Trump dollars”). As the Hernandez sisters circle around their interpersonal family drama, it’s Marisol who will not let us forget the charged political atmosphere that their presence and decisions are being weighed against. It’s a lot of responsibility to carry on the shoulders of a teenager.

S-E-X-Y

Emma runs into Cruz and her always perfect newsboy cap at the bakery. This time she pairs her cap with an off shoulder tee showing off her tattoo sleeve, because apparently she just wasn’t sexy enough in the first episode and wants to break even more gay hearts.

She slides up to Emma’s table as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. She thought that Emma would be back in Chicago by now, trudging through snow in thigh high boots. (Yeah Cruz, I always imagine what my old “friends” would look like in thigh high boots!)

She bought Emma a little something sweet. When Emma politely turns it down, Cruz is surprised. When they were teenagers, Emma always let her buy her orejitas after school. Emma immediately blushes at the memory, downcast eyes and all, while simultaneously trying to deny the tradition ever happened.

Cruz laments, these pastries are good, but not as good the Old School ones. It’s like everything’s becoming a plastic version of what it used to be, you know? Emma’s not so sure it’s a bad thing, she jokes that millennial upgrades come with Wi-Fi. Cruz presses her. She’s heard that Emma is thinking of selling Vidalia’s property to Nelson, and he’s a snake. He has single handily ruined their neighborhood, block by block.

Before this can turn into a full blown fight, Cruz walks away. Emma catches her by the wrist. She thanks her “for the sweet thing”. My heart melted a thousand times! Cruz reaches over smoothly and takes Emma’s phone without asking. She makes Emma promise to call or text or even freaking smoke-signal — whatever it takes. Lowering her voice an octave for good measure, she  tells Emma to take care of herself out there.

The tension between these two is palpable, seductive, and multi-layered. I can’t wait to watch this caldron boil over.

I swear — it’s not my fault, I’ve been corrupted by toxic heterosexuality.

Later, at Nelson’s office, Emma runs into an old neighbor, Señora Benitez. Nelson has one of those walls where clocks are set to different time zones. Except instead of the typical “Tokyo, New York, Paris”, they’re labeled Silverlake, Williamsburg, Shibuya, Noord, and Kreuzberg — all famously gentrified neighborhoods. The set detail packs a punch, reminding us of that the trend of gentrification is not singular. We’ve been here before. We’ve seen the damage. Señora Benitez recognizes Emma right away; she used to beat her daughter in the elementary school spelling bee. You can tell from the pinched look on her face, it’s not a compliment.

She tells Emma not feel bad. Redevelopers are leeches on the neighborhood. They are coming for everybody. And anyway, this was always going to happen to the Hernandezes. You know, ever since their mother “turned that way…”

Emma sucks in all her breath, absorbing the silent hit. It’s the first time she’s heard someone outside her family address her mother’s sexuality. And for extra fun, it’s packaged in a pretty little pink bow of hatred!

It’s only a few seconds, but you can already see Emma’s mind recalculating everything she previously thought she knew. What must it have been like for her mother to choose Eddy, even when it meant losing financial security? If this what the neighbor felt comfortable to say in front of Emma’s face — what kind of awful things must have been said behind Vidalia’s back? How painful must it have been?

Sitting down in her meeting with Nelson, Emma finds out that her mother had taken out two mortgages on the property. Nelson had supplied her with the second, predatory, mortgage after her health started failing. Now the family owes more than the building is worth. They’re nearing foreclosure and Emma can’t afford to have that on her spotless record.

Nelson, like Emma, grew up in Boyle Heights. “Look at us, and look at them,” he told Emma in the first episode, outside of Vidalia’s funeral. “We took the nopal from our foreheads.” Tanya Saracho explained the line to The New York Times, “Nopal en la frente [literally, cactus on your forehead] is the most racist thing you can say. He’s saying those people are indigenous, and we’re closer to white.” His self-hate is cringeworthy.

Everything about this guy screams “I’m an asshole! Look at me! Look at me! I’m an asshole!”

Nelson leans in close, putting his slimy hand on Emma’s knee, “I want to take care of you.” Emma stands away from his grasp and pours burning hot coffee all over his groin. She makes a solemn vow, right there in his office. “I will pay my mother’s debt before I’ll ever sell to you. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

THAT’S my girl.

Emma tells Lyn that their plans have changed. They’re going to have to stay a little longer. Inside, the siblings find Eddy making her way through the remaining funeral flan. Emma confronts her — how could she keep all the debt and financial woes a secret? Eddy shrugs; she knew it would all come out eventually. It’s been a long day. Emma changes tactics and asks about the flan. How long is it good for, anyway?

(FOREVER!!! Says me! FLAN IS GOOD FOREVER! ALWAYS EAT MORE FLAN! When I was a kid I would eat my dessert portion, and then go down the table and eat off the plate of every family member until each one was picked clean.)

Emma picks up a fork like it’s a dagger and she’s ready to go to war. She plops onto a dining room chair and sighs happily at the taste. Lyn worries her lip. Flan has milk in it. And eggs! It’s far from vegan friendly. But you know what… “Fuck it!”

“My God!,” she exclaims with a quiet moan. “I forgot about flan!”

A family that flans together — stays together.

And with that — in a reverse mirror image of the episode’s opening, Emma, Lyn, and Eddy finally sitting together around their dining room table — a small family was born.



“Vida” Episode 101 Recap: Lesbians and Gentrification and Funerals, Oh My!

It’s FINALLY HERE!!

Last night Vida, a new half hour drama about two Chicana sisters, one of whom is queer, grappling with her mother’s death and the knowledge that she was secretly married to a woman, made its debut on Starz. I have been dying to talk about this show in detail with you, and now we finally can! We can gripe about the Hernandez sisters! We can swoon over Eddy! We swim in the richness of the script, the warm hues of the cinematography. We have six full weeks to dive deep into this prestige drama about family, sex, love, and grief — all told from a queer Latinx lens.

Let’s get this… funeral party?… started!

The first “character” we meet in Vida is Boyle Heights, the Eastside Los Angeles neighborhood where our show takes place. And it’s in the middle of a war for it’s very soul. Our guide in the trenches is Marisol, who has taken to her YouTube channel and is ready to ride again.

She tightens her ponytail. She paints her lips midnight blue, telling the camera “this is a manifesto, mi gente. So get a pencil and get ready to take notes… ”

She literally called gentrifiers, colonizers. In case you were wondering who’s my new favorite character on this show.

Across town, Vidalia, an older Latina with a brilliant streak of grey hair, wakes abruptly from sleep. Her skin’s a sheen of sweat. She runs to the bathroom in search for her pills. It’s too late. She watches with eyes wide in horror as blood trickles from her nose, and collapses dead on the black and white tile of her bathroom floor.

This cinematography is GORGEOUS. Bloody. But, gorgeous.

That’s why Emma Hernandez, long lost daughter of Boyle Heights, is finally finding her way home. We first meet Emma in the back of her Uber, stoic with candy apple red drawn lips and immaculately manicured burgundy nails. Her long, dark bob frames her face like a work of art. Right away you can tell her whole game; everything about her screams perfection and power.

Her car pulls up to El Bar, which bids Bienvenidos (Welcome) to the neighborhood in faded, chipped paint. Emma rolls her eyes and reaches for the metal door beside the main entrance, readying herself to climb the stairs to her mother’s old apartment.

I heard you’ve been missing a Bette Porter type in your life? Here I am, ready to fill the void.

Inside waits Lyn, Emma’s little sister, whose doe eyes are out of focus with tears. She’s sits ghostlike, listening as Eddy — Vidalia’s “roommate” — drones on and on about how much her mother loved both of her girls.

Before their awkward encounter can prolong any further, Lyn hears a knock at the door. The minute she sees Emma, her face crumples into even more tears. She grabs her big sister and holds on for dear life.

Her older sister doesn’t reply. She also doesn’t shed a single tear.

“Uhhh, hello?”

“Emma,” Lyn interjects. “This is Eddy. She helped Mamí run the bar, and was like, her roommate”

“I’m sorry. Vidalia had a roommate?”

Eddy breaks out her most charming smile, her navy blue hoodie open and her tiny gold cross sparkling in the sunlight from the window. “Heeeeey, it’s so nice to finally meet you! … I mean… not under these circumstances…”

Yeah. This is not going well.

Emma won’t give Eddy an inch of kindness; it’s like she’s the human equivalent of a brick wall. But, Eddy, ever loving, pushes right on through. She explains the funeral plans, that the burial will be at Boyle Height’s iconic Evergreen cemetery, and the reception will be inside Vidalia’s bar downstairs.

Left alone together, the sisters fall in to what feels like a well rehearsed fight. Emma wants to know why she’s left out of everything (Ugh, girl, maybe because YOU NEVER COME HOME? OR PICK UP A PHONE? ) Lyn gets that Emma and Vidalia had their long standing feud, but she’s begging her older sister — their mom is dead, “can [her death] please override your cunty-ness — just while we bury her? After that we can both go back to our regularly scheduled programing of not talking, but just for today… please.”

Some shows are for the actors, others are for the directors, and while Vida has both ins spades, I can’t help but feel like at it’s core — this is a show for writers. The characters don’t speak in monologue, but, there is exacting detail in every character of Vida’s word choice. Tanya Saracho got her start as a playwright and you can’t miss that here. Even Vida’s humor, at times cutting or wry, often depends on specificity of wordplay (a reoccurring bit about all the funeral flan bets on the audience laughing at the repetition of the word. Later, Marisol’s slur of “Y’tina bitches”, a clever play on “white” and “Latina” that’s not unheard of Latinx slang, is a perfectly deployed portmanteau in heat of the moment). Such focus on script and crafted dialogue is not always common on television. In Vida the attention to details of language feel as important as the characters themselves.

I can’t write a funny caption about a funeral.

Emma and Lyn stand side by side at the funeral service. At the bar, tamales are overflowing on plates. The sisters stand together while relatives and neighbors come forward to pay their respects. A neighbor comes up to Eddy and explains that Vidalia gave her an important role, she was to tell Eddy not to cry. Eddy collapses onto her shoulders. We also get our first glimpse at Eddy’s lesbian crew, who gather around her to make sure that she at least ate something today, in the middle of all this unimaginable pain.

Lyn and Emma don’t notice any of this, of course, because they are too busy being snide about their relatives (Emma calls them “Mi Vida Locas”, which is supposed to be a diss, but joke’s on her because that movie is ICONIC). This is my first problem with the Hernandez sisters. Your mom magically has a butch, sexy in that everyman kind of way, heartthrob of a “roommate”, whom you’ve never heard about, but is crying her eyes out at the funeral and being attended to by everyone in the neighborhood — and you have ZERO QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT?? How self-centered can two people be!

At least Lyn has more significant problems underfoot when Johnny, her high school boyfriend, walks through the door. Oh yeah, with a pregnant fiancé on his arm! I don’t know Johnny, and I don’t know their whole deal, but from the way Lyn claws her way behind her older sister’s back, there is D-R-A-M-A and I can’t wait!

Hey, Cruz! Her eyes are UP THERE!

Speaking of old, hot flames, within milliseconds of Johnny’s arrival, here comes Cruz and her cocked to the side, newsboy cap! What’s with Cruz? I can’t be sure. But, I know the whole time her eyes never left Emma. Her stare ate that girl up like she was a snack and Cruz was all out of Snickers, if you catch my drift. When they part, their hands are still holding like they’ve forgotten how to ever let go.

Eddy, drunk and in grief, breaks a few beer bottles, yelling at her homegirls, “¡Déjame!, ¡Déjame!” (Leave me alone!) They’re trying to wrestle a small knife out of her hands. She’s mad with grief; and can’t imagine living without Vidalia. Johnny comes to to help, reminding the grieving widow that no one can handle another funeral. She wouldn’t want to do that to her community, would she? Not today.

Seriously, we’re only at the half way point! It’s painful. So painful. My eyes can’t handle anymore tears. Rey, played by real life Boyle Heights community rights activist and genderqueer trans man Rey Fukuda, picks up the music while Eddy cries on her friends’ shoulders.

Is it bad to kind of have the hots for a grieving widow? Asking for a friend.

Lyn finds him in the back alley behind the bar. They talk for maaaaybe 3 minutes? And then they fuck. Well, to be more explicit, Johnny eats her out on the stairwell. And then they fuck. Ugh… grief? Amirite?

When they’re done, Johnny tells Lyn that he only came to the reception to support Eddy. Because her wife died today.

Record scratch.

“Her what??”

Yeah Lyn, duh. WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING ON THERE?? Come on Mamí, you’re better than this.

It turns out that Eddy and Vidalia had been married two years by the time of her passing. Emma’s first reaction? That her mom was a hypocrite. Her second reaction? She wants to see the will. Over her dead body is she going to share the building and the bar with Eddy. With that, she slams out of the apartment and down to the street, Lyn hot on her heels.

On the street, Emma launches into a curse-laden tirade like few I have seen, in life or on screen. She calls her own mother a carpet-muncher! (That’s… kinda horrific.) That she bats for team tortilleras! (It’s Spanish for dyke. I’ll admit I chuckled, despite myself.) Our girl, who has been steely collected the entire episode up to this point, is really flying off the handle!

Call me J.Lo one more time!

The sisters share tacos nearby and who do they see after their meal? Marisol, Boyle Heights’ Avenger from the opening scene. She’s busy taking down the hipster foodie filming outside the restaurant. When Lyn and Emma get caught up in the fight — You wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but Emma is scrappy! She stepped right to Mari and called her act “Chola 101”, I howled! — Lyn recognizes Marisol right away a “Little Mari”, Johnny’s younger sister. Ooops!

Never one to lose face, Mari calls them Tía Toms (get it? Like Uncle Toms?) one more time for the road.

Back home, Emma goes up to the roof of her building for fresh air at sunset. There, she sees a little girl in a pink party dress sitting on the ledge. She runs to to her, telling her to get down, it’s dangerous! The girl jumps, pink dress floating in the air, and for a second I thought the worst. But, she’s fine! She just went down a single story and runs off, giving Emma the middle finger for good measure.

Horror Movie face? High face? You decide.

Well, they don’t teach that on Sesame Street

Emma goes back downstairs to find Lyn at home, watching old videos of the girls when they were young, singing along to Selena’s “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” with their mom and practicing their cumbia. Together, alone for the first time without the pressure of strangers, the Hernandez sisters finally find room for their grief. They hold hands and Emma let’s go. She weeps, watching the smiling silly faces of the VHS tape.

The camera pans out to Boyle Heights once again, giving us one last glimpse of the neighborhood. Across the street from El Bar, there’s a old, worn out mural dedicated to the social movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, namely the Chicanx militant group, The Brown Berets. The camera’s passed it a few times this episode already, but now it lingers in the bottom right corner. Because who is painted in that long forgotten mural? The same little girl in the same pink party dress; the one who gave Emma the finger just a few scenes earlier.

SAY WHAT NOW!?!?

How is it possible that the living, breathing little girl we just saw is also painted on a decades old mural? I have no idea. But, I love me a ghost story and I can’t wait to find out.

We’ve only had a half hour with the Hernandez sisters so far, but there’s already a lot to pull at and explore. I’ll keep it real with you — they are frustrating. But, so is grief. It’s a moment where any of us are our best selves. I think it’s brave of Vida to delve deep into those ugly spaces right from the start. To show us the worst of their lead characters before you get to see the best of them. Is the approach working for you? Do you find yourself wanting to know more? Do you feel for Eddy? Chat with me in the comments!

If you’re interested in Vida, but don’t have access to Starz, I wrote you a handy watch guide last weekend! Check it out! If you missed any of our in depth coverage of the show leading into the premiere, you can find it here.