WWLD What Would Lola Do?

 by Dr. Booker

Lola had a breakdown and moved to Barcelona
Silvia snapped, crackled and popped and stayed in San Antonio


In planning Season 7, the LHDP writers knew two things: Adriana Ozores, the brilliant actress who played Lola, had left the show and they needed a compelling story line for Pepa and Silvia. In drama there has to be two crucial elements: conflict and miscommunication, and if drama is successful, the perfect storm will be created.

My thesis is that the 13 episodes of Season 7 could not have happened if Adriana was still on the show. I am going to focus on how Lola's absence impacted the Pepa and Silvia story line.

Lola was not only Silvia's older sister, but in many ways, a mother figure as well. Lola was the person whom Silvia turned to when she had trouble with her love life, we all remember the kitchen scene ("I believe I am flirting with Pepa"). Even more importantly, Lola called Silvia on things and would cut through the crap.

Let's go to Season 7. We know that Pepa and Silvia have been together 14 months, they live together and everyone knows about their relationship. These two women have never discussed the case of the missing uterus. They have never talked about having children or the two scars on an otherwise perfect body.

If Lola had been around, she would have confronted Silvia after the slap fest and said "WTF?!!" She would have staged an intervention, locked them in a room until they talked, or at least act as a mediator. Instead, we waited until the fifth episode (a great PepSi episode) for them to actually talk. Who did Silvia have in her life to share her fears? Who did she turn to for advice? Sara. Sara?! And who did Pepa have? Sara and Aitor--who needs a therapist when you have these two? I believe that Lola would also have been there for Pepa. I am not saying that Lola could have controlled or changed everything, but she would have been the voice of reason, which was obviously lacking in this season.

The real crisis of Season 7 was the obvious fact that Silvia had never gotten over losing her baby. She felt humiliated and betrayed by Pepa, and that was what triggered her mini breakdown. Scene after scene we saw how fragile Silvia was, and how she had not forgotten the shooting. We had that memorable moment where Silvia looked at her two scars in front of the mirror. The scars were evident, but the wounds had not healed for Silvia. All through these traumatic scenes, we could see how much she not only needed Lola, but how much she depended on Pepa and felt her absence.

Silvia didn't know how strong Pepa was. Pepa was accused of being a stray bullet and yes, she could be impulsive. I believe that Pepa was a dependable person, but she had stumbled in her fear of losing Silvia and she felt that Silvia had abandoned her. Silvia tells Pepa that she can't have someone flying 3000 meters above her. Because Silvia knew that she needed someone in her life who was grounded, like Lola.

In NYC, there are these massive balloons that fly over the city on Thanksgiving Day. The balloons are tethered by hundreds of people on the ground holding ropes that guide the balloons. Silvia is one of those balloons, and Lola has always been on the ground keeping Silvia steady and on course. When Lola left, Silvia expected Pepa to do the same thing and I think that Pepa did that in many ways--until this crisis. These two characters are the perfect combination of balloon and grounds person. Sometimes Pepa will be flying above the city and Silvia will be holding the rope, and then the roles will reverse. That is what they eventually learned in Season 8, that they could be the Lola for each other.
When I look back on Season 7, I remember how painful it was to watch each episode. Every week we wondered if they would ever reunite. The best thing about this season were the two brilliant performances by our women. Marian was a raw, open wound and we all know that she doesn't need words to share what is in her heart. Laura showed us that she is more than flirtatious and funny--she dug deep and an actor was revealed. These two women had a difficult story line, and they raised the acting bar. And no matter how wonderful Marian and Laura were in Seasons 7 and 8, Adriane Ozores presence was missed--as an actor and as Lola.

Dr. Booker

Un Poco de Chocolate

by Dr. Pied Piper

Un Poco de Chocolate

If you want to watch the clip in HD without downloading it, the link is at the end of this post)

Let me preface this by saying I did not watch the entire movie, nor did I care. This is also a good example of why I love Silvia Castro and not Marian Aguilera. Because not even MA's hotness could force me into watching this [insert profanity here].

I don't really know what the whole story is about, except Daniel Brühl and Héctor Alterio are in the lead roles. I think it might be about someone getting old and, in the twilight of his years, starts getting glimpses of the people from his past.

Marian plays Rosa. She is wearing the same dress in the entire movie (except for the under-the-sheets scene). The SAME DRESS! Like the green outfit in Seres Queridos. Costume designers all over Spain are probably in love with her! Rosa's main schtick is riding the tranvia (streetcar). Sometimes she visits Dirty Old Man under the sheets.

One time, Dirty Old Man rides on the train with her, then puts his hand between her legs. VERY, VERY CREEPY SCENE.

She also shows up at a family picnic with all of Dirty Old Man's other imaginary friends.

By the way the other old guy is pouring his drink, I would guess they are in Asturias and he is drinking cidra (cider) and the mountain behind them is part of the Picos de Europa. Rosa and Dirty Old Man dance and the others join them. Then Dirty Old Man gets home and probably dies. Or there's a snowstorm in his room, I'm not sure, I don't care. THE END.

MA could have phoned in her appearance in this film. She didn't really do much, nor could she do much except look pretty.

Roll end credits. You might ask yourself, "WTF? That's all of MA's screen time?" Sadly, the answer is yes.

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The Lion of the Senate

 by Dr. Pied Piper

Senator Edward Moore Kennedy died last night after a long battle with brain cancer.

Compared to his brothers, the news of his death seems pretty tame. Among his brothers, he’s the only one who died a natural death, although he did come close several times in the most unnatural manner. And with this, we close the book - the final, extended chapter – of Camelot.

They called him “The Lion of the Senate”; for us, he was simply “Teddy” our senator. The first senator I ever voted for. To say he was beloved in Massachusetts is to undermine the degree of affection its people held him with, and the depth of grief and loss they now experience. For my generation, Senator Kennedy was the only constant senator we ever had (although I don’t live in MA anymore). His death is personal.

So for today, PepSi University dares to venture outside the imaginary world of San Antonio into the real world of real pains and real triumphs, of real deaths and real grief, of real affection and real gratitude.

If you’ve never been a resident of the great state of Massachusetts, you probably would not understand why his death saddens me so much. But you have to understand that the Kennedys are revered in their home state; they rank pretty high up there, along with the Red Sox, the Patriots & Celtics, clam chowdah, and the Catholic Church. We cried when John Jr. died, we cringed when Michael was accused by his baby sitter, we waited with bated breath when William was going through his rape trial… For those of us who never knew them, Jack was still one of the greatest presidents ever and his assassination is as real to us as it was 46 years ago, and Bobby was the greatest president that never was and the simple white cross adorning his grave speaks to the humility of the man. And Ted…Ted was our advocate and knight in beaten armor.

Yes, we unashamedly and unapologetically revered the Kennedys.

Senator Kennedy was not a saint – he was the foremost target of right-wing attacks, humorous or otherwise. The mention of his name brought out the rabid nature of his critics. His own personal history rightly justifies them: of Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick, of bar hopping in Florida with his nephew William Kennedy Smith, of drinking and the (assumed and stereotypical) Irish predisposition to alcohol, of his liberal politics and its humongous cost…

But his life was also the very story of man: our fall from grace and own search for salvation. If there’s some sort of bookeeping when we die, I can only hope that my good deeds will outweigh the bad. I hope I will be remembered, if I will be remembered at all, as a good person, in spite and because of myself.

So in the celestial accounting system, I would like to believe that Senator Kennedy closed the books with a positive balance. And his personal history might have rightly justified his critics, but it should have also silenced them into admiration - because his accomplishments put us all to shame, his eloquence leaves us all in awe, his affection and good intentions have put us all in a better world.

I am not going to do a laundry list of his legacy; you can go to http://www.boston.com/, http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.nytimes.com/, or http://www.washingtonpost.com/ for that. Just know that his legislations, although he was born affluent and privileged, focused on the poor and the marginalized members of society.

For every black person enjoying the Boston Common at this moment, for every senior citizen waiting for their meal on wheels, for every child who dreams of a college education, for every teenager who survives on minimum wage, for every family member who needs to stay home to take care of the sick, for every member of the US military wondering what they fuck they're doing in Iraq… For our generation which has been raised in material abundance and selfish aspirations and Reaganistic disdain for the poor, we thank him for showing us the best in politics and the salvation in our sinful humanity.

He said of his brother Bobby: “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, but be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.’’

It’s our turn now to say the same of him: he was a good and decent man, in spite and because of himself.

Thank you, Senator Kennedy.

Silvialogy 3x19

by Dr. Pied Piper 


LHDP 3x19

(If you want to watch the episode without downloading it, the link is at the end of the post)

Lots of back story on this one but not enough Silvia. If there's one episode which highlights the bumbling, stupid, hapless, idiotic cops of San Antonio, this episode ranks pretty high up there.

First, Quique and Curtis organized a bachelor's party for Pove and recruited the comisaria's prisoners to attend because they wanted lots of guests. One of the recruits happens to be a dangerous murderer. At the bachelor's party, this badass dude tries to escape and Pove goes after him, but Badass now has a knife (he picked it up from Cachis' kitchen). Pove, not to be deterred, handcuffs himself to Badass. And Pove ends up not only handcuffed to a murderer, but he's also driving him to escape. The night before his wedding! The following day, Pove is nowhere to be found and Montoya is livid at Quique and Curtis, but did they get fired? This is LHDP, so the answer is no. Hay, Dios mio...

Second, Don Lorenzo is on his way to Central to analyze the audio of masked Mariano from last episode, so Paco and Mariano try to steal the disk. Plan A was to go to DL's office and distract him. It doesn't work so they go to Plan B, which is to send some hoods to ambush DL and steal his briefcase (with the disk in it). Just to make sure, Mariano takes the bullets out of DL's gun and replaces them with blanks. But DL has another gun tucked in his ankle. So he shoots one of the hoods in the leg, and the getaway car driver panicks and runs over him.

The girls are getting ready for the wedding, with Silvia's head full of hair rollers. Still hormonal, she bursts out crying and Lola goes over to console her.

She says that she's so happy for Rita, who's pregnant and getting married. While she's pregnant and has all these cancelled weddings in her resume. Just wait, Pelirroja, your one true love is yet to appear and she'll sweep you off your feet... However, knowing what we know now... weddings really suck. So skip the ceremony and head straight for the honeymoon...

Then the conversation segues into the bouquet and Rita says Sara should catch it. Silvia asks Rita if she can throw it to her instead.

Silvia gets a call that her father is in the hospital. Rollerhead then tells Lola that their father is okay, but he was thrown 3 meters after the getaway car hit him, and he's got concussions all over. Lola and Rollerhead go to the hospital. Lola asks Paco not to stain his suit (since he's walking Rita to the altar) and to attend to whatever Rita needs.

Meanwhile, the hood who was shot in the leg and his brother come into Lucas' apartment with the briefcase. Since they cannot go to the hospital, the 3 idiots (Paco, Mariano, and Lucas) try to get the bullet out of his leg, getting blood all over their clothes in the process.

The girls come back from the hospital with DL in a wheelchair. Paco has changed to a blue shirt and lies to Lola and says he was snacking and got stains all over the other shirt. He is also extremely guilty and starts doting on his suegro.

Other back stories: Tomas left a video for Lucas revealing that he's got money hidden in the ceiling of his villa. Lucas found the stash. Also, it seems Pove is not going to make it to his own wedding because he and Badass are already halfway to Portugal...

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Silvialogy 3x18

by Dr. Pied Piper 


LHDP 3x18

(If you want to watch the episode without downloading it, the link is at the end of the post)

Montoya apologizes for calling in the crew into the briefing room at night (presumably after the Paco-Lucas race) but he has to update them on Agent Escobar and the police corruption investigation. Silvia talks about planted / faked evidence. while DL talks about 375 million euros stolen. Curtis tries to convert it to pesetas.

Silvia is still wearing the same outfit - and WHY is she holding her coat? Don't they have cloak closets at this comisaria? Is she hiding her PepsiU belt buckle?

Silvia comes into Cachis with Ruth, who is asking her when she's going to tell Montoya that he's going to be a baby-daddy.

Silvia basically tells her to shut up and that if she finds out that Montoya has been informed, she'll know where it came from. And then she asks Ruth if she's otherwise okay.

Lola has the brilliant idea to form the Los Cachis girl band to perform at Rita's wedding. When Sara and Silvia look around to see who the members are, Lola excitedly informs them that they are.

Rita comes in and Lola informs her that Los Cachis is holding its debut performance at her wedding. Then they call Ruth to join them. Aitor volunteers to play the keyboard.

They all go upstairs to Lola's place to practice. They sound really bad. Unlike clueless American Idol wannabes, however, they are at least aware of how bad they are.

They all sit down to discuss strategy: who should be the soloist, who has singing experience, etc. Aitor kinda wants Sara to be the soloist.

Then Silvia bursts out crying. Then starts laughing and says that she is so happy. Everyone blames her hormones and waits it out until she's calmed down.

They resume singing. If you look closely, Silvia has her head down: you can tell that Marian was trying so hard to contain her giggles. OUTTAKE moment!

Lola is now the soloist with Ruth and Silvia as her backup singers. They sound a teeny tiny bit better, but not much. Sara sits this one out because she's being bratty and mopey in the kitchen.

They take a break. Lola thinks they sound better but Silvia and Ruth both agree that they are still bad. Lola goes to talk some sense into her brat, and tells her that she better get in there because her aunt is in danger of moving in on Aitor. (Silvia is in the living room by the keyboard and Aitor is showing her something.)

They start singing again, still trying to find the right key, but they're all tired and are now plopped on the couch. At one point, when it's supposed to be an instrumental solo, Silvia keeps singing offkey. Then cries when she was told.

Just when they are ready to call it a day, bi-polar Silvia jumps up and says they should keep on practicing until they get it right. They do sound better afterwards. You can download the song here. One of the backup singers on the track was really the actress who played Ruth, and she's got a really nice voice.

Back at the comisaria, Silvia, Montoya, DL, Paco and Mariano are watching a video of a masked man with distorted voice talking about corruption in the comisaria. They reach the conclusion that the person in the video is one of them. But Silvia doesn't understand why someone would go through all the trouble when they know that Quique is not guilty. She then says that she can send the audio to Central and they have a forensic tool to filter out the noise and adjust the soundwaves to remove any distortion. If it's an inside job, they'll find out who it is in 4 to 5 hours. Paco & Mariano apprehensively glance at each other.

Back story: Quique and Curtis are planning a bachelor's party for Pove and Mariano sees a picture Quique in a private plane. He assumes that he is part of the Uriarte corruption racket because where else would he get money? So he and Paco decided to shoot a video of him in disguise to rat out Quique.

Watch the clip in HD

Silvialogy 3x17

by Dr. Pied Piper 


LHDP 3x17


(If you want to watch the episode without downloading it, the link is at the end of the post)

Not much going on with Silvia in this episode. She's not even giving the briefing for the day's case but sitting with the crew. Only Silvia can wear white slacks and look good in it!

The main case of the day is about someone targeting people at Turkish baths. When DL asks for volunteers, everyone looks at Povedilla but Paco assigns Quique, Curtis, Lucas, and Aitor (how portentous!) instead, but Aitor is no where to be found. (He must already be practicing to perfect his emo persona...)

Then DL announces something about Montoya busting some athletic doping operation. I didn't quite get it, so anyone? Everyone is happy for him, except Silvia who claps reluctantly. Ruth is all smiles and proud of Silvia's baby-daddy.

All the stuff that were confiscated from Montoya's bust are in the lab, including ephedrine, red blood cells, etc. Mariano is bugging Silvia at the lab because he's trying to jones for something, anything, that can give Paco extra stamina for a planned race with Lucas.

I've forgotten the premise of this contest and I really didn't care when I first saw it so no back story, but if you want to know , just post a comment and I'll upload the whole episode.

Next scene is the race between Lucas and Paco. It seems the entire comisaria is out to to watch. Pove comes in and announces that he and Rita are engaged. Everyone congratulates them.

The race starts and we see La Pelirroja cheering. The race ends in a tie. The End.

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Piper's Commentary: This was a really lame episode, not only because of short Silviage, but because it also paints Silvia vascillating about her decision to dump Montoya. It makes her look unsure and stubborn.

Also, her makeup and wardrobe were off: her face was too shiny and her outfit looked like she just stepped out of a JCrew store. In winter. Wearing last summer's collection! Because judging from what everyone was wearing during the race - jackets and all - it couldn't have been before Labor Day or after Easter, when white is still a fashion faux pas. Wait, does that rule also apply in Madrid?

And for the life of me, I really cannot fathom why anyone can just come into the lab! Where illegal drugs and forensic evidence and cadavers are kept! You cannot get away with this shit in American TV shows! I sure hope this is not representative of Spain's police force, because if I were a cop, I would so protest against the prejudicial portrayal of my profession.

LHDP Extra

by Dr. Pied Piper 


Mi Vida Con Lucas

(If you want to watch the episode without downloading it, the link is at the end of the post)

After the cliff-hanger of Season 2 and before Season 3, Globomedia / Antena3 showed a "special episode" called "Mi Vida Con Lucas / My Life with Lucas" written from Sara's point of view. So in case you feel like barfing or doing your weekly penance (if you're Catholic), this is one of those shows which can induce you to scratch your eyeballs out or cause your IQ to drop a few points.

We find out that Sara has been in love with Lucas since she was 7 years old!

(Sara's 7th birthday party)

Then we go down memory nightmare as Sara relates how she had constantly seduced her ex-uncle. One of Sara's Silvia stories includes Season 1's finale when Lucas drove like a bat out of hell to get to her.

Silvia, being on the passenger seat, could have suffered the brunt of the collision had the race car failed to stop and t-boned their car. (Lucas, you ASSHAT!)

Another Sara memory is of the morning after Lucas & Silvia hooked up. Sara says that Lucas went seeking the embrace of another to avoid her. Didn't it cross her mind that Lucas and Silvia were once married and there was still some love there? It really is all about you, isn't it, Sara?

Next Sara wrote about Silvia's pregnancy scare and Lucas running around San Antonio - either to see her or to meet Silvia, who just got her early pregnancy test kit, at the pharmacy.

Sara writes about when Lucas kissed her and how Paco was extremely angry at Lucas (he's the adult, afterall). And then Lucas faking amnesia and pretending his last memory was walking hand-in-hand with Silvia.

And lastly, she writes of her 16th birthday gift from Lucas (playing hooky in a hotel) and how she managed to get everyone involved and how Silvia put her reputation on the line and tried to cover for her.

Those are only the scenes with Silvia because frankly, I really don't care about the others, but you might want to watch the Beautiful Love Story between Lucas and Sara. (*Barf*)

Of course Season 2 ended with Sara being rescued by both Lucas and Paco. The cliffhanger was Sara's choice: would she go home with her father or stay with Lucas? Yep, she chose Lucas, plunging her mother into deep depression, almost causing her parents' divorce, and resulting in Lucas losing his job. Way to go, Sara!

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