Vida: Season 3 Episode 1 “Episode 17” [Season Premiere] – Recap/ Review with Spoilers

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As the bar finds itself doing better than ever, there remain so many who have the opportunity and desire to take it down, or the owners.

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Directed By	Jenée Lamarque
Written By	Tanya Saracho, Taylor Orci
Aired (STARZ)	4/26/2020

This content contains pertinent spoilers.

The Role Of Peacekeeper – Yoli, Mari, Emma

After the incident, aka Yoli throwing detergent in Lyn’s face, getting punched, and going to jail, there is the need for Mari to make amends with all parties. She has to talk to Yoli about not doing anything beyond helping with bail and calling her mom, and then there is Emma. With Emma, her history with Mari is complicated since Emma wants peace between her and the locals, and, at one time, it seemed Mari could have helped with that. However, now her sister got assaulted, and Mari is trying to get something for nothing.

What do we mean by that? Oh, well, she wants no charges to be pressed against Yoli but says the protests won’t end. With that in mind, Emma tells Mari to beat it but reassure Yoli, who is DACA, she isn’t going to mess with her status. After all, her father was undocumented, so she gets it.

Baking The Cake & Eating It (Out) Too – Lyn, Emma, Nico, Rudy

Both Lyn and Emma may not be in love, just yet, but are in relationships where there is trust and stability. However, they aren’t without their problems. Emma’s we’ll get to in the next topic, but only because Lyn’s is a big one.

For Lyn, Rudy decides they are serious enough to meet his mother, so she goes in a summer dress despite it being a cocktail party. Which is a big thing for Lyn, but Rudy’s mother seems to shoo it off. But, what she can’t is Lyn’s limited Spanish. That causes a lot of issues alongside Lyn’s limited knowledge of Mexican culture.

Now, usually, when we speak of being mixed, it is racially and usually through a Black/white lens. However, “Vida” brings a different spin by noting Lyn is culturally mixed as a second-generation Mexican-American, and thus, her tongue is broken. Meaning she doesn’t necessarily speak her mother’s tongue, nor is she well adept to the tongue of the country she was born in.

But, while she struggles, like with the bar, she learns to adapt. Thus making it so, from an awkward occasion to being the center of the party, Lyn rebounds in a major way. However, whether Rudy’s mother appreciates her son with someone who can’t speak Spanish and comes off like a coconut, that is a whole other thing.

Case Of The Ex – Zoe, Nico, Lyn, Eddy, Emma

Nico and Lyn are in such bliss you’d almost think we did a time jump. However, it is only days from the incident on Saturday. But, as they roll in bed, in bliss, it seems their troubles could be behind them – WRONG! In actuality, they have just ended their honeymoon period as Nico’s ex, Zoe, decides she needs to make her presence known and force Nico into conversation.

As you can imagine, this is irritating for Emma, but she gets it, there is history there. So she trusts Nico to handle it, and Nico comes to the point of realizing it would just be best to move out, and they ask of Emma if they can move their stuff in – temporarily. This is fine, even met with a smile, but whether Emma is really ready to go full-time with Nico is a whole other thing.

Though with Eddy revealing Lyn and Emma’s father is alive, maybe Nico moving in might be the first bit of good timing in Emma’s life in a long time.

Highlights

Emma and Nico’s Relationship

Getting to see the softer side of Emma always seems like a treat for she has such a need for control, sometimes dominance, that to see her belly feels rare. Yet, based on her relationship with Vida, her grandmother, and since her childhood, who gave her such an opportunity, really? So with this Nico relationship, it seems she is almost playing catch up. Be it in possibly watching what are childhood staples or getting to be consistently vulnerable without fearing it will bite you in the ass.

I mean, take note, her willing to trust Nico, despite how intimate a moment they seemingly were having with Zoe, that meant something. This makes us hope, if you watch the preview for the next episode, Zoe doesn’t come with some BS that throws a grenade into Emma x Nico’s relationship.

Lyn Dealing With Being Multi-Cultural

As noted in the recap, often in conversation, being multi-anything usually focuses on being multi-racial and being pulled between Blackness and whiteness. However, there are other cruxes to deal with, as shown by Lyn. Someone who is Mexican-American, but is too Brown for the rich and clueless Americans she often deals with, but not culturally adept enough for those who see themselves as true Mexicans.

It’s refreshing to watch Lyn deal with this since she does have a diverse friend group and, as she says, has adapted often to her surroundings. But, the ability to just be has alluded her a bit. Being able to bring in all these influences and have them be different parts of her person, and not all she is depending who is around hasn’t seemingly been something she was allowed to do.

Hence why this bar doing well is important since it is a representation of all Lyn went through up until now and the best of what she knows. So its failure would be hers, for it would mean a rejection of an identity which is more about her being happy and comfortable rather than doing what pleases others. At least, without there being reciprocity – beyond money.

On The Fence

The Zoe Drama

Could Zoe contribute something? Yes. However, with this being the final season, and at most us getting 10 episodes, who wants to waste that on an ex who doesn’t know when things are over? Granted, she claims Nico is lying, but with that comes the need to hope all of Zoe’s drama can be balanced with Emma having a good thing and Nico being developed without one overshadowing the other.

Yoli & The Protestors

One of the benefits of Mari being a former central figure in the protest was we got to know her, we got to hear her point of view and built a relationship with her outside of being a protestor. With Yoli and the others, they just seem whiny with nothing better to do than complain. We’d even submit they are the worst kinds of activists in terms of they have all the energy to make signs and agitate people, yet actually doing something for their community? That isn’t their key goal. Well, at least we don’t see them do such too often.

Making it so, one can only hope the organization matures and evolves or faces the consequences. Because all that group seems to be is hot heads, and people like that are more a liability than assets.

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