I sang
the praises of this wonderful character – and the talented Justina Machado who
plays her – back in my review of Netflix’s reboot of One Day at a Time, but I have more to say about Penelope. Such a fantastic protagonist and a really
compelling character to center the show around.
As I said
in my review, Penelope is many things (to reiterate, newly-single mom, nurse,
Cuban-American, Afghan war vet, person dealing with depression) and more
importantly, she is wholly all of
them. She doesn’t switch from being a
mom to being a soldier, and her culture isn’t something she turns on and
off. Every part of her is always present
within her, bringing with it a level of complexity that I don’t think I’ve ever
seen in a “sitcom mom” before. Having a
few aspects of her identity be so rare for TV instantly makes her stand out –
Latinas are plenty underrepresented, and you hardly ever see the lives of female
soldiers explored in media – but balance between them all is what makes her so
special to me.
At the
same time that she’s a very unique presence on TV, Penelope is also a classic
example of a character (frequently a woman) trying incredibly hard to convince
everyone that she can do it all when, on her worst days, she secretly feels
like she can’t do anything. She works
hard to do right by her kids, cheerfully crushing it at times and agonizing
over the best move at others. She wants
them to be safe, to strive for their potential, to know they’re loved no matter
what they do, to not make stupid or reckless decisions, and to learn who they
are on their own terms, and she’s very
aware of the fact that she’s trying to accomplish all that without their dad by
her side, going it alone when that was never part of the plan. I like that she gets it wrong sometimes,
overreacting to a minor thing, being stubborn when that just makes Alex and/or
Elena dig in their heels further, and struggling to balance Lydia’s overzealous
insistence on helping with her (Penelope’s) authority as the kids’ mom. But by the same token, as imperfect as she
is, she’s also pretty objectively great.
She can be either a hardass or a sympathetic ear, depending on what the
situation calls for. She works to listen
to what her kids have to say, taking their concerns into honest consideration
while still having the final say. She
can be endearingly goofy in a cheesy mom way, one that’s too infectious for the
kids to stay embarrassed for long. And
she can be really smart about her parenting – my favorite moment from the pilot
is when she “challenges” Elena to a devil’s-advocate-style Lincoln/Douglas
debate over having a quinces and
happily declares Elena victorious after proving Penelope’s own pro-quinces stance for her.
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