Further Thoughts on Everything Will Be Fine

*Spoilers.*

 I wanted to talk a little more about Everything Will Be Fine, getting into spoilers I wanted to avoid in my Y tu Luna también reviews. As I’ve said, I wish we could get a second season of the show, not just because of how good it is, but because of the interesting turns taken in the finale.

After Julia and Ruy’s initial plan for an amicable separation/divorce turns contentious, they fight a nasty battle over the division of their family. Despite Ruy’s claim that both of them are 100% free to see whoever they want, he’s so incensed by the realization that Julia is dating Fausto that he changes the locks on her house. When Julia hires a lawyer in retaliation, Ruy pushes for full custody of Andrea. And when, in the midst of all the fighting, Andrea runs away, Julia and Ruy are caught between anger and fear—Julia doesn’t know whether to blame Ruy or acknowledge that he’s just as worried about their daughter as she is.

But when Andrea is brought home safe and sound, all that tension gives way. Julia and Ruy (and Fausto) are so happy that Andrea is all right, they spend the night celebrating—drinking, dancing, and getting high. More than once, Ruy and Julia steal away to make out, and when Fausto walks in on them, Julia invites him to join in.

We only see the very beginning of the threesome, which gives off definite Y tu mama también vibes, but when we catch up with them the next morning, there’s no sense that this was a step too far or something that’s lobbed a grenade into their existing relationships. Instead, they gently tease each other about it, with Julia pointing out that Ruy and Fausto had quite a good time with each other and the guys joking that they’d be the first recruits if Julia ever started a sex cult. The scene feels cozy and familiar—it doesn’t necessarily put an immediate new label on the dynamic between the three, but it does feel like something has shifted, and when Andrea wakes up and wanders over to them, it feels perfectly domestic.

We then jump forward about a year, so there’s no serious “what just happened?” / “what are we now?” / “do we really want to do this?” discussion. But when we check back in with Julia, Ruy, and Fausto after the early months of the pandemic, they’re all living in the house together. It could be argued that it’s now Julia/Fausto, and Julia and Ruy just get along well enough that he’s still living in the house and they’re all raising Andrea together. Since COVID would’ve hit pretty quickly after their threesome, it’s possible that Julia didn’t want to make Ruy try to find a new home and job during a pandemic and was feeling enough renewed warmth for him that they decided to give it a go as platonic co-parents. In the 2021 scenes, we definitely see Julia and Fausto together romantically/sexually, and we don’t see Ruy specifically interacting with either of them in that way. There’s a world in which Julia is pulling off a more successful version of Marvin in Falsettos, living her best life with “kid, wife husband, and lover” at her side.

That’s certainly not what other people think, though; it’s evident that people around Julia, Ruy, and Fausto think they’re in a polyamorous relationship. We get little hints throughout these scenes, like Andrea’s friend Caro not playing with her anymore, and at the end of the finale, their cute little family game of “last one inside is a chicken!” is brought up short by the hateful graffiti painted on their door. “Disgusting Pigs—Family is Sacred.”

Like I said, it’s possible that Ruy isn’t “with” Julia or Fausto, and it’s conceivable that other people’s ignorant judgments about them are based off something that isn’t even true. But I tend to think they are in a polycule of some kind. I find it the more interesting choice, and it goes along with the show’s theme that marriage is an outdated institution that was always more about ownership than love. And as much as I’d think to see more of them all together in a second season, I kind of like that the finale doesn’t explicitly define it. That’s interesting as well, that we don’t see Ruy joining Julia and Fausto in the bedroom after he puts Andrea to bed. Regardless of the specific relationship between Julia, Fausto, and Ruy, it’s clear that, along with Andrea and Idalia, they’re a family, and they’re deciding what that looks like.

Like I said in my review of the season finale, I think the show does a nice job of setting the scene for how the initial threesome happens. Emotions are high after Andrea’s safe return home, everyone is feeling generous toward each other, and there’s enough alcohol and marijuana that all three have dropped some inhibitions. But beyond that, this rewatch showed me just how much the series lays the groundwork for this ending. My first time through the show, I of course noticed Ruy’s friend Raiza, who’s in a throuple with two other women. She gives Ruy periodic relationship advice, and she reiterates multiple times that a polyamorous relationship is a lot like any other, just with even more communication—it’s not endless sex or an instant recipe for dysfunction, and they can succeed or fail based on the level of honesty, openness, and commitment from all involved. When Andrea meets Cameron, she balks at the idea of her being Raiza and Romila’s girlfriend, saying, “That’s not allowed.” Cameron simply smiles and assures her, “We’re allowed.”

Raiza and her girlfriends are the most obvious piece of foreshadowing for the ending, but they’re not the only one. While they’re small moments, we also get Fausto’s concerned reaction when he learns that Ruy found out about his and Julia’s relationship. It actually causes friction between him and Julia for a while, because she’s weirded out by Fausto worrying over Ruy’s feelings. And when the two of them make up, she rolls her eyes at Fausto encouraging her to work things out amicably with Ruy. She makes a “should I give you his number?” joke, and he quietly pushes back at the homophobia in that remark. Finally, there’s the scene where Andrea is deliberating between two prince dolls to go with her princess, and Julia makes a not-so-thinly-veiled speech about her own situation, ending in her tearfully asking why the princess is stuck with the first prince in a “happily ever after curse” when she met a second one that she loves so much. Andrea, not picking up on the analogy, simply wonders, “Why can’t she play with both of them?”

I don’t know enough about polyamory to say how any of this stacks up from a representation standpoint, and nobody really seems to be talking about the show online (it doesn’t help that the title is relatively un-Google-able.) But I personally found it really interesting, and again, I wish we could get another season and see more of the new dynamic between these three characters.

Y tu Luna también: Everything Will Be Fine: Season 1, Episode 8 – “Everything Will Be Fine” (2021)

*Episode premise spoilers, which include a major spoiler from the end of episode 7.*

Season finale! I’ve heard basically nothing about Everything Will Be Fine since shortly after it came out, so at this point, I’m guessing there’s not going to be a season 2. Which is a shame—in addition to being a great show, the finale opens the show up in really interesting new directions, and I’d love to show where they were going with it. There’s been no official cancellation, so hope springs eternal, but I’m not holding my breath.

At the end of episode 7, Andrea was brought home safely. And while Fausto read her a bedtime story, Julia and Ruy wound up kissing. Now, with Andrea in bed and the crisis behind them, all three adults celebrate her safe return in an atmosphere charged with elation, relief, and conflicted feelings.

I’m going to save the big spoilers from this episode for a separate post, but I like where the show takes things here. While it’s a big swing, I think the show does the legwork to make it work. As I said, it leaves room for a lot of interesting growth and expansion for the characters.

There’s also a large time jump in the episode—throughout the season, there have been throwaway references to the approaching pandemic, mostly as the radio or the news plays in the background, and once the dust settles from Andrea’s attempt to run away, we jump forward about a year. Now, we’ve skipped over the early months of the pandemic and reach that hopeful period when folks have gotten into the rhythm of things, looking out for themselves and each other, doing stuff remotely and wearing (cloth) masks with news of vaccines on the horizon.

This is an interesting choice as well, because it doesn’t really break down the big move following episode 7. Instead, we skip ahead and get a feeling for the characters’ new idea of normal, in terms of both the pandemic and the relationships between the characters. Not everything is spelled out easily, and while the show drops a lot of tidbits, we’re left on some level to imagine how everything has shaken out. As far as the feel and theme of the finale go, Ruy sums it up best: “It’s not about whether change is good or bad. Change merely is. It exists, period. And now, even change is changing.”

Oh, and did I mention there’s a lowkey but full-blown musical number toward the end of the episode? Another big swing—while music has been an important part of the series, it’s never been employed like this, with the major characters singing their feelings. I’m guessing I’m a little hampered here by the subtitles, which translate the lyrics in a very straightforward manner without rhyme or rhythm. Reading the translation, the song seems fairly on-the-nose and a little corny, but I don’t know how it comes off in Spanish.

On the whole, this is definitely my favorite behind-the-camera project from Diego Luna. It’s fun and messy and emotional, and the characters feel so complex and real. I love how lived-in the whole show feels, and I really like the different ideas Luna explores in the story.

Recommend?

In General – I would, as long as you don’t have issues with the content. This is an interesting, entertaining show—I’m glad that Y tu Luna también prompted me to watch it a second time.

Diego Luna – Yes. Luna’s direction is so confident and unobtrusive, quietly building the lives of these characters onscreen. And again, I’m not sure how much of a direct hand he has in the story, but I love that as well.

Warnings

Sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug use, scenes of violence, and thematic elements (including sexual harassment.)

Y tu Luna también: Everything Will Be Fine: Season 1, Episode 7 – “The Night” (2021)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

It’s penultimate episode time! This is a big one, which I always appreciate. Major stuff going down here.

Andrea is angry and scared. She hates that their house is being sold in the divorce, and she does not want to talk to a therapist as a prelude to her parents’ custody hearing. After storming away from her lunch shouting, “I hate you, Dad! I want a divorce from you too!”, she decides to run away. Soon, it’s all hands on deck with the adults. Julia and Ruy, both frantic and upset, are forced to work together to try and find her, with Fausto doing what he can to help.

Before we get into the big stuff, I love this little scene at the beginning of Idalia showing the house to a couple—it’s evident she doesn’t want to leave, but while her sabotage of a potential sale is at first kept to subtle remarks, it quickly balloons into, “At night, a child ghost appears. Poor thing, they say he drowned in the water tank. We sprinkled holy water, but it won’t go away.”

Andrea is a pretty smart and resourceful kid, and even in the midst of dealing with some big emotions that make her act recklessly, she still has enough presence of mind to concoct of relatively decent runaway plan. She definitely makes it hard for her parents to find her, and she thinks to bring snacks. Still, she puts herself in a very ill-advised position here.

Ruy, to his credit, steps up in this episode. For once, he doesn’t make excuses for selfish or distracted behavior and instead just springs right into action. He’s not thinking all that clearly—at first, he just asks people on the street if they’ve seen a little girl, before it occurs to him to pull up a picture of Andrea on his phone—but he’s not trying to deflect or argue about why it’s not really his fault. He just tries to make it better, and when Julia comes in hot, ready to blame him for what’s happened, he just takes it.

It’s a crucible moment for both of them—the sort of high-stress, high-stakes situation that can either make them pull together or break any remaining positive emotions they have toward one another. And I like that, while of course there’s a lot of focus on how Julia and Ruy are dealing with this crisis, they’re not alone in it. Idalia is on the case, ready to do anything from checking Andrea’s room to confirm whether she changed out of her school uniform to clarifying details about Andrea’s distinguishing features when Ruy and Julia report her missing. And Fausto, who’s dating Julia but still likes Ruy despite everything that’s gone down, just wants to support all of them; he calls in family connections to get the police to listen to them, and he’s there for Julia no matter what she needs.

Strong episode overall. Season finale next week!