Favorite Characters: Elena Alvarez (One Day at a Time)

Netflix sadly canceled its One Day at a Time reboot this year (although it’s been picked up by something called Pop TV?), but I still love this funny, delightful, heartfelt series.  And speaking of funny, delightful, and heartfelt, look no further than one Elena Alvarez.  The family’s oldest child, teenage Elena can be a lot, but in a way that’s deeply relatable to anyone who was ever a passionate, nerdy teen (some Elena-related spoilers.)

At the start of the series, Elena is introduced with two driving motivations:  overachievement and social justice.  She’s a smart kid who manically pursues good grades and scholastic extracurriculars like debate team.  She’s also way into a plethora of causes, from saving the world through composting to smashing the patriarchy.  She’s never as alive as when she’s designing a protest sign, organizing a crusade, or ranting about this or that injustice.

Elena is a tightly-wound bundle of seemingly-boundless energy when it comes to her various projects, and her family is used to rolling their eyes at her ardor.  It’s not like, say, Penelope, is against feminism, but Elena’s constant save-the-world enthusiasm can be exhausting all day everyday, and while Penelope never really discourages Elena from fighting for her passions, you get the sense that she’s sort of waiting for Elena to inevitably mellow on the “#woke”-ness.  Meanwhile, Alex is a little embarrassed of his older sister and Lydia blithely offends Elena at least once or twice an episode without even trying.

I think a lot of us have been there, feeling young and overwhelmed at the state of all the terribleness in the world and damned if we aren’t going to do something about it.  Elena is good at throwing out statistics, coming up with slogans, and shouting about injustice, but she isn’t as good at looking out for herself.  Her dedication and ambition can overwhelm her at times – season 3 reveals that she’s started having anxiety attacks – and it takes her a long time to feel as confident in her identity as she does in her politics.

Late in season 1, Elena comes out as a lesbian, in stages, to the members of her family.  I was much older than Elena when I started coming out, but I still relate to her experiences here:  the fear of how it will affect her familial relationships, the shift from cautious to loud-and-proud, and the gusto of the recently-out.  On the latter front, I totally remember the “asexual flags everywhere!!!” part of my coming-out process, and after some of the hardships Elena goes through (like being abandoned by her dad at her own quinces,) it’s endearing to see her in her “I’M SO GAY!!!” period.  Her relationship with her equally-nerdy, slightly-less-social-justice-focused “Syd-nificant Other” Syd in seasons 2 and 3 is wonderfully sweet and funny.  I love Elena finding someone who gets and appreciates her so deeply, and Elena’s awkward romanticism in her first relationship is adorable.  I especially love the episode showing her first time.

Also?  Super nerdy.  She has a Finsta for Wynonna Earp cosplay!  She’s into video games!  She and Syd dress up as the Fourth Doctor and the TARDIS!  So much fun.

Favorite Characters: Penelope Alvarez (One Day at a Time)

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.

Since, like I said, Penelope is many things, she is 100% a mom but also not “just” a mom, unfortunate though that phrasing is.  And so, we also see her at work, kicking butt at her job and wrestling with how underappreciated she is in it, imagining more for her life but unsure if she can really achieve it.  We see her making friends and making overtures for more-than-friends.  We see her fighting a losing battle against a VA hold line, and we see her coming to terms with her feelings about depression and getting treatment for it.  We see her low, elated, snarky, frustrated, nervous, confident, hyper-polite, infuriated, overwhelmed, overjoyed, fierce, commanding, sentimental, melancholy, silly, comforting, and bemused.  She’s all that and more.  I’m so happy to have her on my screen and hope the show gets the opportunity to show her tearing it up for many, many episodes to come.

One Day at a Time (2017-Present)

This new Netflix spin on an old series was quite the pleasant surprise for me.  While it’s a sitcom that could be described as “aggressively four-camera,” it has both humor and heart in spades, served up by its host of entertaining, engaging characters.  Color me impressed.

Penelope:  newly-single mom, nurse, Cuban-American, Afghan war vet.  After separating from her husband, she’s been in the process of starting a new life for herself, her two kids, and her mother, balancing work, family, and a private life amid her feelings about the recent upheaval.  She does her best to bring up 14-year-old Elena and 12-year-old Alex with a lot of (not always strictly wanted) help from her forceful, dramatic mother Lydia, trying hard to both protect her children and prepare them for what life will throw at them.

There are some cheesy jokes.  The acting veers into mugging at times.  The laugh track can be overbearing.  This is all true, and it might very well turn people off if they decide to check it out.  However, I encourage folks to give it a more thorough chance, because despite a less-than-shining first impression, this is a damn good show.  The majority of the jokes are sharp and funny, well-delivered by actors with a knack for comedy.  Yes, the four-camera nature of the show can make the reality sometimes feel heightened, but a) a number of these characters, especially Lydia, are meant to be larger than life, and b) that just makes it all the more effective when they bring it back to earth for the more serious, grounded moments.

This is definitely a “four laughs, one tear” type of sitcom, with usually at least one “touching” sequence per episode in its first season.  But for me, the serious moments never really feel manufactured or disingenuous, and even though it has a penchant for addressing “issues” – in 13 episodes, the show touches on depression/mental health, immigration (including deportation,) sexism, sexual orientation, and the state of the VA system, among others – it comes across as heartfelt rather than afterschool-specially.  It’s a series with worthwhile things to say about big subjects, and it doesn’t shy away from letting things be complicated and resisting the urge to wrap them up with a neat bow.

For the most part, I like the portrayal of a Cuban-American family.  There’s definitely a stereotypical-humor aspect with Lydia, but it gets more interesting when the show has hyper-socially-conscious Elena comment on that very fact – because is Lydia not allowed to be if she “acts like a stereotype?”  If her life and actions are valid to her, doesn’t that mean they should be valid for everyone else?  I like the cultural nods and references throughout, from the small (the morning café cubano) to the large (the ongoing plotline of Elena’s upcoming quinceañera,) and I like the Spanish mixed into the dialogue, although for my sake, I wish more of it was subtitled.

The great Rita Moreno is the biggest name here, and she doesn’t waste a second of her time as Lydia, and newcomers Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz both acquit themselves well in the roles of Elena and Alex.  But the real revelation for me is Justina Machado as Penelope.  She’s most recognizable to me as Vanessa from Six Feet Under, and I’ve always remembered my first encounter with her as a guest star on Angel, but this is an absolute role for her.  She’s funny, badass, heartbreaking, uplifting, and grounded, often within the bounds of a single episode, and she does it all perfectly.  Just a terrific performance here of a really great character.

Warnings

Language, sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements.