The first 2 episodes have me hooked. I thought it would be similar to White Lotus, but it feels more like Princes Bride. I look forward to episode 3.
Acapulco (spoilers) on Apple+
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mt1
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* SPOILERS FOR S03E10 "Burning Down the House" FROM HERE *
Probably best to post the spoiler warning before continuing my previous post.
Regarding their threading the needle objectives, I think this season-ender probably met them. Maximo ruined a few lives, and, notwithstanding the regrets he expressed to Don Pablo at the end, chose to abandon his principles and profit from it. Even if we never get to see what happens from here, it's easy enough to envision how he could keep putting his ambitions ahead of his people and turn them against him. As for his relationship with Julia, even if they are still together in a next season, he has clearly ruined that. His whispered justification to her, "what else could I say in front of all these people?" in accepting Vera's job offer, was just pathetic. Even if we never get to see their breakup, we've seen plenty of reasons why it's going to happen.
I thought Jessica Collins had some lovely emotional moments here, especially as Diane said goodbye to Don Pablo. When Vera gave her the two options, I kind of hoped she's prove to be more ruthless than he expected and have a countermove. No dice, but I was glad that behind what I expect is genuine excitement for her starting a new business chapter is a nascent plan to take back what's hers from Vera. That is also a clever way for the show to keep Chad at the resort and continuing to have something to do. (Winsberg gives his thoughts on how serious Diane's plan is in another interview here.) And nice touch having Diane give the proverbial finger to Vera by hiring back Beto, who promptly announces free top shelf drinks, and by breaking out lobster for everyone, all on Vera's tab.
It was revealed quickly and in the middle of the episode, but Memo and Lorena are pregnant! So a season four will include a shotgun wedding and probably even a birth for them. I honestly wouldn't have guessed that the characters were fooling around, so that was a genuine surprise to me.
Still not really feeling the chemistry between Diane and Hector, but the show is definitely leaning into the relationship regardless, and we know they are together in the present day. I was wondering if the two of them revealing that he has been shagging the boss would lead to him being on the outs with the staff, but it appears not, especially with her leaving.
I don't really think it is much of a cliffhanger as to whether present-day Julia will agree to help Maximo with the hotel. While I'm OK with how the season wrapped up, I thought the last ten minutes of this episode were a bit confusing and could have used an edit. I didn't really get why Maximo and Hugo got up from the table and apparently immediately were accosted by Joe, saying he had been looking for them for an hour. After all, Joe had been at the table with them before he left to find Julia. And then we had the pretty unnecessary helicopter pursuit only to find out Joe had bad info about Julia's location, but we didn't know why it was bad until the helicopter returned to the hotel and we found Julia had never left. So why did Joe think she had? (And why does Maximo lean on this guy so much? He seems bad at his job.) And it was only after that, in the middle of Maximo's conversation with Julia, that he bought the hotel. So this explains why Joe couldn't find them a few scenes earlier even though they appeared to have just gotten up from the table. Maximo was in an office somewhere buying the place. (As though it could happen that fast.)
So I thought the execution there at the end could have been better. Certainly tighter. But I think the season ended in a reasonably intriguing place. Now come on, Apple, order a season four.
Probably best to post the spoiler warning before continuing my previous post.
Regarding their threading the needle objectives, I think this season-ender probably met them. Maximo ruined a few lives, and, notwithstanding the regrets he expressed to Don Pablo at the end, chose to abandon his principles and profit from it. Even if we never get to see what happens from here, it's easy enough to envision how he could keep putting his ambitions ahead of his people and turn them against him. As for his relationship with Julia, even if they are still together in a next season, he has clearly ruined that. His whispered justification to her, "what else could I say in front of all these people?" in accepting Vera's job offer, was just pathetic. Even if we never get to see their breakup, we've seen plenty of reasons why it's going to happen.
I thought Jessica Collins had some lovely emotional moments here, especially as Diane said goodbye to Don Pablo. When Vera gave her the two options, I kind of hoped she's prove to be more ruthless than he expected and have a countermove. No dice, but I was glad that behind what I expect is genuine excitement for her starting a new business chapter is a nascent plan to take back what's hers from Vera. That is also a clever way for the show to keep Chad at the resort and continuing to have something to do. (Winsberg gives his thoughts on how serious Diane's plan is in another interview here.) And nice touch having Diane give the proverbial finger to Vera by hiring back Beto, who promptly announces free top shelf drinks, and by breaking out lobster for everyone, all on Vera's tab.
It was revealed quickly and in the middle of the episode, but Memo and Lorena are pregnant! So a season four will include a shotgun wedding and probably even a birth for them. I honestly wouldn't have guessed that the characters were fooling around, so that was a genuine surprise to me.
Still not really feeling the chemistry between Diane and Hector, but the show is definitely leaning into the relationship regardless, and we know they are together in the present day. I was wondering if the two of them revealing that he has been shagging the boss would lead to him being on the outs with the staff, but it appears not, especially with her leaving.
I don't really think it is much of a cliffhanger as to whether present-day Julia will agree to help Maximo with the hotel. While I'm OK with how the season wrapped up, I thought the last ten minutes of this episode were a bit confusing and could have used an edit. I didn't really get why Maximo and Hugo got up from the table and apparently immediately were accosted by Joe, saying he had been looking for them for an hour. After all, Joe had been at the table with them before he left to find Julia. And then we had the pretty unnecessary helicopter pursuit only to find out Joe had bad info about Julia's location, but we didn't know why it was bad until the helicopter returned to the hotel and we found Julia had never left. So why did Joe think she had? (And why does Maximo lean on this guy so much? He seems bad at his job.) And it was only after that, in the middle of Maximo's conversation with Julia, that he bought the hotel. So this explains why Joe couldn't find them a few scenes earlier even though they appeared to have just gotten up from the table. Maximo was in an office somewhere buying the place. (As though it could happen that fast.)
So I thought the execution there at the end could have been better. Certainly tighter. But I think the season ended in a reasonably intriguing place. Now come on, Apple, order a season four.
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Yes! I queued up the season finale of Stick this evening, and was happy to find Acapulco in my watchlist. Shouldn't have been surprised, though, as this is how Apple runs things. One show ends, a compatible new (or returning one) starts.
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* SPOILERS FOR S04E01 “Waterfalls” FROM HERE *
The first two episodes of season four are available, but I’ve only watched the first one so far.
No surprise that they’ve banished Hugo. The actor would have grown too much to continue playing the part. Not crazy about replacing him with Memito as the new audience for Máximo’s stories. The actor they cast to play adult Memo does a good facsimile, and having the actual Memo in scenes with him diminishes that effect. Kind of wish they had cast someone else for Memito, but I guess that was too much to expect in the final season.
Speaking of the final season. I’ve said all along that one of the things I appreciate about the show is that while it is a sunny comedy for the most part, it has a dark lining in the form of whatever Máximo did between the two time periods we see to make everyone hate him. I don’t know how many seasons they thought they’d have to play that out, or, realistically, how they thought they’d do it: surely the show couldn’t (and won’t) end with him being public enemy number one. So we may never really know, or at least see, whatever he does. But I do wonder if this premiere is the start of retconning the show’s own history so that he’s not hated, or not hated for as long, as we previously have been told. The secret of how he got the top job is out, and everyone’s mad, but surely that won’t last the whole season? It’s surely not enough for everyone to hate him for decades.
The first two episodes of season four are available, but I’ve only watched the first one so far.
No surprise that they’ve banished Hugo. The actor would have grown too much to continue playing the part. Not crazy about replacing him with Memito as the new audience for Máximo’s stories. The actor they cast to play adult Memo does a good facsimile, and having the actual Memo in scenes with him diminishes that effect. Kind of wish they had cast someone else for Memito, but I guess that was too much to expect in the final season.
Speaking of the final season. I’ve said all along that one of the things I appreciate about the show is that while it is a sunny comedy for the most part, it has a dark lining in the form of whatever Máximo did between the two time periods we see to make everyone hate him. I don’t know how many seasons they thought they’d have to play that out, or, realistically, how they thought they’d do it: surely the show couldn’t (and won’t) end with him being public enemy number one. So we may never really know, or at least see, whatever he does. But I do wonder if this premiere is the start of retconning the show’s own history so that he’s not hated, or not hated for as long, as we previously have been told. The secret of how he got the top job is out, and everyone’s mad, but surely that won’t last the whole season? It’s surely not enough for everyone to hate him for decades.
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Well, that’s that, and so * SPOILERS FOR ALL OF S04 AND THE ENTIRE SERIES FROM HERE *
It’s hard for this series to not be enjoyable, and so the season mostly was, but it was the weakest of the four seasons overall. Several of the characters, like Nora and Esteban, were sent down irrelevant side quests to give them something to do, and the show really had no idea what to do with characters like Diane and Chad now that Diane no longer owned the resort. But it was always going to give everyone in the past and present a happy ending, and so it had to keep them all around in order to do so. Fair enough.
I thought the finale was sweet, but more superficially so than the genuine feels the show has elicited at other times in the past (including once just earlier this season, in the hospital after Esteban’s heart attack). Of course adult Maximo and Julia got back together — but it rang somewhat false, because we really haven’t seen any signs of change in Maximo even as an adult, and just giving Julia a symbolic blank sheet of paper doesn’t mean he has changed. I mean, he just spent the entire season rebuilding Las Colinas attempting to get her back, which is hardly the sign of a guy without his own agenda.
Maximo, really, is kind of the main problem with the series, especially in the latter two seasons. At every turn, he makes the wrong decisions and does the wrong things, yet consistently fails upwards, gets forgiven by everyone, and is purported to be on his way. He gets the head of operations job and is clueless about it throughout, usually getting bailed out by others; barely pulls off a scam to get the Miss Universe pageant there and then makes a hash of that, on and on, and then is poached by Vera‘s brother and called by Vera himself his ”best employee”, and on and on. Only at the very end where Maximo unrealistically leverages himself into an ownership stake in the new resort do we get the very first glimpse of the business tycoon he is to become — and it’s a level of calculation he’s never before displayed, and an opportunity he’d never actually get from his actual performance, so it rings hollow.
In earlier seasons, I wrote about how one of the cool things about the show was the dark undercurrent in all the sunshine. Maximo, as he told Hugo, was despised in the present day by all the people we were watching in the past. The storytelling was theoretically leading up to how that came to be. I suppose, pragmatically, we were never really going to see that, because the show would have to end that way, and it’s too sunny (and also a comedy) to do so. But, aside from Julia, we never saw any hint of that, aside from a brief moment this season where the whole staff was mad at him over being on strike and him turning down a solid settlement offer (another mistake). But that fracture was mended in minutes of airtime and we never got back to the idea that he may have screwed them all over on the way to the top. Maybe the idea, to the extent the show even wants us to remember the original premise, is that he took the staff to the new resort (as he told Vera’s brother he would do), and he treated them badly there.
Those complaints aside, I’ll take the pleasures of this finale and final season where I can get them. I think the sweetest part of the entire finale was with two secondary characters, Sara and Esteban, at the airport — when she hugged him and told him she never would have achieved going off to US college if not for him. Those two played it very well, and it was a bit of emotion the show did put the ground work in to earn. I also liked that even though the episode teased the mural reveal, it didn’t actually stage one, instead letting us see it in the background of the dinner party: the characters of the past on the wall joining the characters of the present at the table, all together for the first time in the last scene of the show. Lovely way to end it.
It’s hard for this series to not be enjoyable, and so the season mostly was, but it was the weakest of the four seasons overall. Several of the characters, like Nora and Esteban, were sent down irrelevant side quests to give them something to do, and the show really had no idea what to do with characters like Diane and Chad now that Diane no longer owned the resort. But it was always going to give everyone in the past and present a happy ending, and so it had to keep them all around in order to do so. Fair enough.
I thought the finale was sweet, but more superficially so than the genuine feels the show has elicited at other times in the past (including once just earlier this season, in the hospital after Esteban’s heart attack). Of course adult Maximo and Julia got back together — but it rang somewhat false, because we really haven’t seen any signs of change in Maximo even as an adult, and just giving Julia a symbolic blank sheet of paper doesn’t mean he has changed. I mean, he just spent the entire season rebuilding Las Colinas attempting to get her back, which is hardly the sign of a guy without his own agenda.
Maximo, really, is kind of the main problem with the series, especially in the latter two seasons. At every turn, he makes the wrong decisions and does the wrong things, yet consistently fails upwards, gets forgiven by everyone, and is purported to be on his way. He gets the head of operations job and is clueless about it throughout, usually getting bailed out by others; barely pulls off a scam to get the Miss Universe pageant there and then makes a hash of that, on and on, and then is poached by Vera‘s brother and called by Vera himself his ”best employee”, and on and on. Only at the very end where Maximo unrealistically leverages himself into an ownership stake in the new resort do we get the very first glimpse of the business tycoon he is to become — and it’s a level of calculation he’s never before displayed, and an opportunity he’d never actually get from his actual performance, so it rings hollow.
In earlier seasons, I wrote about how one of the cool things about the show was the dark undercurrent in all the sunshine. Maximo, as he told Hugo, was despised in the present day by all the people we were watching in the past. The storytelling was theoretically leading up to how that came to be. I suppose, pragmatically, we were never really going to see that, because the show would have to end that way, and it’s too sunny (and also a comedy) to do so. But, aside from Julia, we never saw any hint of that, aside from a brief moment this season where the whole staff was mad at him over being on strike and him turning down a solid settlement offer (another mistake). But that fracture was mended in minutes of airtime and we never got back to the idea that he may have screwed them all over on the way to the top. Maybe the idea, to the extent the show even wants us to remember the original premise, is that he took the staff to the new resort (as he told Vera’s brother he would do), and he treated them badly there.
Those complaints aside, I’ll take the pleasures of this finale and final season where I can get them. I think the sweetest part of the entire finale was with two secondary characters, Sara and Esteban, at the airport — when she hugged him and told him she never would have achieved going off to US college if not for him. Those two played it very well, and it was a bit of emotion the show did put the ground work in to earn. I also liked that even though the episode teased the mural reveal, it didn’t actually stage one, instead letting us see it in the background of the dinner party: the characters of the past on the wall joining the characters of the present at the table, all together for the first time in the last scene of the show. Lovely way to end it.
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