The last episode of a Spanish webseries, Si Fueras Tu ("If it were you"), was released last week. It came unexpectedly, since I was expecting the series to go on for longer. The show is about a teenage girl named Alba who goes to a knew school, only to find out she looks exactly like Cristina, a girl who recently disappeared. Alba gets supernatural visions of Cristina and interacts with Cristina's family, friends, and rivals. It also has an interesting structure: at the end of each episode, Alba is left to make a decision, and the viewers vote through the internet to decide which path they would take if it were them (hence the title of the show). In the beginning, the suspense was built up really well. The opening scene, with its ambient disorienting light and frightened Cristina, leave the viewer with so many questions and sets up a mystery of the show: who is Cristina? Alba's own encounters with the apparition Cristina raises more question to the viewer about how Alba and Cristina are related, and whether they're the same girl. Unfortunately, the show does not answer this question clearly at the end. It leaves psychic hints of something grand, that the certain teachers and students are keeping a conspiracy hidden, but that part of the story does not lead anywhere. Instead, it focuses on the high school drama aspect of the story, and answers how Cristina disappeared in the first place. In the show's high school setting, there are the familiar character tropes. A stereotypical mean girl (though the actress who plays her makes her more enjoyable to watch), a stereotypical outcast friend group (with the stereotypical "ugly" girl who gets bullied by the mean girl), and a stereotypical bad boy love interest. The ending does come around full circle to the setting of the opening in the first episode, and it is foreshadowed, but it mostly involves relationships/slash rivalries surrounding Cristina herself.
I was at first really disappointed by the show (I still don’t really like it), especially since the final episode came so unexpectedly for me. It built everything up as if there was some massive conspiracy, or that something supernatural and grand was going to happen later, then continued with high school drama and cliched characters. It didn’t answer any of the burning questions I had in the beginning spurred by the opening scene. I have to admit now though, a lot of it was my own expectations. When I gave the show a second viewing (with Spanish subtitles so I wouldn’t miss anything mumbled over in dialogue) I realized that the story arc was about the character relationships, not the mechanics of Alba’s and Cristina’s supernatural connection.
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