Alright, we’re back for a second look at Love Victor. Pilar’s discovered a devastating secret and Victor’s love life continues to be complicated.
The Truth Hurts
Simon remarks to Victor that it sucks that Benji has a
boyfriend, but they’re still fairly in-sync with each other regardless. But
like I said, it actually makes Victor's less life less complicated. He’s doing
decently with basketball, meaning I presume that he’s paid up the $500 by now.
And things are ok with the family, though Pilar is noticeably cold, and it’s
quickly noticed as Pilar goes on the offensive whilst blessing a pizza.
Whilst the parents think its about Victor’s basketball game,
Victor isn’t convinced and Pilar eventually tells him she believes Isabelle had
an affair, showing him the message. Pilar locked Isabelle out of her Facebook
account, so she hasn’t seen the message yet and Victor is trying to sound
positive. But the next message dispels any positive connotations he could
possibly interpret from this.
Mia’s dad, Harold, is home from Germany, or Paris as it now
is. He’s met a lady there, who picked out a nice purse for Mia as a souvenir.
He wants Mia to meet her at dinner on Friday. She’s happy about until Lunchtime
when she confides to Victor and the others that she doesn’t have high hopes for
it. Lake is coming along with her to make an excuse for her to leave early and
watch Victor play basketball. Lake is known as the ‘excuse queen’ to herself,
Mia and… no-one else.
Anyway, her father’s taste has never exactly been great,
starting with her mother who checked into rehab when she was 12 and never
returned. But hearing about parents not always being who you think they are has
Victor thinking about his mother. He meets up with Pilar who is already setting
a trap for Roger. He invited her to meet him after a conference he has in
Atlanta and plans to go in her stead, which Victor agrees to.
Mia is preparing for what she presumes is a disastrous
meeting and the signs are off for her, the lady’s name is Veronica, she’s older
than what Mia thinks is his typical girlfriend and she has a respectable place
of employment, running a charity that helps women facing financial hardship.
Victor and Pilar arrive at the hotel where the conference
was and Pilar is immediately on the attack when she sees someone waiting with 2
drinks. It isn’t Roger and hilarity ensues, but this is the Love, Victor
version of hilarity so I’m going to skip over it. They’re about to leave for
Victor’s game but then Victor sees Armando’s old boss, with a bunch of flowers
and a bottle of champagne on ice. That is Roger and Victor’s convinced to
leave.
Veronica’s not like Mia was expecting, she’s good but rather
than being pleased Mia thinks its too good to be true and begins interrogating
her. It doesn’t work, and she comes across as quite rude. Mia storms off with Lake following
her. It’s basketball time but Victor’s head is, as they say, not in the game.
Get’cha head in the Game, Victor
They’re up against a team they’ve never beaten before but by
a stroke of luck, their star player is injured. What, I didn’t say it was good
luck, for him anyway. The coach also brings Victor as their star player.
Unfortunately, things don’t go particularly well at the game, as Victor
envisions Isabelle with Roger and it’s making him act like an amateur. After
talking back to the ref, the coach asks him to take a seat and his limit is
reached.
Isabelle confronts him over this and Victor reveals what he
knows, but what he doesn’t know is that Armando was aware of the affair and them moving
to Creekwood is partly for that reason. The discussion is benched until they
can get home, with Adrian off to bed.
Roger had hired Isabelle to teach piano to his son. They
would talk over a coffee and it developed from there but she shut it down once
it got ‘physical’ and told Armando everything. Their decision to move was part
of their agreement to make a fresh start, and this particular detail annoys
Pilar more than anything else. Fact is, in that position, and being asexual I
never will be, I would’ve shut it down the moment it left the house, we heard
in the last episode she went a ramen noodle place or something, but that’s just
me.
Victor’s less angry but gives his mother the cold shoulder.
But the fact is we find out there’s more to the story that’s left unsaid. He
confesses what he knows to Mia, and she reveals that no, her mother isn’t an
addict, she just left unexpectedly. She lies as it hurts less to make her the
bad guy that admit she wasn’t enough to make her stay.
Mia and Victor both offer each other some comfort and kiss.
Victor comes home, finding Isabelle listening to the TV in silence. He’s not
ready to talk about it just yet but at least is no longer hostile. Simon’s
email just didn’t need to be there, I feel it’s the most tacked on so far and yes,
I get it, it’s supposed to be ironic but I have mentioned a few times now how
this show’s attempts to be funny don’t always land.
Still, the drama wringed out of this is played really well.
Rating 8/10
Sweet Sixteen
Victor’s message to Simon this week involves how he’s
becoming the family rock as arguments between Pilar and Isabelle intensify.
Victor’s birthday is imminent and Armando’s parents are here, much to Isabelle’s
annoyance, Victor relents on having a party to provide more of a distraction
for her.
Victor invites Mia, Lake and Felix, and Lake decides to
invite Benji, who is going to bring along Derek, his boyfriend. One slight
problem, Victor’s grandparents are homophobic. He should go out and tell them
that two of his friends are a gay couple, it would’ve avoided most of this
episodes’ plot.
So an insight into Lake’s ideal guy, someone who’s
spontaneous and might do something stupid like rob a bank. I don’t think it’s
fear that stops most people from doing that, morality is a little more complicated
than that. So family and friends for a birthday blowout, this is going to be
awkward, times like this I’m glad my personal family circle is limited.
So there’s a plot-line around Isabelle creating a special
cake for Victor’s party, one usually done by the Grandmother. It goes wrong and
wanting to avoid judgement, Isabelle asks Victor to pick up a new one, a task
he delegates to Lake and Felix. Just as they leave, Benji and Derek arrive.
Having given no forewarning to either party about this
situation, Victor tells his grandfather that the two are friends, not
mentioning them being an item. Benji isn’t all that happy at Victor’s
reasoning, the first sign he’s not the perfect boyfriend Victor pictures him to
be. And I get it, it’s not great to be in a party where you can’t be yourselves
but putting themselves above Victor’s wishes on his birthday would be
incredibly selfish and petty, for the sake of two people they’ll likely never
meet again.
Lake and Felix arrive at the patisserie, but they’ve already
sold their only cake to some gentleman. Lake tries to talk him into selling it
to them and it works about as well as you might expect. Felix tries as well but
when it doesn’t work, he just takes the cake and runs. Mia impresses Natalia
(Victor’s Grandmother) whilst Benji and Derek are talking to Tito (Victor’s
grandfather) he says their music must attract the women but they laugh it off,
Benji stopping Derek from revealing that they’re gay, not that Benji’s
particularly sympathetic, brushing off Victor immediately after.
Felix’s actions have attracted him to Lake. But at the house
an argument is brewing between Derek and Benji. “I’m not pretending to be
straight for the sake of some homophobic old man” again, I sympathise to a
point but it is it really worth stirring the pot and making someone else
miserable on their birthday because you can’t hold hands with your boyfriend
for a couple of hours?
Simon responds to Victor’s message from earlier
“I wish I had a pancake-making fixer in my life” You had
your sister, who in the movie definitely did at least one of those two things.
Derek and Benji’s argument is resolved with the two kissing,
basically doing the one thing that Victor didn’t want them to do. And Tito sees
this. Mia has managed to help smooth things over with Pilar but the drama
around Benji and Derek has just spilled over. Luckily Victor decides to stand
up for them, encouraging Armando to stand up for Isabelle too. But the next bit
is where they say, oh it’s hard for us because everything’s changing… It’s
pitiful. Change is hard, yes, and sometimes scary, but it’s necessary too, it’s
more often than not a delusion that things were better in the past. And
something being hard is not an excuse for not doing it.
“This is not the world we grew up in” no, of course it
isn’t. I doubt your perspectives were the same as your parents either, but it’s
not an excuse. “Everything that matters to us is disappearing” this is the same
logic used by people protesting against BLM or against removing statues of
slave-owners. I am so sick of hearing it. If they wanted to make them
sympathetic, this is a total failure. Pilar gets the final word in, not letting
the cat out of the bag and in turn accepting what had happened.
The party continues and Isabelle and Mia finally get along.
Benji and Derek leave just as the candles are blown out. Mia and Victor
officially become an item. Victor opens his present from Benji and it’s a
drawing of Victor at the coffee machine. I swear to God he’s putting out all
the signals. Armando expresses pride in Victor for standing up to Tido, though
he’s still hoping that Adrian does not turn out gay, as Tito believed he might.
Definitely a strong episode of the season, not sure if they wanted to make Tito and Natalia sympathetic but it didn’t work for me if that was their intention.
Rating 8.5/10
Creekwood Nights
Victor tells Simon that Mia and he are officially in a
relationship, and everything’s going well and wait, they can afford VR goggles? Suspension of disbelief blown guys, this family is not supposed to be well off,
this should’ve happened at Mia’s house. As far as physical stuff, they’re
kissing, a lot, but it hasn’t got more intimate than that.
Next up is a thankfully brief sex-ed lesson. Probably
another reason it wasn’t deemed family friendly. Mia’s a little grouchy as
she’s willing to take the next step in their relationship but Victor prefers to
take things slower. Lake advises her to put herself out more with intimate
messages. “I miss your muscular legs” intimacy at its finest. This confuses
Victor more than turning him on, but Lake decides to take Mia’s phone and send
the next message. This one is apparently far more direct, as eggplant, parmesan
can be but we don’t see it.
Benji’s practicing his Latte art, it’s his 1-year
anniversary with Derek and he wants to do something romantic for him. Victor
suggests somehow replicating his first date, despite the restaurant in question
being shut down. Benji thinks he can do it at the coffee shop and in the
background the budget man breathes a sigh of relief.
OK, can we just make an agreement to stop referencing Harry
Potter because it’s hellishly dated now, and you know, the other thing is still
happening. Lake has helped Mia spruce up the room for Victor’s arrival and we
find out that whilst Victor is a virgin, Mia is not, she had a one-night stand
with a guy who she regrets. She claims it was a fellow councillor at summer
camp.
Victor does the stupidest thing he could possibly do and
invites Felix along
“Twist, and not the cool M Night Shyamalan type” so anything
M Night from the last 10 years type then.
Derek’s reaction to Benji’s gesture is… underwhelming.
Back with Mia... God
help me this board game is complicated feels like a computer game with 50
different types of microtransactions. So Victor is using Felix’s incredibly
boring game to make the atmosphere as unsexual as possible because he’s not
ready for that step. Even though telling her would save us pain as well as everyone
in the room.
Still, Victor can see that Mia’s upset and goes to talk with
her. Back with Benji it’s clear his hard work with the date isn’t having the
desired impact. Derek’s not really a believer in anniversaries as a romantic
gesture, first sign that things with them too might be doomed to fail. Benji
hides it but he’s upset about how things went.
Lake chews out Victor and I would like to point out that
you’ve been here the whole evening. She gets some bad news; some random
commenter rated her a 6 on a post that was supposed to be her putting herself
out there. Felix does his best attempt at flirting which… wow, this is so bad
it might actually work.
Mia and Victor talk and he eventually tells her he just
isn’t ready and that whilst may be a simple thing back home, he’s from a more
old-fashioned neck of the woods. It’s a half-lie. It seems Lake and Felix have
hooked up, but Lake wants to keep it a secret. Simon’s advice to Victor is that
maybe he isn’t sexually attracted to Mia. I’m not an expert by any sense of the
word. I’m 28, virgin and asexual but being cautious and nervous around sex
isn’t necessarily a sign of them not being attracted, wanting to take it slow
is not a bad thing if it’s agreed by all parties. He advises he work out what
he wants quickly before someone gets hurt.
The episode ends with Victor checking in on Benji and the
two practicing latte art together. Store’s closed, guys. Mia is also somewhat
dejected and scrolls through old photos, including those of her kissing Andrew.
This is a solid episode though I’m not sure Simon’s moral is
entirely up to scratch.
Rating 9/10
We'll finish off the series next week but in the meantime, things are about to get a little... Strange
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