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'Girls from Ipanema' Season 2 Review: Choices and consequences loom large after shock opening of Lígia dying

Not all the men are painted in a bad light and not everything the girls do is right, which makes you feel like you are watching real people rather than a feminist manifesto dressed up as a plot
PUBLISHED JUN 19, 2020
Malu, Adélia, Ivone and Thereza (Netflix)
Malu, Adélia, Ivone and Thereza (Netflix)

If the trailer for Season 2 had given viewers a reprieve from the shock ending of Season 1, Episode 1 of the new season snatches that comfort right away. In the first few moments, we see Malu (Maria Casadevall) drift in and out of consciousness as she dreams of Ligia (Fernanda Vasconcellos) - healthy, alive, and full of sunshine smiles and mischief. When she wakes up, Ligia is in her hospital room with Adélia (Pathy Dejesus) and Thereza (Mel Lisboa) when the doctor says she is free to go home. 

Then the mood turns somber as Malu says with despair, "She is dead isn't she?" When the camera turns away from her and back to her friends, the figure of Ligia has disappeared. Ligia's presence in the earlier shot is never explained but it is obvious that Malu misses her so much that she is a constant presence in her life despite being dead. When the season starts, the trauma of the shooting has robbed all the girls of the verve they showed in Season 1. Pedro (Kiko Bertholini), Malu's errant husband, returns smelling the money the club is making. He woos Malu and worms his way back in. Thanks to her listless apathy as she is recuperating, he takes over the club, removing one instrument at a time, rebranding it 'Carioca Flavors'. Malu fetches him his whiskey while he makes snide remarks about her mother. He starts treating Adélia as the hired help rather than the co-owner of the club. 

Adélia, Ligia and Thereza in Malu's hospital room (Netflix)

Malu's forging of Pedro's signature to get her club up and running comes back to bite her. On paper, Pedro owns the club and there is nothing she can do about it. Thereza is also playing the dutiful wife when the season starts, trying to play mommy to Nelson's (Alexandre Cioletti) child. She is quite a good sport about it too, considering he fathered the child with Adélia when he was her boss. Adélia also gets married to Capitão (Ícaro Silva), the drummer at the club. 

And then little by little, as the season progresses, the girls start rediscovering that they can choose to be free again, joined by Adélia's younger sister, Ivone (Larissa Nunes), who dreams of being a singing star. Of course, the choice to follow their hearts or the freedom to decide their "own hell" doesn't come for free and extracts an unbearable price at times.

The most satisfying part of the season comes in the middle when Adélia helps Malu run a "Rio con" to make Pedro sign over the club back to them and disappear from where he came from. But there is still the sleazy councilman -- who sees Malu, the single woman, as an easy target -- to take care of.

But despite all odds, Malu grows to new heights as she gets a Hollywood actress to attend her "Women's night" at the club where guests take off their heels and skid along the powdered dance floor. The scene is one of many in the show that depicts women claiming and reclaiming space to be their own person, without the threat of assault or molestation or being told what to do. One of the highlights of the season is the romantic relationship Malu develops with Roberto (Gustavo Machado), the music label owner, who sees her as an equal and a "partner" in more ways than one. 

Chico (Leandro Lima) makes a late return and it is interesting to see Malu debate about her love for the two men and wonder why she has to choose. Her musings seem fine until she gets angry at Chico for having a woman on the side. Then, her outrage and jealousy can feel a little hypocritical.

Thereza is less lucky in love. She loses Nelson to Adélia, who after a cancer diagnosis, reshuffles her priorities and faced up to how she really feels about Nelson. When the tumor turns out to be benign, she grabs life and love with both hands, separating from her devasted husband Capitão and moving in with Nelson. But the class and race barrier is real which makes her take a drastic decision by the season's end. 

Thereza, on the other hand, breaks down temporarily for having lost her "best friend", Nelson, but soon regroups. She is the queen of the airwaves and her bickering sessions with her radio co-host turns into sexy times after Nelson decides to leave her. Ligia, through all this, hangs like a ghostly presence in the girls' lives, especially as we see Ivone take the route to stardom that once was her path. Augusto (Gustavo Vaz) returns to face his trial for murder of Ligia and attempted murder of Malu.

He is painted as a victim of "femme fatal" Ligia and as an upstanding citizen who lost his mind during a "crime of passion". It would be laughable if this wasn't a defense used by many men after killing their wife, girlfriend, or lover. He gets off with a rap on the knuckle - four years but on parole. He essentially walks free much to the dismay of Ligia's friends. Malu and Thereza do an impromptu interview on-air, hijacking the sound booth at the radio station, telling the world about Ligia. And then Ivone, singing Ligia's words, wins the most prestigious, televised, national music contest. As always, things get a bit unruly towards the end, building up to a cliffhanger that will make us wait for Season 3, just like we waited for Season 2. 

While the ending of Season 2 is not as devastating as Season1's finale, it does bode trouble for our girls. Overall, the show keeps the plotlines tight and the emotional highs and lows of the narrative are keenly executed. There are some pithy and insightful lines of dialogue around race, gender, violence, and love, that make you rewind scenes to enjoy those scenes again.

Not all the men are painted in a bad light and not everything the girls do is right, which makes you feel like you are watching real people rather than a feminist manifesto dressed up as a plot. 

Just like Season 1, the costumes and settings are a gorgeous look back at Brazil in the 1960s. The show also doesn't shy away from showing how "the hills" were the black people live is very different from the South of the town where the whites live. The show also depicts how risking it all is much easier for someone like Malu compared to someone like Ivone. It doesn't whitewash problems. Instead, it shows the main protagonists fighting against systemic racism, sexism, and violence in creative ways.

All the characters, men and women, are complex characters who make mistakes and try to find their own joy. Sometimes their actions are hopelessly selfish but you get why they make them. All in all, the show is high on drama and plot twists and is worth the binge. 

'Girls from Ipanema' Season 2 is available to stream on Netflix. 

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