If you were Clara, you'd be yelling back too

Couple of days ago we saw a little argument between Clara and Cadu. They were having a talk about Veronica when Clara mentioned talking to Marina about it. He's not happy with it and they get into an argument. She knows why he's concerned. She understands perfectly well. You can see it in her eyes for a very tiny moment, when she leans back slightly, before she says it's a public place. But she still gets very defensive, she's my friend, are you kidding me? She's not playing. She believes it. At first I thought, Clara, you know he's right, you're being a little too nonchalant, you're totally in love with her, he's right to be concerned, you're defending a little bit too hard. Tiny bit on the hypocritical side. But some reviewing and a few episodes later, I changed my mind. She's genuine. She knows why he's not happy with it, she even understands it. But she also feels she's in the right. She believes what she's arguing for. Let's take a walk right through it.

He goes ‘yeh right’ mode, which in his point of view, I can understand. He knows there is something going on. She gets defensive when Marina is being attacked, cause sure, she may be guilty of loving her, but she didn’t do anything, so she's not guilty of cheating. She says she's being sincere, there is no problem with Marina being there, because she's resisting. She's telling the truth when she's defending Marina being there, she's not planning on doing anything. She can't be blamed for something she didn't do. She should be praised even, for NOT doing anything, because fighting the urge is getting harder and harder. She knows there is a problem, she even told him last week, but she’s not guilty. That’s why she gets so defensive, because she’s using all the willpower she possibly has to do the right thing, but that is her intention. She's arguing her case with passion, she totally believes in it.

Vanessinha, she wasn't looking at you, she was looking at Clara

All Things Clarina New Twitter!


So what’s up with Vanessa these days? That’s what I’ve been asking myself anyhow, cause she’s… different. She used to come back with witty remarks that hit the spot, usually was the voice of raw and brutal honesty that told the things that nobody wanted to say. I liked Vanessa, but as she got more and more bitter, acted weird, did sneaky things, I suddenly realized somewhere last week, that I didn’t know if I liked her anymore. It bugged me. I wanted to like her but I didn’t like what she was doing. I also couldn’t figure out the path that the show had in mind for her. I had some questions.

Earlier this week, on Monday, Marina and Vanessa had a fall out, then they made up again, Marina couldn’t buy a book, Vanessa and Marina talked, they hugged, Vanessa remembered a beach with Marina, after which Marina dove in the pool cause she was scared she would end up sleeping under a bridge.

As always, people were wonderfully divided about Vanessa. She’s being a bitch to Clara, some say she is just jealous and should lay off, others say they understand. Some people say Vanessa is right to talk to Marina about the money, others say she’s doing it cause she’s jealous. Some say Marina is too harsh, others say Vanessa needed to hear it.

A tiny Clara Dear in the Headlights

Tiny note on Clara’s talk with her mom. I just realized I wrote 'tiny' when I started writing, now that I am done and adding this line, it turns out 'tiny' for me is 'only' three pages. Good to know.

I think this has been the most important Clarina episode to date. By a mile. I’m not going to dissect every emotion and sentence in detail this time, so this is not my usual huge elaborate and detailed scene analysis, I'm hoping to get to that as well, but first I want to focus on something else.

Many people are saying Clara has been leading Marina on. I don’t think she has. I do think she is underestimating what Marina has gone through, but I’ll get back to later. First things first, let me quote a few things that Clara told her mom tonight.

‘It’s difficult to Cadu, to Marina it isn’t.’
‘Marina has never asked me to leave my husband. Abandon my son. She loves him.'

Right before that, Chica asked Clara if this maybe could have happened because she and Cadu were in a crisis, then that girl showed up, helped her, sheltered her, showed her a different path.

Clara is trying to show her mother that Marina is not taking advantage of a situation. She’s not Clara’s escape from a crisis at home. Marina isn’t trying to steal her away from her husband. She’s not Clara’s escape, she’s Clara’s love. She emphasizes she never asked her to leave him. She wants her mom to see she's not being pressured, this is all her. These are her feelings, she’s not being played or manipulated into making a decision hastily that she might regret later.

One book called Clarina, two different editions

Here’s what happened last night. Marina is talking to Laerte about working there as a teacher. He’s usually creepy but surprisingly tolerable if he’s in the same shot as Marina, but still gonna skip it mostly except for saying Marina’s wonderful and charming and makes sure to eye Clara for a bit when she brings them special cappuccino. After he leaves, Clara sits down with her and starts the flirty comments right away when she says: ‘So, starting next week you’re going to be around here all the time, huh?’

She says it playfully, casually, big smile on her face and her head is turning sideways in that playful manner. She’s very happy at the prospect of seeing Marina there a lot. To me, it’s very interesting that she’s the one to start the flirting, she’s not letting Marina take the lead in that alone anymore, she initiates it herself as well. So when it comes to the flirting, she’s all comfortable and happy. She loves it. They are in a flirty place and it’s a place that by now feels like home. I’ll get back to that later.

Marina replies jokingly that since the ‘little miss’ isn’t showing up at the studio, she now managed to stay close so she won’t forget about her. Clara smiles kind of shyly at this. She loves hearing it, it makes her feel good, not only because it’s Marina saying it, the woman she loves, but also because it’s fun to hear someone wants to be around you. She’s so in love she can’t even hear Tânia Mara in the background.

Hidden between the lines: What Clara actually said to Marina

Right, last week, may 1st. It's Thursday. Usually a good Clarina day and oh they really delivered. We get a few scenes, first Cadu can't perform, then Clara tells Marina she can’t leave Cadu, Clara tells Ju how divided she is. I had actually started writing right after the episode aired, but it turned out to be way huge, was writing for hours and hours, saw parallels with other scenes and I wanted to make a whole big article out of it. The first scene alone turned out to be a massive block of text and I kind of had troubles seeing the end, underestimated the huge job that would be. Typed for hours all through the night and I was already sleep deprived from the night before so at some point I simply had to put it away and go to sleep. Unfinished, which I hate. My best stuff happens when I get into major ramble mode and I want to stay in that focus. Stepping away takes me out of it and I’m always afraid that I will forget all these things I still have to say, which is usually a lot. When I got back to it the next day, I couldn’t immediately get back into it. I had stuff to do, new scenes were also airing, new stuff happened, 10 pages written but had to take some distance from it. I didn’t look at it for a couple of days. I wanted to cover two more scenes in this article, well, two and a half maybe, but I realized it’s just going to be a *lot*. I kind of put it aside, trying to figure out if I was going to make it a very long thing, include all the scenes and the connections between them, but it felt like such a huge job still to do that I kind of put it away for a bit cause so much other stuff was happening and I was undecided. Much like Clara actually, the parallels are everywhere it seems.

Of course it kept nagging at me. It’s such wonderful stuff to write about and it bugged me that I had this written and it was now doing nothing but I didn’t quite know how to tackle it. Finally I just decided, screw this, it needs to be finished or Clara and Marina will have grandchildren by the time I finally post it and it won’t matter anymore but by that time, it’ll still be itching. Since the first scene alone is quite elaborate (‘quite’), this part will only cover the scene where Clara and Marina talk, the rest is still half written, half chaos and a touch of bullshit, which is how all my posts look before they become the flowing wave of rambled details and descriptions that somehow makes sense and end up on the blog. Well they make sense to me, anyway. So, that said, let’s finally get to the stuff you’re really here for.

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There were so many wonderful scenes and I saw and felt so much raw emotions everywhere, so much double meaning all over the place, where on earth to begin? First we had Cadu passing out and Clara understandably freaking out about it. Then Clara told Marina she couldn’t leave Cadu. Then Ju and Clara had a heart to heart. Then we saw Clara remembering her talk with Marina.

The Stare! Clara's guilt and Felipe was the trigger!

So this happened!

I’m watching this episode on the live stream, my forum is open, I’m armed with a chocolate bar and ready to exchange witty comments about the episodes with my girls there. We open where we left off, Cadu being very heartless at the moment.Complications happen, his heart rate goes down, blood pressure, something else, I’m not sure exactly, but things bleep and people get nervous and big eyed and it’s all supposed to be very scary and tense and terrifying.

We cut to the waiting room where we find almost the entire Em Familia family hanging on couches, lounging in chairs, staring into the distance, all anxiously awaiting news. Clara is talking on the phone to her son Ivan, I don’t speak Portuguese so I still have no idea what she said but I am assuming she is telling him comforting things and he should just go to bed and reassuring him that everything is going to be ok and he can talk to his father soon. Marina is seated next to Clara while she talks and near the end of the conversation, Chica sits down next to her daughter on the other side. After Clara hangs up, she is clearly worried and understandably so. About Cadu, but also how her son is dealing with it and I’m sure she wishes she could give him a hug right now. Her mother puts a comforting arm around her, Marina puts a hand on her shoulder. Clara immediately reacts to the hand, turns her head to look at Marina for a little bit of support while she reaches up with her own hand so she can hold hers and also, I can’t stop looking at the thumb rubbing they are doing. It’s so sweet and loving, she's so grateful she’s there with her. Love it.

She then shares a cute mother-daughter moment with Chica, resting their heads together, then she looks back to search for Marina’s eyes again and they share a totally sweet smile. Clara leans her chin on her own hand, the one that’s holding Marina’s and we all know it’s Marina’s hand she’s actually leaning on. Marina leans in to rest her own head against Clara’s shoulder as well and in my opinion that shot could have been longer, but alas, Felipe walks in so we cut to him, because he has important news. Everybody runs over and tells him to say something, but he’s one of those guys that makes lame jokes at inappropriate times and thinks he’s funny, so he put on his doomsday face, makes everybody yell at him to talk already and speak and for the love of whatever is holy to you, say something. After about 5 minutes he finally does. Cadu is alright, the surgery was a success.

Inner turmoil and silent apologies in a hospital.

Marina arriving at the hospital. Wonderful scene! Awesome!

Clara’s torment, so worried about Cadu, so happy Marina was there, so appreciative of her support, then looking at Cadu, ‘I want to go to her. Can I do this? I need to. Is that appropriate?’ She's really battling that and more in her head at that moment and that gives us wonderful extra dimensions that make this horrible scary situation so much more conflicting.

We all have people in our lives that we need to get through difficult situations like these. If someone you love is dying and someone you care about shows up to support you, you don’t hesitate and ponder if this is appropriate. You just go to them to receive the support they are offering. She doesn’t rush over for the support. She fights a battle in her head first and that is very telling.

Two people she loves, one of them is dying and she’s worried sick. To get through that situation, she NEEDS the other.

The double meaning here is amazing. Cadu is the one she’s worried sick about, he’s also exactly the person who wouldn’t like it if Marina was there. Even though Cadu is the reason for her worries and the reason she would need support, he’s also the reason she wouldn’t go cause she knows he'd have a problem with Marina’s presence. Her love for him is the reason she would not seek Marina’s hug and support, her love for her is the reason she would. 

When Marina shows up and she sees Clara, she knows enough to wait outside the door. She knows she should wait there. She’s not here to upset Cadu, she’s not here to make him angry and the situation worse. She’s simply here for Clara. So she waits, quietly.

First Marina looks worried. She is looking at the woman she loves and at that moment it doesn’t matter that the one keeping her from being with Clara is on that bed. It doesn’t matter that he’s her husband and that she wishes he wasn’t. She doesn’t wish him any harm, she’s worried too. He matters to Clara so he matters to her. It doesn’t matter what the reason is that Clara is upset, all that matters, is that she is. She knows Clara needs her right now. That's all that matters.