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.