"The Girl in the Mirror": Amnesia, Demons, Mafiosi, and a Gay Couple in a Paranormal/Teen Angst Drama

 

The icon of the Spanish teen drama series The Girl in the Mirror shows two guys hugging.  Neither the blurb nor the episode descriptions give any hints of gay characters: a girl loses her memory in bus crash that kills most of her classmates.   A boy also survives.  Trying to unravel some mysteries involving both drug-deals and paranormal prophecies, they spend all of their time to together, and no doubt fall in love.  

So where's the guy-hugging?  I watched Episode 2, where "Tom says goodbye to a friend."  Maybe his boyfriend died in the accident?

Scene 1: We jump right into the paranormal: a voiceover tells us that this land is the hiding place of the demon Therion.  A prehistoric boy summons him by making carvings of his five animal spirits, and then eating a poisonous mushroom, so he's close to death.  Therion then decides to save him by taking over his body.   Why would you want a demon to possess you?

Scene 2: An old guy tells a boy named Alex (Alejandro Serrano) that he has only one of the animal carvings.  He hid the others far apart, so no one could bring Therion back into the world.  A Bearded Guy, Alex's brother, comes in and notes that Grandpa is having one of his semi-lucid days.

Meanwhile, bus crash survivor Alma is getting ready to leave the hospital and go home with parents that she doesn't recognize.  She says "Adios" to an empty chair.  Getting visions of Therion?

Scene 3: On the way home, Alma gets a memory of someone named Deva telling her "I have to talk to you about what happened yesterday."  Of course, she doesn't remember what it was about.  Is this  teen angst or demonic possession?  You can't have both.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, the doctor hacks into a secret security system and looks at the cell phone records of someone named Martin.  Sinister music plays.

Scene 4: Bearded Guy is in the mountains, searching for something -- the other animal carvings?  He looks at some texts from Martin: "I wish I could stay with you...."  Ok, Martin must be the dead boyfriend.

Scene 5: Alma is surprised to find that she lives in a dark, sinister mansion in a cliffside village.  How Gothic!  

Uh-oh, she's on crutches, and her room is upstairs.  Getting up there is too much of a struggle, so Dad carries her to one of the downstairs guest rooms.  Later he tells Mom that he didn't want Alma to see her old room: because then she would find out about Lara, and she must never know. Are Mom and Dad in cahoots with Therion?

Scene 6:  Cute curly-haired Tomas (Alex Villazan, top photo and left) wakes up in a room full of swimming trophies. He lost a leg in the bus crash, so no more swimming, but at least the flashback shows a muscular physique and nice bulge.  He falls on the way to his wheelchair, and Dad rushes to his aid.  "I don't need help, snarl snarl!  I'm not a useless puta (asshole)."

Two detectives visit.  The autopsies revealed that most of the students in the crash had been taking drugs, and Carlos, the bus driver, had a bag of pills on him.  So maybe he was DUI, driving under the influence.

Tomas remembers what caused the accident: something jumped into the road with flashing lights and a strange buzzing sound.  The detectives imply that it was a hallucination from the drugs. Are we adding aliens to the mix?

Scene 7: Bearded Guy, Bruno (Pol Monen), goes back to the hotel he runs.  The doctor from Scene 3 is there.  She's Martin's sister, suspecting that he's still alive, and hiding out with Bruno.  "No.  He was a nice guy, very sensitive.  I've been looking for him since the accident."  So Martin was on the bus, but his body was never found. 

Doctor Sister: "Ok, but an employee of my father is looking for Martin, too.  It's very important that he DOESN'T find him."  So Martin's dad wants him killed?  

Scene 8:  Scraggly-haired girl, shaved from recent brain surgery, tells Tomas: #1, I believe your story about the thing that jumped into the road; #2, Alma's lack of memory is not amnesia; #3, all of the survivors are in danger. 

Scene 9:  In the scary Gothic mansion, the dog begs Alma to play fetch with a ball of yarn.  It rolls out into the corridor.  Alma follows, and dog is begging someone else to play fetch.  But there's no one around!

Scene 10:  Grandpa and Alex from Scene 2 have invaded the cheese cave.  Bruno chastises them for eating cheese. He hears a strange noise from deper in the cave, "probably an animal that fell down a crevice.  We have to rescue it."   

Alex is small, so he goes in, attached to Bruno by a rope.  Instead of an animal, he finds a huge altar, human skulls, and a flickering shape -- that chases him.  Plus Martin's bracelet!  Obviously he stumbled into the cave after the accident.  

Back home, Bruno calls Doctor Sister (Diana) with the new intel.  She freaks out.  "Delete this call, and don't tell anyone else about this!"  "But we have to call the rescue squad.  He could still be in the cave." 

Bruno: "I know Martin isn't dead.  When our parents died, I knew.  I could sense it, like a vast emptiness.  I don't feel that with Martin."

Alex: "But they were our parents. You loved them, so there was a powerful psychic link.  But you didn't love Martin, right?...um....ok, that explains the guy from Australia last year...."  Big Brother just came out to you, kid.

Scene 11:  At the hospital, a girl tells Tomas that her brother, survivor Roque, is being taken off life support.  "I thought you'd want to say goodbye."  She wheels him into the hospital room.  "We know this is not easy for you," Roque's Mom tells him.  Wait -- it's harder for Tomas than for the guy's Mom.  Was he a boyfriend?  

They leave him alone to say goodbye.  He grabs Roque's hand and talks about how much he loves him, and he has to fight.  "You can't leave!"  

I expected Roque to get up, but apparently Tomas didn't get psychic powers in the accident.  Instead he goes home, looks at photos of Roque, and cries, while the family gathers for the plug-pulling.  

Scene 12:  Middle of the night.  Alma gets up and goes into the kitchen for a snack.  A thread from the ball of yarn is taunt, leading up the stairs. to what is apparently her old room, with lots of photos of her and another girl. She asks "Who are you?  Why did you bring me here?"

Meanwhile, Tomas is awakened by an "eerie whooshing sound," and gets a text from a dead girl.  Darn, I thought he was gay.  And Roque wakes up!

Beefcake: The Tomas flashback.  Also he hangs out in a muscle shirt a lot.

Heterosexism: No boy-girl romance was evident in this episode.

Gay Characters:  Obviously Bruno and Martin.  I think Tomas has a dead girlfriend.

My Grade: Trying to combine the bus crash investigation, the demon, various paranormal activities, and high school secrets that may or may not be related?  It's exhausting.  When you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing.  But at least there's a gay couple.  C+.