00:00These two have a strong chemistry.
00:02It's not hard to find their shippers in the comments of the telenovela's YouTube videos.
00:08The show itself doesn't help either, playing Camilla every time the two even threaten to
00:13breathe near each other.
00:17By the way, I never listened to that song of my own free will again after the telenovela
00:23shoved it into my ears until I was sick of it.
00:27I've joked here several times that this telenovela made me ship the sin.
00:32My joke is exaggerated because I never reached the point of shipping the two of them.
00:38But I also won't say that watching them get together was visually unpleasant.
00:44The truth is that the dynamics of forbidden temptation can be highly seductive.
00:49But shall we talk about the rot behind all of this?
00:53It all started when Esteban worked on the farm of Acacia's parents, when she was still
00:59a child.
01:00Esteban and Acacia were friends, and every day he left a suite on her window.
01:08It's already a bit strange that an adult man would be friends with a girl of about 10 years
01:13old.
01:13But up to this point, Esteban didn't see Acacia with malicious eyes.
01:19Those he reserved for Christina, his boss and Acacia's mother.
01:24The girl eagerly waited for her daily gift, without suspecting that her friend had his eye
01:30on her mommy, and that to manage to marry Christina, he would remove the boss from the picture.
01:37One thing I really like about this telenovela is the fact that it doesn't immediately reveal
01:42to us that the leading man was actually the villain.
01:46What we were seeing was a humble, hardworking, friendly man who was very attentive to the women
01:52around him.
01:56After her husband's death, Christina discovers she is buried in debt, and finds in Esteban
02:02the support and love she needs to move forward.
02:06The former farmhand becomes a work partner, friend, and later, lover.
02:11By the way, let's recover the real meaning of the word lover, made to describe someone with
02:16whom you maintain a romantic relationship, whether married or single.
02:23But anyway, Acacia didn't like seeing her mother rebuild her life with another man at
02:29all.
02:29She felt betrayed by both, especially because she discovered the relationship when she
02:34caught the couple kissing on the anniversary of her father's death.
02:39Christina waited, but in the end she married against her daughter's will, and Acacia went
02:45to live with her grandparents.
02:46It's not about covering for Acacia's future actions, but when it was Christina's turn
02:51to make a choice, she also chose to live her love with that man instead of raising her daughter
02:57up close.
02:59Years later, when Acacia returns as an adult ready to reclaim her position as the farm's
03:04heiress, Esteban is enchanted at first sight, before knowing who she was.
03:11Acacia feels only contempt for her mother's stepfather.
03:15She considers Esteban an opportunist, and doesn't even try to put up with him.
03:20Christina falls ill, and that softens Acacia.
03:23She decides to accept her mother's wish and opens gaps for Esteban to win her over more
03:28and more with his provider-man attitudes.
03:32Little by little, Esteban recovers that place of friend and protector in Acacia's life.
03:38When she realizes it, she is already feeling jealous of the love and dedication Esteban
03:43has for Christina.
03:45There's even a very second-hand embarrassment moment, when she thinks her stepfather is
03:50going to give her a present, when it was actually for her mother.
03:54Acacia is dying of disappointment and jealousy, and that when she had barely resumed her friendship
03:59with Esteban.
04:00Esteban.
04:01I truly believe there was a sick mixture of desire and father hunger there.
04:06Esteban was not Acacia's father, of course, but the early dynamic strongly recalls that
04:12situation, especially when he starts leaving sweets on her window again.
04:18At the same time they were secretly desiring each other, the two resumed traditions from
04:23when Acacia was just a child.
04:27Everyone noticed the excessive care Esteban had for Acacia whenever a man showed interest
04:33in her, but attributed it all to a father's jealousy for a daughter.
04:38Despite being a true, obsessed sicko, Esteban fights against his desires and does everything
04:44so that his love for Christina doesn't die.
04:47In truth, he didn't want to trade one object of obsession for another, because both were
04:53only that.
04:54Esteban was not a normal person capable of loving.
04:58He was so far gone that the scene revealing to us that he killed the boss happens with him
05:03talking to the dead man's tomb, wanting to know if the desire he felt for Acacia was some
05:09kind of punishment the deceased had sent him.
05:13Acacia also tries to venture into another territory, and starts dating Elysses.
05:19She really fell in love with Elysses, even though she also had hidden feelings for her stepfather.
05:26Esteban can't stand another man being in Acacia's life, and keeps manipulating situations
05:32to give the stepdaughter's boyfriend a bad image.
05:37Until the quota of misunderstandings ends Acacia's relationship.
05:42On the other hand, an old love of Christina's past arrives to shake up her marriage to Esteban.
05:48Christina gave no reason, but the husband takes the opportunity to play the victim, hurt by
05:54the other's presence, and they even end up separating.
06:01Acacia sides with Esteban and asks her mother to try to work things out with him, but the
06:06situation resolves itself when Acacia tells Esteban that Christina was pregnant.
06:12He, who always thought he was receiving signs from beyond, sees the pregnancy as destiny telling
06:18him to make things right with his wife.
06:21Only that Christina distances herself from both her husband and her daughter after losing
06:26the baby.
06:27And it is in that moment of vulnerability and absence that she leaves the door open wide
06:32enough for the shit to run free.
06:35Esteban had only gone back to Christina because of the pregnancy, and soon tires of the distant
06:40and depressed wife.
06:42Esteban leaves the house, and after much resistance, he and Acacia start giving in to each other.
06:49Or not so much, since they never actually had sex.
06:53And here the telenovela shows it couldn't handle the weight of the dark story it decided
06:58to tell.
06:59A flowery, dark romance, we could say.
07:03They get as far as that high school level making out, but Acacia decides not to go further.
07:08And if there's one single thing we can say in this villain's favor, it's that despite
07:14being many rotten things, he didn't force himself on any woman throughout this telenovela.
07:21Something we can't say about some nice guy leading men from other telenovelas out there.
07:27His thing was seduction and emotional manipulation.
07:31Physical violence he left for the rivals.
07:34Acacia was never touched without consent.
07:37And in fact, they live a brief phase of little boyfriends who give each other flowers and
07:42write little letters.
07:45Acacia has a mental blackout and decides that her actions were justified, because Esteban
07:51had already suffered a lot from Christina's attitudes.
07:54The mother's lack of love for her husband had killed their marriage.
07:58It was on that assumption that Acacia sustained herself to feel free to live her love with
08:04the stepfather lover.
08:06Only that Acacia's lucidity doesn't stay switched off for long, and she decides to cut
08:12off the obscure romance she was living with Esteban.
08:15That's where the telenovela starts to go wrong in my view.
08:19You're beginning to enter the climax of the story, and it backs out in a shallow, rushed,
08:24and incoherent way?
08:27Esteban, for his part, goes back to Christina when he finds himself without money and alone.
08:33Acacia revolts at seeing her mother's marriage resumed and returns to the hater's stepdaughter
08:39skin against the stepfather.
08:41Even after Christina and Esteban's return, he and Acacia still gave in to passion a few
08:47times.
08:48They almost had sex in that phase of the story.
08:52And a pretty bizarre detail is that Esteban would feel like being with Acacia, but since
08:58he couldn't, he would put out the fire in bed with Christina.
09:03Growing more and more desperate with Acacia's refusals to go back to him, Esteban starts behaving
09:09like a complete madman, and the lover begins to get scared.
09:14On the other hand, Acacia saw the Esteban's efforts to convince the mother to put properties
09:20in her name.
09:21Esteban's plan was that he and Acacia could have the fortune and the love, and Christina
09:27could go to hell.
09:30He even started stealing from his wife.
09:33To distance herself once and for all from that so united and happy family, Acacia uses
09:39Manuel, her best friend and Christina's godson.
09:42It's not as if Manuel were an innocent being.
09:45He was a scoundrel, liar, manipulator, and opportunist.
09:50But when Acacia decides to marry him, she signs her best friend's death sentence.
09:57And even though the guy was a piece of shit, it wasn't exactly satisfying to see him dying
10:02with 150 machete blows just like the leading man from the Friday the 13th franchise movies,
10:08mainly because he was starting to review his mistakes and reconsider the forced marriage
10:14to Acacia.
10:17Basically, Esteban executed him without necessity because it seemed he was already going to leave
10:23Acacia standing at the altar.
10:25Forget that phrase that it's never too late to repent.
10:28In this unfortunate guy's case, a few hours would have saved him from becoming a madman's
10:34chopped meat.
10:35On the wedding day, Acacia finds her friend-slash-fiancé's body, and right there starts to understand
10:41who the killer was.
10:43Now the romance that had once been a two-way street becomes a torment based on blackmail and threat.
10:52Acacia already knew who Esteban was capable of, and if she tried to go back to Elise's,
10:58he would be the next victim.
11:00Esteban terrorized her psychologically in a constant way in the final stretch of the telenovela.
11:06And here, the actor's chemistry no longer had any way to soften the situation.
11:11There wasn't enough sensuality to cover all that toxic aura, especially because now there
11:17was no longer the game of seduction and impossible passion between them.
11:21Only one was playing, while the other was shitting herself.
11:27Acacia tried to warn the family who Esteban was, while he tried to convince everyone that
11:33she was crazy.
11:34Cristina asked for proof of what her daughter was saying, but Acacia didn't have the courage
11:39to tell what existed behind Esteban's motivations.
11:44Mom, the thing is that your husband and I had a love affair.
11:49What was forbidden romance turned into a horror movie, and the macho, sexy provider skin kept
11:55falling away so the pathetic, obsessed madman could emerge more and more.
12:01Until Cristina overhears her own husband talking about his passion for Acacia.
12:06She confronts him, but since the police were also almost discovering that he was the Jason
12:11Voorhees of Mexican telenovelas, the man flees.
12:16I can't help commenting that Christian Meyer nailed this role, because he really manages
12:21to do this character transition very well.
12:25What this telenovela lacked wasn't talent from its wonderful cast, but courage from whoever
12:31was telling the story, to go deeper and explore even more the triangle's drama and the shadows
12:37of the human being.
12:40Esteban we can understand better.
12:42An obsessive guy who swapped the object of his obsession and ended the telenovela obsessed
12:47the same way.
12:50But Acacia's feelings did a 360-degree turn that happened way too fast.
12:56Her slate was wiped clean with a speed and ease that we can't just let slide, especially
13:04because there's no need.
13:06The telenovela already threw a circus tent-sized cover over it.
13:10Cristina keeps believing the feeling was only Esteban's, and doesn't suspect it was reciprocated.
13:16What she didn't do at the beginning, she did at the end.
13:20She took her daughter's side above the macho.
13:22Other mothers would have immediately blamed the daughter for seducing their husbands,
13:27right?
13:27Until Acacia gathers the courage to confess that she was Esteban's lover, and not victim
13:33of his unilateral desires.
13:35Then Cristina revolts and refuses to forgive her daughter.
13:39But not for long, because when the two manage to escape from a raging Esteban who tries to
13:44take Acacia by force, everything is forgiven, and the villain ends up arrested for all his
13:50crimes.
13:53An accidental shot to save her mother was Acacia's redemption.
13:57In a visit to Esteban in prison, the character says that everything she felt was a great confusion
14:03caused by neediness, and that she idealized the stepfather.
14:09I won't lie.
14:10I wanted a tragic ending.
14:12This ending was an easy way out.
14:14The alternative where Acacia and Esteban died together was much better.
14:20And not this one with Ulysses forgiving Acacia at the speed of light, just like Cristina.
14:25It's not that Acacia merely doubted Ulysses.
14:28She literally gave a statement to the police that could have destroyed his life.
14:34I won't go deep into their story in this post, but I'll just say that Ulysses was one of the
14:40few characters in this telenovela who ate every bread the devil could have
14:44needed, without having done anything to deserve it.
14:48And Acacia had a lot to do with that.
14:51There are also other, better alternative endings.
14:55One where Acacia eliminates Esteban after he shoots Cristina.
14:59And another where the villain's henchman talks to his corpse in the morgue, in the greatest
15:04style of, I told you this was going to go to shit.
15:09Having said all that, I like this telenovela a lot.
15:12It's just that it could have been much better.
15:16I wish it had been even darker, because knowing what I was about to start watching, I was prepared
15:22for 50 shades of toxicity.
15:26And this is where the commercial gets in the way of the art.
15:29As usual, because this telenovela, even having been sugared down, bothered the conservative
15:34public quite a bit.
15:36I believe that castrated the production a lot.
15:38But what about you?
15:39Are you on the team that let yourself be seduced by the forbidden romance, or the one that always
15:45felt disgust for Acacia and Esteban?
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