The House Of Flowers (Netflix Mexico) S03: C
- Juan S. Gonzalez
- May 5, 2020
- 3 min read
The third and final installment of this Mexican series by Manolo Caro who claims he mapped it to be a three seasons story. The first season I thought it was funny, smart, very well produced and with a lot of style, that it's also a signature of Caro, it's creator. And with a deal for more content for Netflix I thought we were in for a ride. I'll skip you my thoughst on its awful second second season to dive into the third one.
The style is impecable, this time around we get to see some flashbacks to the 70's when Virginia was young and vibrant and still very much single. I really enjoyed these flashbacks, specially on the first episode and my first reaction to that was that we would see a good closure to a series that started with the right foot, but stumped on its second entry.
Much like Almodovar, Manolo Caro has a special touch to the 1970's and probably would only work on that decade if possible. But the problem is not on its style but in the series heart. The story and the script feel rushed, a lot of cheap gags taken out of meme's on the internet, and in the present timeline the same flaws of the second season are still, very much, present. Like Jenny Quetzal (played by Mariana Treviño) although she's played by an amazing actress, the character was one of the bad things that haunted the second season, and sadly is back for the third one to interact mostly with Paulina de la Mora (played by Cecilia Suarez), the nonsense of Jenny's storyline is forced on Paulina's story for this third season, and they could have easily spared us from that.
But the saddest character treason was committed to Diego Olvera (played by Juan Pablo Medina) where his character somehow ends up trying to convert into a straight person, after two seasons dating on an off Julian de la Mora (played by Dario Yazbek). Julian also has this third installment a very weak storyline that barely gets our attention.
While in the present day timeline things never get better, the flashbacks go downhill after the first episode and slowly the story stops being clever or compelling. Isabel Burr is brought on board to play a young Virginia and I think the casting was spot on, to fill the void left by Veronica Castro who played the present day Virginia on the first season.
Let's take a moment here to ask the question. Did this production / creative decision of writing out Virginia de la Mora from the present day timeline, had something to do with the decreased quality of the second and third season? Do you have any thoughts on that or theories of why Veronica Castro (Mexican telenovela's legend) left the series?
OK back to the C grade. Also the casting of Rebecca Jones and Isela Vega playing young and present day Victoria Aguirre, mother of Virginia, was also a great choice and a delight to watch, I loved how this actresses gave life to the character and their performance. Sadly for Isela Vega, the script for the present day Victoria wasn't as marvelous and had terrible gags, that the young Victoria didn't have.
So this was the incredible and sad story of a series that on its first season promised so much and ended up becoming a cheap internet meme. Better luck on your next project Manolo.
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