“On September 13, 2001, two days after the attacks in New York, the first episode of a series that would change us forever was broadcast.” There are endings that cannot be otherwise. If Cuéntame reviewed the great milestones of recent Spanish history, always placing television at the center, it had to reflect in some way its own birth.
Cuéntame spoke of a new Spain that is already a long way off. One in which the television still took up the main space in the living room, aligned with sofas and other furniture. The people of Alcántara, who did not witness firsthand the central events of the country’s recent history, watched them on television, the same technology that made them immortal.
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Tell me the story of how we have changed. The series, created by Miguel Ángel Bernardeau, Patrick Buckley and Eduardo Ladrón de Guevara (who, by a fatal coincidence, died on the same day that the end of his creation was broadcast), held up a mirror to Spanish society and he showed it with its chiaroscuro as it experienced the end of the Franco regime, the transition and entry into modernity after 1992. This recognition of the viewer in the series was for better or worse. There were even many who were not allowed to approach her out of prejudice or who simply despised her.
Ricardo Gómez, Elena Rivera, Ana Duato and María Galiana, in the final chapter of “Cuéntame”.
It was inevitable to feel a little rejection towards this macho Antonio Alcántara, a tyrant and quite egomaniacal, who learned with the blows of life and the people around him. You also had to love him hopelessly without knowing exactly why, just as you love a family member who you forgive for all his mistakes. Walking hand in hand with Mercedes on the enormous journey that women have traveled over the last half century was one of the series’ great gifts and a true life lesson. The wisdom of Herminia, the rebellion of Inés, the courage and unconsciousness of Toni, the youth of María. And the life of Carlos Alcántara before our eyes.
Although the final chapter begins with Antonio, Merche and Herminia uncertain about whether Carlos and Karina would board the 9/11 planes, viewers know that this cannot be possible. No screenwriter would be so cruel. And anyway, the chill of remembering those moments of bewilderment and disbelief, the feeling of seeing something on television that would change history, is transferred to the other side of the screen.
Pablo Rivero, Ricardo Gómez, Irene Visedo and Carmen Climent, the five Alcántara brothers, reunited for the final episode of the series.Manuel Fiestas Moreno
The final episode of Cuéntame underlines the emotional character that dominated the farewell season. The return of Carlos is the focus of an episode triggered by Herminia’s death, a death that paralyzes the world of Alcántara and puts it in front of what is really important. The long and slow conversations are proof that the series is no longer in a rush to tell. All that remains is to say goodbye. The characters arrive in 2001 scarred, with the invisible wounds of distance, misunderstandings and frustrations. The scratches of life.
The return of Carlos and Karina fits well into the plot. It’s clear that the heir didn’t turn out as well as he expected when he went to New York, because that’s life, things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. But together with Karina he manages to break through the wall that separates the brothers. Elena Rivera’s voice says it with the song that Rocío Dúrcal sang: “How the years have passed, what a different world.” And so family remains first. The important thing, in focus.
María Galiana and Ricardo Gómez, Herminia and Carlos in “Cuéntame”.
“Tell me,” she says goodbye, noticing how time passes by. Wear and tear after 22 years is inevitable and the series has obviously had its ups and downs. Nevertheless, it has been much more daring than the vast majority of Spanish productions sponsored by the platforms and has gotten into more puddles than the vast majority of series with which it shares a common journey and origin. The world he was born in is not the same as it is today, nor is television. The society that Cuéntame spoke about has changed. But no one can deny him the merit of becoming part of Spain’s emotional memory. Few audiovisual works have told recent Spain as well as they have.
It was a recurring joke about what would happen if Cuéntame reached us or transcended the present. It happened: in one of those triple somersaults that only this series could allow, it showed its characters in the fateful year of 2020 of the Covid pandemic. But in the course of its natural evolution, Cuéntame caught up with Cuéntame itself. If Carlos, Josete and Luis, gathered in San Genaro in the final seconds of the episode, had turned their heads towards the televisions in a shop window, they would have witnessed the birth of the series on which they grew up.
Imanol Arias and Ricardo Gómez in the last episode of “Cuéntame”.
“The things we went through together here,” Carlos Alcántara tells his friends. “One day you would have to write it,” replies Luis, a Manu Dios who in recent seasons has combined his role in the series with his role as a screenwriter. “Who cares?” Carlos replies. To the tens of thousands of people who were a little heartbroken as they turned off the television this Wednesday. Inside, in hearts and on television, the Alcántaras remain forever.
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