Herminia died under one of the few trees relieved from the La Mancha sun by Sagrillas, the same tree that appears in the headline. He died after an oracular speech, in a white monobloc plastic chair and using a kind of rhetorical euthanasia as a final point. He passed the items to Carlos, to whom he entrusted the mission of restoring family harmony as if he were a reporter in Switzerland, and completed his plan by exhibiting oil paintings. And that’s it. The rest of the episode was a very long coda that made us sympathize with those of us who never know how to say goodbye and remain silent at the bar door until they give us a clear answer.
The art of farewell is the storyteller’s least understood and most cultivated resource, but phenomena like Cuéntame can go beyond what they want. The ending was an event and was told as such. Chimpanzee. We’ve come this far. The last expression of pop culture, born when television was something else, has fallen and survived to this day, where no series can claim to mean so much.
Cuéntame long ago transcended the judgments that could be made about her. It doesn’t matter whether it is revered or despised; It doesn’t matter whether it is seen as a nostalgic and reactionary propaganda tool or as a historicist painting; It doesn’t matter that high-profile intellectuals deride it or that low-level intellectuals claim its cheesy power; It doesn’t matter whether it is viewed as popular or populist, as a retrograde soap opera or as an avant-garde story. Cuéntame goes beyond all the talk. Like the classic, it exists on its own, it is embedded in the spirit of Spain and explains the country. And that may be regretted, but not denied.
María Galiana and Ricardo Gómez during the filming of the finale of “Cuéntame”, in a picture from the production company.
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