"Always believe the impossible is always possible."
Hello everyone!
Well, we made it.
As in, if you've watched this show from start to finish at didn't at any point cry buckets or unleash a new river onto this unsuspecting world, you're a wizard.
And not the Harry Potter kind.
Netflix really hit it out of the park this year with its series lineup, but most especially with this biographical one, telling the story of the absolute fan favourite Tejano singer who unfortunately had her life tragically cut much too short.
I remember seeing the first part announcement teaser and being super stoked to finish it all up with the second ... until I realized just what that second part would mean.
But I persevered.
So grab your tissues and make sure you have plenty of time.
Because at the end of the day, Selena, the Series is all about love and family.
You will find links to previous entries dealing with the topic at the bottom of the page, and most especially the link to the review of part one, because obviously I did that on this blog, too.
Now, on to the show, as they say!
So after pushing and pushing and moving forward, starting with weddings and birthdays and eventually working their way to the big labels like EMI Latin, Selena y Los Dinos REALLY take off in this season, because the early nineties were their time, after all (she won a GRAMMY PEOPLE! A GRAMMY).
And yet, Selena is unhappy.
Because if you remember from season one, her father threw Chris Perez out of the band when he figured out that the guitarist was secretly dating his youngest daughter.
Now, the plan is for a nine month tour, but Selena won't be able to handle that. She's been seeing Chris in secret, you know, and she misses him like crazy. Her sister tells her to forget about him, that he's just a guy and she shouldn't throw her life away because of him, basically what everyone else around her says, but Selena makes a good point:
she's been on the road since she was 9 years old. When is it enough? When does it stop?
When does she, Selena Quintanilla, get the chance to live HER life, not the life everyone else around her either wants for her or pictures that she should live?
So she takes matters into her own hands and she and Chris get married in secret at the courthouse.
My personal favourite - heavy irony here - is her family being all shocked and shaken like WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL US?!?
Uh, maybe because none of you were ever supportive of the fact that she was in a relationship? Maybe? This had to have been something else, because at the time, Selena's brother was married with kids, and her sister was engaged, on the road to marriage. Of the three Quintanilla children, only Selena was "protected" and everyone was always against her having any kind of personal, intimate relationship.
I buy that some of it was to keep her sheltered and safe because the world is a bad place. But I don't buy that was the only thing. It's telling that a sentence by Abraham Quintanilla was included in the show, about Chris: 'He'll make her quit. I know the type. Macho. I've seen it before.'
It's moot point as Selena isn't here to defend her actions and her choices herself, but I WILL BET YOU that nobody wanted her in a relationship because they were terrified their goose that laid the golden eggs would suddenly stop producing. It's a fairly nasty thing to say, but there you have it, I've said it, and I'm not sorry.
Because I bet it's partly the truth.
Anyway, Selena and Chris move into the house next door to her parents (another ploy, if you ask me, to keep her close) and start on their married life, which for the most part then takes a back-burner for the rest of the show. We do see random snippets and occasions, and there's a mention of the python Chris has, and you see the dogs they accumulated, but a lot of the rest is simply not there as the series focuses primarily on her professional struggles and the production behind it all.
So with Chris in the background, the rest of the Quintanilla family takes center stage, with Suzette's wedding, and AB's daughter, but most importantly at this point, Selena starts her own boutique line and is in negotiations to FINALLY release an English album.
She dawdles on that one though, because she's told Los Dinos won't be able to transition with her as they can't produce the kind of sounds the label would want - and it looks as though the only one REALLY bothered by it is Selena herself, because upon talking to Suzette about it, her sister very calmly explains she's being silly, it's just what it is and is a fact: she needs another band for the pop sounds, that's all.
Then of course there's the travail of finding actual songs, because at this point Selena's own autocratic tendencies start showing in her relationship with Chris.
Now I'm not saying couples don't have troubles. Of course they do. But the way this is presented in the show is that most of it stemmed from the fact that Chris also wanted to form his own band, with a bit more of a rock sound, and yet the only issues they ever really focused on were Selena's, and he felt he wasn't getting the support he wanted. This then translated to Selena not liking any of the suggested songs, and AB nails it on the head when he says she's such an organic singer, she needs to feel in love to be able to sing love songs.
Selena and Chris do patch things up, obviously, and Selena gives over control of the boutiques to Yolanda Saldívar, which would have been fine ... if the woman weren't totally obsessed with Selena to begin with.
And if she weren't embezzling money from the boutiques and thus the singer.
This comes to light and to a head when Abraham starts solving some issues with the fan club, goes to San Antonio, and in one of my favourite scenes of the series, takes an entire cabinet of files with him in the back of the truck when he can't open them on the spot, which then reveals apparently detailed records of the embezzling (which makes about 0 sense to me, because why would you record this stuff?? But I'm no embezzler so I mean ...).
Obviously, Selena's heart is broken because she trusted Yolanda so much, and Yolanda is forbidden from ever entering the property of Q Productions at any given point in time again, not to mention fired from the boutiques as well.
This all happens in the backdrop of the concert at the Houston Astrodome (which Netflix NAILED, by the way, THEY NAILED IT, I CRIED MY EYES OUT), probably the biggest concert Selena ever performed - and sadly her last big one as well.
Because soon after - and the action is condensed because we know from Chris Perez's book this push and pull kept going for some time - Yolanda calls Selena about being attacked by two men, Selena takes her to the hospital where this is proven to be false, which is then followed by the sequence of the two of them walking into the motel.
We don't see what happens after. We do, however, hear the gunshot.
And Selena Quintanilla dies because of her wounds, leaving her family and the world bereft.
After hits like Amor Prohibido, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, No Me Queda Más, Dreaming of You is released posthumously, and we get to see a montage of what happened with her family and friends afterwards, from the broken fragments of the Quintanillas, to the way the record peaked, how AB formed his own cumbia band eventually, Suzette went back to school to get her GED.
My personal breaking point was when Jose Behar, Selena's manager at EMI Latin, hangs up the record for Dreaming of You - and breaks down sobbing even as the rest of the US mourns for the passing of their favourite.
The show focuses very heavily on the family and production aspect of things and PROBABLY glosses over the fights that happened within for the sake of publicity, but with such strong personalities in play it's inevitable that there would have been fights. Plus Chris and Selena were planning on building their own house and starting a family, which would have paused her career for a bit, but we never get to see just what her father might have thought of it.
It perhaps dusts aside some of the bigger issues, like the autocracy and push-and-pull, but in the end, Netflix tells a compelling story that will inevitably suck you right in.
Selena wanted to do everything - but she also left a huge impact on the people around her through her caring, her big heart, and her enthusiasm. She was a brilliant vocalist and fiercely loyal, and discerning - she's the only one who figures out that a song Ricky writes is about Suzette, her sister, and his unrequited love for her. She was larger than life while she was alive, and became even larger upon her death.
The world lost a tremendous star because of a broken person, but heaven gained a shining star in turn.
RIP Selena. You are still missed.
You will always be missed.
xx
*images and video not mine
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