#mousie rewatches el internado

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And I am going to end my El Internado rewatch posts on Ivan and Marcos, who started the show by wanting to punch each other’s teeth in and ended up as best of everything, incandescently happy and utterly free, having burned down the Nazi school from hell to the ground.

This was a rare show that held up on rewatch - I still laughed and sniffled and shipped and raged and swooned. It had some awesome performances and characters but was held together by really solid writing that knew what to keep and to discard and aaaaaaaa such a pleasure!

And yes, Ivan x Julia are still in my Top 5 tv OTPs and Ivan in top 5 fave TV characters. Here we are.

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El Internado, finding a way to make epidemiology riveting.

Perhaps they should have put the makers in charge of COVID briefings, people would have definitely sat up and took notice!

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The children have decided the Latin teacher is a vampire...

(I am DYING!)

Kindergarten murder squad is EVERYTHING!!!!!

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Finally!!!!

My bestest darlings get their happy ending!!!

Also, her running back to the burning, mined school for him and his little crack and the desperate kissing is so so so them!!!

Still one of my all-time fave OTPs!

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Speaking of beautiful distraught men...

1. I love his getting hope his parents are alive from mysterious visitor right after he falls apart in the morgue but the emotional yo-yo has got to be taking such toll. Also, the way he is able to go out there afterwards and act that he believes it’s them, because whoever orchestrated it needs to believe he’s been conned - he’s so convincing and so good at pretending, it’s terrifying in and of itself about his level of trauma and desperation.

2. One of the things that is different on this rewatch for me is just how strongly I love Marcos this time around. I mean, I always liked him, but for some reason, I am so much more emotionally invested this time.

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I forgot that the whole story started with Maria’s escape from the psych ward! I actually love that parental/familial love was such a huge theme in this show - Maria’s drive to find her wrongly taken child and then to be a mother to him is such a driver and theme in the narrative - just as important as any romance. Her and Ivan’s mother/son bond is one of my favorite relationships in this (also for once casting an actress not much older than her supposed son makes sense since she was barely a teen when she had him.) And the irony of Noiret taking a kid Maria very much wanted so as to please his wealthy wife (if I remember correctly, her baby was stillborn and he swapped the kids so she wouldn’t lose it) and then abusing the hell out of him the kid’s entire life for the sin of not being blood when there is someone who really wanted him (and who he stuck in a psych ward!)

Speaking of things I forgot, I forgot what an utter DILF Hector was!

They were clearly setting up Maria x Hector at first. I kinda hope that after she grieves her amazing Fermin she and Hector eventually do make a go of it (and Marcos and Ivan become step-cousins, heh.)

Anyway, moving on. Ivan!!!! Light of my life!!! It’s one of those things where I knew he was a fan fave going in but was going “huh, why, not a fan” and then by the end of s1 I was all “I love him more than anything!!!!” Heh. And Carolina. She was beautiful and acted OK but I don’t think the character ever clicked for me. She wasn’t interesting on her own and in terms of ships, I shipped her neither with Ivan (it was dependency on his side and pity on hers) nor Marcos (he was not the greatest boyfriend to her.) It’s kinda funny that they were setting this as a big love triangle but to their credit, changed tack when they saw it wasn’t hitting.

Papa Noiret! A truly a gold medal winner in the abuse Olympics! He just comes across as a garden variety too busy/disinterested parent here - who knew that he’d turn out to be an abuser, murderer, sadist and Nazi. I wish I knew whether they decided to make him one of the Big Bad Guys from the start or as they went along.

I see dead people! Seriously, these people will have a 40% survival rate.

Marcos!!! I liked him but was never as fond of him as I probably should have been but his love and care for Paula was everything!

God, what a blast from the past!

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Ivan’s whole modus operandi is to blow up and then apologize and things going back to how they were...

But the thing is, sorry is great but it doesn’t erase the past hurt or things said. You should try avoiding hurting a person in the first place. And he’s about to learn having to watch what he says no matter how angry he gets.

And you see him start to panic...

How oddly fitting that the first time he says he loves her is in the aftermath of a fight where he just said they were merely fuckbuddies, she was not his gf etc etc. Man, this relationship is messed up in the best kind of way.

And she pulls away and he really starts freaking out now.

The thing that I love about this contretemps is being loved is not enough for Julia - she wants to be treated well. Her point that it’s not love if he treats her the way he does is in actuality saying that the type of love that does not result in proper treatment is not love at all. I love that. Honestly, a lot of this show is Ivan being taught, kicking and screaming, about what healthy relationships and healthy interactions and healthy boundaries are because he’s never had that. And the thing is Maria is his mother and so she forgives anything but Julia’s refusal to do the same is just as important in terms of his figuring out how to function as an adjusted human being in society. (Side note - it’s good to have both romantic and familial love in general for two different reasons; a parent should love you unconditionally and it’s necessary. But a romantic person is proof that there is something worthy of love in you - Maria would love Ivan whatever his character because he’s her son; a “random” falling in love with him means that there is something inherent to him that is worthy of love.)

She is not 100% wrong...

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Out of all the insane things Ivan’s done in this show, and he’s done a LOT, nothing ever comes close to walking, unprotected, into what he thinks is a deadly radiation zone (though it turns out not to be) because Julia tells him a ghost he cannot see is telling her to do so and she’d die otherwise.

GOD. He’s so gloriously insane.

PS I love that when he puts her down he makes sure to lay her down so her head won’t hit anything.

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AAAAA!!! This bit!! He had made digs about her ghost-seeing claims and even poked about her dead father but always when she gave back as good as she got. When she’s genuinely vulnerable, he just listens and AAAAA!!!!! She is being so vulnerable here, for the first time ever with him, and he so easily could have hurt her now her shields are down but instead he offers comfort...

And this sums up Ivan’s whole attitude towards Julia’s ghost seeing for the entirety of the show. He doesn’t get it in any way, she says she sees them and she says because of that she needs X, Y or Z or knows A, B, or C, and he may not be able to see and know ghosts but he sees and knows Julia and that’s good enough for him.

And this is the first time she reaches for him in tenderness and not just lust...I especially love that little bit where he pulls away as if to make sure they both want the new more emotionally driven make-outs between them, because it does mean something now, even if neither will admit it.

But there are plenty of hormones too!!!

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Plot is best discussed naked, with one’s best buddy.

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Aaaaa she found out!!!

The first time I saw the show, I literally started screaming. Confession time, tho this is a rewatch, this time I did too.

He is so ridiculously in love with her and here, where there is nobody to see, he can admit it.

YESSSSS

I literally was screaming!!

And then she finds a later video, since he’s been recording them to help his memory and for the future when he loses it utterly, so there is one every day.

He breaks down so much he stops the video and has to restart and aaaaaaa

And then he walks in and sees her watching and FREAKS and aaaaaaa I waited for this confrontation for eps!!!

Screaming!!! This is what I got into old school kdramas for and then they stopped giving it to me!

More screaming!

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Ooof, their first serious fight is so painful in the best way

It really is their first genuine fight - because before they bickered and what not but this is a first fight because this is the first time their emotions are involved with each other and so they can wound/and be wounded by each other precisely because they care.

This is in the aftermath of Ivan finding out that his father appears involved in the death of Julia’s father/is member of an evil conspiracy (yes, there was the ghost says Noiret killed Caye, but he was able to shove it in the back of his head after a while and now it’s bringing this back times ten.) He’s hurt as hell and terrified and being Ivan, his coping mechanism is lashing out. But then, where’d he have learned healthy coping mechanisms?

And I love that she is trying to be nice (she is somewhat more functional than he is) and at first he’s merely prickly...

But then she reaches out and he throws her hand off, because he cannot bear to either have his vulnerability observed or to process it properly.

Oh, baby girl, both he and you are so going to find that a curse!!!!

And that is what gets him to really lose it. That’s like his sorest spot, so all he wants is to hurt the person touching his wound so they’d stop and concentrate on their own instead...

And she won’t take it and tells him he can be mad at Roque and Vicki (who were being confrontational) but not her. I love that she’s getting angry but she’s a lot more together and so is trying to reason. But of course at that point he’s utterly lost it; it doesn’t help she brings up Roque and he feels guilty for hooking up with a girl his friend liked. And being a mess, he says his fights with Roque are her fault. I love that she won’t take his shit.

Oh my God, Ivan, you did NOT just call her easy!!!! And placed all the responsibility for you two hooking up on her!

(Sweetheart, you were a mess long before Julia walked into your life!)

The thing I love about Julia is that she won’t put up with his lashing out. Compare with Maria - who feels so much guilt in addition to maternal love she lets him get away with murder. (Once, literally.) It is being with Julia, and loving her and almost losing her because he doesn’t know limits when he fights and how to behave in relationships that makes him eventually slow down and think and learn because he can’t bear to lose her.

And she goes for the jugular and draws more blood than he ever did. I actually gasped this time because I forgot this and she can be just as vicious in their fights - she also goes no holds barred and nothing off limits, whatever is designed to hurt the most. The one difference is she will never start with a nuclear option, she will only respond with one (and if he hits hard, so to speak, she will hit harder.)

AAAAAAA!!!!! That is SO brutal. The thing is, even this early on, they know each other’s most vulnerable spots so they know exactly where to cut.

Delightful.

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So, in the hell school...

Marcos finds out he has one more family member:

Ivan proves he should not be a babysitter:

They put in a random goth girl with a crush on Ivan (who understandably was all wtf pls go away no thanks) just so she could be found hanging of apparent suicide and he’d feel terrible. This show loves its Ivan torture like Papa Noiret is on the screenwriters’ committee.

Five minutes later:

But don’t feel bad, Ivan, she isn’t dead because she killed herself due to you rejecting her love letters and viewing her as a pest. Of course, the reason she is dead is because she was infected with the Nazi plague by your father and his bros who are slowly murdering people in school, so perhaps don’t feel so good either!

  We are about to embark on my favorite big storyline - the Nazi plague!!!

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Julia, light of my life!!!!

More to the point, Julia light of Ivan’s life!

EEEEEEEE

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Julia seeing Fermin’s ghost asking her to take care of Maria and Ivan was such a little note of grace on Maria’s tragedy. She’s had such an awful life and was finally close to a happy ending but...God, I loved Fermin, superhero with a heart.

But my hope is maybe eventually after Maria grieves, Hector x Maria can be revived...

At least the other Nazi hunter, Rebecca, got the hunky single dad! PS I so loved that Rebecca and Fermin’s super agent friendship was always just that, never a hint of anything else.

Oh, and I loved Vicki even more on rewatch. Level-headed, smart as hell, a good friend and with a fondness for impulsive disasters. Here she is celebrating by planning to hook up with hunky hotheaded soldier boy!

Anyway, loved her!

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I confess the reunion of the tormented little family made me cry even on rewatch. It fits so much that Marcos’ happy ending is not romantic but familial - that he doesn’t find new love but regains the one he’s lost and been searching for.

And that he gets to put down his burden and be a child, not a parent again.

When Hector tells Marcos he’s been very brave, that is something an adult tells a child and I love that because the whole show the gang were put in the position to be adults to survive and now they don’t have to be if they don’t want to.