So, the first season is out, and I can heartily recommend it. The reviews are terrific; in my opinion, the first 2 or 3 episodes are a bit slow, but the 4th to 6th are such a blast… I couldn’t blink for a sec.
I’m ecstatic. I can’t put in words how shocked I was to see my literal childhood’s neighborhood (Vicente López) under tons of toxic snow and with alien invaders walking everywhere. Some highlights in my mind:
- The scene with the “wall of cars falling from the highway” happens in Puente Saavedra, a location merely 300m away from my high school (attended 1987-90). By the way, I went by bike through that tunnel under the General Paz avenue oh so many times.
- An important part of the story happens in “Soleil”, a shopping center where I used to go to with friends to hang out at the food court, back in the late 1990s.
- I rode the bus line “59” (you can see a few lurking around, crashed and deserted) so many times I can’t count them anymore.
- At some point Juan Salvo enters a deserted train station called Bartolomé Mitre, which I used to go through every day on my way to and from work (because, yes, fate took me to find a job in that same neighborhood in the late 90s when I went back to Argentina from 98 to 2001).
- I’m a fan of the River Plate football club, in whose massive stadium (the largest in South America) something strange is going on!
- My mother used to live not far away from the Glorieta of the neighborhood of Belgrano, shown at the very end of this season.
- My dad did his military service in the Campo de Mayo where some of the action happens, too.
And then there are all those small elements of Argentine culture scattered all over the place:
- The quintessential game of truco. I was quite good at it when a kid, it was a national sport at our high school, we used to play every time there was a teacher’s strike (which happened quite often).
- The “Misa Criolla” (“Creole Mass”) by Ariel Ramírez interpreted by Mercedes Sosa during the scene in the church (the shivers!)
- The song “Jugo de Tomate Frio” (“Cold Tomato Juice”) which is a classic Argentine rock song from 1970, by the first hard rock group in the country called Manal; as the lyrics say:
Si querés ser un tipo importante,
que se hable todo el día de vos,
o querés inmortalizarte como héroe,
asesino y semi-dios.
Deberás tener: jugo de tomate frío,
jugo de tomate frío
en las venas,
en las venas deberás tener.
If you want to be an important person,
talked about all day long,
or immortalized as a hero,
assassin, and demigod,
you must have: cold tomato juice
cold tomato juice
in your veins,
in your veins, you will have to have.
Ah, the music. Somebody even created a Spotify playlist with all the songs you hear in the background. Damn. Instaplay.
I guess this is what people in NYC feel when they watch a Spider-Man or Superman movie. “Oh look that’s my office building” and such.
Can you tell I can’t wait for season 2 to be released? I feel like a kid.