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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Apple TV+
We get it: There’s an overwhelming number of television shows right now. The streaming landscape is an impractical maze, and the good stuff easily gets lost in the shuffle. But most of us can still find one show that cuts through the noise. We call this “appointment viewing” — or the time you carve out in your busy schedule to watch the show you’ll want to unpack the next day with your friends while it’s still on your mind. Tune in here each month to read what writer Michel Ghanem, a.k.a. @tvscholar, deems worthy of a group-chat deep dive.
So far this year, we’ve had a cross-continental experience through television: We’ve traveled to Japan for Shōgun, frozen in the Alaskan tundra for True Detective, bused around the United States with The Girls on the Bus, spent some time in London for Big Mood, and had an Interview With the Vampire in postwar Paris. This month, we kick off our summer by flying out to Spain for Land of Women, a feel-good bilingual dramedy following a family on the run in Spain, starring Eva Longoria.
What’s this bilingual dramedy I’ve been hearing about?
Welcome back to television, Eva Longoria! In Land of Women, the Desperate Housewives icon stars as Gala, a wealthy New Yorker whose life is upended when she finds out her husband has made some shady business deals behind her back. In debt and on the run from whomever is trying to collect on millions from her (conveniently disappeared) husband, Gala grabs her daughter Kate (Victoria Bazua) from boarding school and her mother Julia (César-winning Spanish actress Carmen Maura) from her assisted-living facility and escapes to the only place she can think of: La Muga, a fictional rural town in Catalonia, Spain, where Julia grew up.
The pilot episode involves a manic escape from New York, like something out of The Flight Attendant. Once in rural Spain, Gala is a fish out of water amid Catalan-speaking residents who aren’t a fan of American outsiders. But eventually, the show settles into a rhythm, with Gala warming up to the town’s handsome but brooding eligible bachelor (Santiago Cabrera as Amat) and getting involved in the local women-run vineyard co-op. Meanwhile, her mother Julia revisits her adolescent hometown roots at a time while dementia eats away at her memories, bringing family secrets to light.
How can I watch it?
The first two episodes of Land of Women premiere on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, June 26, with single episodes airing weekly until July 24. The show is created by Ramón Campos and inspired by Sandra Barneda’s 2014 novel La Tierra de las Mujeres, and it’s a quick watch at six episodes that each clock in at around an ideal 42 minutes. The show is fast on its feet and doesn’t overstay its welcome. You could easily let episodes build up for a binge if that’s your preferred watching style, but it feels like a delicious light snack to have on a weekly basis.
Apple TV+ has vastly expanded its television catalogue since we wrote about Platonic last year to mixed results. Its star-studded hour-long dramas don’t always hit, but Land of Women feels like a breath of fresh air in a still overcrowded television landscape. It joins Acapulco as a Spanish-English comedy that balances both languages and Drops of God as another wine-related show on the platform. It mostly reminds me of Schitt’s Creek’s riches-to-rags comedy, mixed with the sincerity of Netflix’s From Scratch.
So, will I get Desperate Housewives vibes?
Desperate Housewives was a fun, wild romp — but it had a habit of biting off more than it could chew with its ensemble cast and wild twists. With a smaller cast and a more specific story, Land of Women stays focused. But I still couldn’t help but think of some iconic Desperate Housewives scenes while watching an effortlessly comedic Longoria stomp around grassy fields in stilettos and an all-white outfit, the too-glam wardrobe she chooses to pack while running away from her expensive-looking New York apartment and the wine store she ran in the city. There is something very Gabrielle Solis–coded about Gala, and the show mines a lot of comedy out of her struggle to adapt to a town that’s more Spanish Schitt’s Creek than it is Soho. Her fancy-wine expertise ends up being useful in the show’s plot, though, when she lends a hand to a struggling wine co-op, inspiring them to improve on a lackluster dry-red pour.
The show’s tone remains feel-good throughout, but an episode can pivot easily to more emotional depth. The show explores Kate’s barriers to procuring hormone medication in a small town as a trans teen, and Julia reconnects with her estranged sister. Maura, who effortlessly infuses Julia with an easily relatable yearning to rectify her past mistakes and a general horniness (go, Julia!), is a standout. Land of Women is a show light on trauma, but it has high enough stakes for forward momentum, like an aperitif before those heavy summer shows like House of the Dragon or the forthcoming third season of Industry. If you can’t travel to Spain like everyone on Instagram seems to be this summer, you might want to try escaping to the Land of Women instead.
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Michel Ghanem , 2024-06-24 15:00:44
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