Vida Season 2 Review: Building a Sanctuary for Us All, Bird by Bird

Vida Season 2 is an exquisite and flawless season of television. 

All of the elements, the writing, the cinematography, the music, and the acting, oh the acting, work together to stun us viewers with a rich mix of pleasure and sorrow.

But the impact of Vida Season 2 isn’t as pithy or simple as the combined classic elements of good storytelling. The show provides for viewers what the bar Vida gives to the characters: a sanctuary. 

Vida doesn’t just represent, it invites; it includes. 

Watching the episodes, I feel like I’m part of the conversation even though I’m the type of person who is excluded from all of it. 

I’m Chicanx but feel uncomfortable even claiming that reality because I am mixed and was raised within a dominant white culture. I’m queer, but I pass as straight. I am many things, but like all of the characters on Vida, I get labeled and shoved to the margins of these groups, never really enough. 

Representation usually looks like the norm or the most identifiable version of the group, whether it be Latinx or queer. And, I get that and that is very, deeply, necessary. 

Vida just blows past that level of representation and as a result, it includes me too. 

I feel that I belong with this show, even if I can’t fluently speak Spanish, even if I don’t like tacos (tamales are another story), even if I’m as rigid and guarded as Emma. 

EMMA: All my life I’ve been policied to be the thing I already am. 

With its sophomore season, Vida creates a sanctuary for us viewers.

We can be who we are here, we can see who we are here, we can roll our eyes, bite our lips, and sing along because here, we belong. 

Family

On Season 1 of Vida, Emma and Lyn are brought back together and in the end they decide to stay.

Season 2 is the result of that decision and, importantly, it provides the space for Lyn to step into her strength and for Emma to recognize and accept Lyn. 

There are a great many love stories on the season, but that between Emma and Lyn is the most essential and beautiful. We get the message early that even though the two are very different in how they run their lives and express themselves, there is a core similarity that bonds them. 

The “would you kill me if I became a zombie?” question is a fresh, interesting, and strangely poignant way of showing how neither sister is alone. They will always have each other. 

LYN: I’d kill you of course. It’d be so cruel not to.

Lyn confesses to Johnny that she doesn’t think anyone realizes that she is smart. That’s a heartbreaking admission, but also inspiring in that Lyn realizes this about herself and isn’t saying that Johnny is the only one. 

I think Lyn’s wrong though. Emma knows how smart she is. What Emma thinks is so much worse, she thinks Lyn is useless. 

When Emma discovers Lyn’s charges, she doesn’t for a second trust that Lyn is capable of taking care of the debt herself. 

But, that’s her mistake. 

Season 2 shows us that Lyn is strong.

Throughout Vida we see Lyn exercise. But we don’t see her considering her weight or her appearance. In fact, the extent of her vanity seems to be when Johnny comments on her fake breasts. 

The exercise isn’t about Lyn fitting into white culture.

No, it is more about how Lyn builds her strength. Her strengths are enmeshed with her physicality.

Yes, part of that is her beauty and persuasion, but it is also her discipline. It is about being in tune with what her body wants, including in the realms of music and sex. It is about being able to take care of herself, whether that’s water pressuring a graffiti wall or swinging her purse at some bros. 

She does not need a Captain SaveAHo. She can rely on herself. 

On Vida Season 2 Episode 5, Lyn celebrates her sister’s birthday with a beanie baby, a shot, and a gorgeous rendition of A Dios Le Pido. 

It’s here, in this camaraderie and joy, that Emma gets the first inkling that she can rely on Lyn. 

That ember of trust is nearly put out when Emma discovers Lyn’s secret debt. 

But then, Lyn trusts herself. She decides that she doesn’t need to wait for her sister to recognize her strength before she flexes. 

And her flex pays off for Vida, as the bar takes off due to her management of the musical act. 

Importantly, Johnny isn’t at the concert. Importantly, Emma has nothing to do with the evening’s success. 

Lyn did it on her own. 

Then, Emma turns to Lyn and tells her that she’s gone a good job. That’s all it takes for Lyn to break down in sobs, and it is one of those subtle, epic, unforgettable moments of television. 

It’s the final shot of the principal characters. The two sisters, standing side by side, in the bar that their dead mother left them, in the middle of complicated and untethered romances, unsure of what will happen next, but blissfully sure that they are loved by each other, forever. 

Nico

I could gush about Nico and Emma until Season 3 starts (seriously Starz, you need to give us another season, no question). I love everything about them. 

I love how Emma is so thirsty for Nico, in her own very Emma way. I love how they take the time to actually get to know each other, to build a relationship, not just act quickly on their attraction. 

Roberta Colindrez as Nico is a revelation. I may never recover.

The blueberry pancake making scene is so flirty and adorable I melt right into syrup. 

Oh, also, it’s two Latinx women with very different gender expressions who sometimes talk about their sexuality and ethnicity, but also talk frequently about things that have nothing to do with their “isms.”

Their identities are always relevant, but the show never assumes that their sexuality or Latinidad is the most dominant part of their identities. 

The relationship is so darn sexy, I can’t really handle it. So let me just go ahead and watch their scenes over and over and over and over to see if I can get a grip. 

Nico and Emma are important because of the reasons why ships are important in general, love is an important feature of the human experience. Nico and Emma are also important because of how Emma is able to find her sanctuary with Nico. 

At the beginning of the season, Emma is going out of her mind with anxiety and stress. She needs her own space. She literally screams this at some point. 

But then, she meets Nico. 

That relationship provides her access to equality. From the very first conversation where Nico defends Emma against the queer policing she experiences, it is clear that there is much respect between the two. 

Nico likes Emma and even when she calls her out for her bullshit, she isn’t trying to change Emma. 

NICO: When you meet the right person you realize you don’t have to change who you are, no. Because they inspire you to be a better version of yourself.

Emma doesn’t really change, but she does grow. Baco helps her to recognize why it matters how she treats people. She wouldn’t have been able to be in a place where she was open to learning from Baco if it weren’t for Nico. 

On the final episode of the season, Nico names their feelings and insists on their importance. Then, they find the graffiti-ridden bathroom in Vida and have sex. 

Perfection. 

That bathroom is not just a bathroom (that is suspiciously vacant all the time, despite a full bar). 

As Nico explains early in the season, public bathrooms are reclaimed sanctuaries. That bathroom has a history of being a haven for girls like them. It is a key part of Vidalia’s legacy. 

The fact that Emma is able to take her time and really lean into having sex with Nico in that bathroom is a testament to the fact that she has finally, at long last, been accepted into the world she was born into. 

 

It is a celebration too. It is an erotic exclamation point for lesbian sex, that is authentic, sensual, and realistic. 

I will never get over how much joy I feel when Nico remembers to wash her hands because, even though it was recycling, she was still just handling garbage. 

It is the perfect climax for the relationship on Season 2.

Emma may continue to freak out, but even as she does, we all recognize that this is different. 

Emma isn’t in total control here, but she is comfortable with her vulnerability. That’s some very real character growth, shown through a very steamy session, and I just have to say, Vida, thank you. 

Intimacy

Another thing that Vida Season 2 gets perfectly right is its persistent contemplation of intimacy. 

The way that the show talks about colorism, queer policing, gente-fication and others shows us that the Vida writers room has an intimacy with these topics. 

That matters big time. The inclusion I spoke of earlier is delivered by virtue of this intimacy with intersectionality and infighting. This closeness with the identities portrayed on the show is woven throughout the season, mostly coming up in dialogue. 

As the characters discuss tamale versus tamal, the problematic nature of calling people tourists to queerdom, and similar topics, viewers become comfortable with the natural tension that exists in these communities. 

It’s glorious. 

When Yoli soaps Lyn in the final moments of the season, they’re both right and wrong. The show doesn’t champion one person as being fully correct or not. Instead, it takes on the very intimate task of simply knowing these people. 

The sex scenes on the show, of which there are many, all relate back to a quest for intimacy. 

Lyn cries when she reunites with Johnny. It is not because the sex is so wonderful, or because she’s high on Molly. It is because she recognizes how Johnny is her person. He knows her. She knows him. They are connected. 

Her sexual experiences with other people are entirely disconnected. Even if pleasurable or interesting, they lack real significance for Lyn’s body.

I love that the show portrays sex as a complex and important thing, for pleasure and release, but more primarily as a way to get to intimacy with the people in our lives.

 

Even in Season 1, Cruz and Emma lacked intimacy in their sexual relationship. It was hot, but it was still more about control and dominance than connection. 

So, on Season 2 when Cruz goes overboard with her controlling and insensitive behavior, it feels somewhat natural to me.  

The differences between the sexual encounters we see with Emma, namely the eye contact and roughness, tell us about what the person means to Emma. 

Part of what makes Emma and Nico’s sex scene so effective is that it is slower and softer than any of the other scenes. Emma also faces Nico the entire time, including as she orgasms. 

This juxtaposition tells us that Emma has intimacy with Nico where she didn’t with men or even with Cruz.  

The last portrayal of intimacy I want to discuss is Eddy’s attachment to Vidalia’s shirt. 

Eddy is in the throes of grief throughout the season, which I love because so many other shows make grief move so quickly. 

Eddy is pretty much stuck. SHe doesn’t grow much over the season and that matches the experience of being frozen by the loss of the love of your life. It’s heartbreaking to watch, but also so beautifully tender as Mari mistakenly washes the smell away from Eddy’s connection to her wife. 

I would like to learn more back story and have more development of the wifa on Season 3 of Vida.

But, Eddy plays an essential part on Season 2, forcing us to reckon with the different paces in which people move forward after devastating loss.

Grief is an oddly intimate experience. It is so raw and overwhelming.

Like her rehabilitation from the assault, Eddy can’t control the pace of her recovery or sometimes even how she explodes on others, whether that be with pee or diatribes. 

Mari is on a quest for intimacy in her life even as she doesn’t quite know it. I love her on the season and I can’t wait to see how she unlocks her power and unleashed her chingona magic on the world. 

Vida is a five star, life-changing, funny and satisfying show. If you haven’t watched it yet, you are missing out on a slice of perfection and should remedy that mistake immediately. 

 

What did you think of Vida Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Vida Season 2 is streaming now on Starz.

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