Episode Guide
Fog Secrets Searching Shadows Lara Revelations Thresholds Deva Return Supernatural suspense series Alma, also known as The Girl in the Mirror, mainly focuses on the life of Alma, a young woman who manages to survive a fatal accident. The storyline opens with a tragic bus crash in Asturias, which results in several deaths and only a few survivors. Following this tragic incident, Alma tries to make sense of what happened that day and discover who she is. Alma experiences severe amnesia after the tragic accident, having completely forgotten her entire life, including her name. Alma begins to worry that there is a serious problem as she returns to her house and enters the familiar surroundings that she should be accustomed to. Trapped around strange people, Alma is forced to use every resource at her disposal to uncover the truth about the accident before it’s too late. The show will likely keep you glued to your screen, thanks to its disturbing and fascinating elements. Adding to this is the idyllic setting of a small town, which adds mystery and mythology to enhance its suspense. Situations aren’t always as they appear here, and we are indeed dealing with a multi-layered narrative whose layers deepen as more of mysteries come to light. The Girl in the Mirror explores several significant themes here, including the transition from childhood to adulthood, the line between life and death, as well as the sentimental space where fiction and reality converge. While one of the show’s major themes seems to be horror, we can also see more personalized themes bubbling beneath the surface mirrored in the characters. Creator Sergio G. Sánchez has used his creative abilities to lend the lore and myths a solid foundation, while also borrowing heavily from some incredibly relevant topics, such as those related to despair, loss, and identity, which will likely resonate with audiences. The show has a compelling, dark, and extremely fascinating storyline at its core, but it is surrounded and detracted by a variety of competing story arcs which aren’t nearly as intriguing or satisfactory. The show’s great ambition also proves to be a big drawback. The plot focuses on everything in an effort to tell a more compelling tale which in turn makes it messy and confusing. The subplots in the series overlap with the main narrative in an unflattering way, which tends to make the storyline more disorganized and leaves the series’ central themes unaddressed. It’s a shame really as the opening of the show is outstanding and filled with suspense that later instigates a sense of intrigue and thrill. The following two to four episodes drag the show and push the plot along quite slowly. To provide us with more efficient pacing, this segment could have been trimmed. Even though it belongs to the supernatural genre, Spanish mythology-based real-world events serve as an inspiration for this series. The appearance of a supernatural being known as Therion poses the primary threat in this mystery-laced lore. The Beast, as depicted in the Book of Revelation, is the definition of the Greek word Therion. This antagonist is used by the writer-director to develop the mythology that forms the backbone of “The Girl in the Mirror”. Sánchez’s work in movies like “The Orphanage” and “Marrowbone” demonstrates his innate talent for telling such dark tales. It’s strange that while we’re given some introductions to the ideologies and the folklore of the storyline, they’re abandoned for several episodes, hardly even referenced or addressed in the process. When the show realizes that it was founded on some supernatural folklore in the second half of the series, it revisits that mythology and lets it drive the storyline. Another point of contention here comes from the show’s finale, which is left on an unsatisfying note. The final few episodes increase in tension and urgency as we near the conclusion and it even manages to regain its focus on the main lore, but just as we begin exploring the mythology, the show ends, leaving everything unresolved and unanswered. The fact that the season ends on such a huge cliffhanger doesn’t bode well for the town of Asturias -or us as viewers. The storyline develops in an extremely calculated way, puzzling the audience by complicating the past, present, and future. The show lingers in many places and has a tendency to become repetitive. This repetition does not make the storyline clearer; instead, it is made needlessly more complex. Character drama carries on in various ways all through the show with characters who encounter deceit, trickery, and occasionally even love. While the actors are able to pull this off eloquently, there is far too much happening in the storyline that any deviation just feels like an unwelcome distraction. The Girl in the Mirror seemed to have a great deal of potential to display a supernatural story with suspense, but those elements are downplayed by recurring story elements, neglected central plot lines, as well as an ending crafted to frustrate the audience. Take nothing away from the actors though, who are fantastic and do a great job in their respective roles. This is neither a quick binge nor a particularly easy one. The lore introduced by the show is undoubtedly intriguing, but the lack of unified storytelling makes it complicated and messy.
