Cheating
Episode 6 of Valeria sees Val continuing to write, deciding against meeting Victor and pushing on with completing her story. The words continue to flow and it’s enough for her to return to her publisher who gushes over the realism and characters she’s conjured up. It’s a good start and one that sees her guide Val over the best way to proceed with her story from here. With the novel due to be released in December, Val changes tactics slightly and decides the book is to be an erotic thriller. Tensions remain high in the group though as Lola and Nerea continue to be frosty toward one another. However, they remain supportive of Val’s book and relationship choice, as she decides not to break up with Adri for Victor. Later that day though, Lola lets slip to Adri that Victor was in Valencia. It’s an awkward conversation and one that sees Val talk to her privately where she admits that she and Victor actually hooked up beforehand, something that clearly hurts Val. Nerea replaces Olga as the top dog at her feminist group and conflicts between the two start to fester as Olga brings up how she ignored her that weekend. At the same time, Carmen runs into problems with Borja as they have an awkward bout of sex and clash over a work project they’re working on together. Back home, Val tries to connect with Adri surrounding her novel but he remains distant. Instead, he brings up Victor and Val admits that he hit on her at Lola’s party but nothing happened. She then deflects the situation by admitting that Victor and Lola hooked up. With Adri unwilling to listen to her novel, Val instead phones through to Victor and reads her story out to him. As she finishes, he mentions how the issues the characters in her story are facing mirror that which he and Val are facing too. That evening Carmen learns that Lola hooked up with Victor too and immediately leaves, believing it to be a betrayal of her friend. Instead, Carmen heads back to work where she and Borja both pitch their ideas to their eager work colleagues. Only, when Carmen’s slogan is chosen it causes issues with Borja. Desperate for a second opinion, Lola heads off to speak to Nerea about what happened between her and Victor, as we see the same incident repeated throughout the episode with different outcomes. She too isn’t best pleased with what she’s been up to. Adri confronts Victor about what’s happening between him and Val, demanding he leave her alone. It certainly ruffles his feathers and not long after, Val arrives and tells him she wants to sleep with him. Only, given what Adri said before he instead suggests they go out for a drink. Once there, Victor admits that Adri came to visit him and because of that, he’s sick of waiting; it’s time for her to make a choice. When she avoids the question again, Victor leaves the bar frustrated, prompting a drunk Val to instead hook up with a random guy at the bar. Although the previous episode did well to flesh out Val a little more and understand her inner conflict, given her choice to stick with Adri no matter what and then cheating on him at the bar – with a stranger no less – is yet another obstacle that makes it difficult to warm toward her. The rest of the cast slot into their roles well with the conflict between Carmen and Borja enough to give her something to do but the sub-plots feel like light busywork compared to the main love triangle angle. To be honest though, the biggest problem with Valeria is also one that a lot of other rom-coms have too – communication. If Adri and Val just sat down and talked through their problems they could break up and go their separate ways. Given Val has now slept with a stranger though, quite what the ramifications are of this going forward, especially with Victor and Adri, remains to be seen.
