Ana Rujas and Claudia Costafreda They formed the most effective tandem. ‘Thistle’, where they work not only as creators and screenwriters, but also as a protagonist (first) and director (second). The series won an Ondas, two Feroz awards and was named the third best international fiction of 2021 by the American magazine ‘Variety’. 12 February This Sunday Atresplayer Premium Season two premieres where they will definitively close the story of María, the woman in her thirties we followed in her descent into Hell. If in the first installment he is addicted to a life of excesses (drugs, sex) and an unfortunate accident drags him further into the well, then in this second installment he spends all his effort in achieving liberation and reintegrating into society after his release from prison. . He will cling to his faith and teachings. Saint Teresa of Jesus like a burning nail.
There was already a lot of religious symbology in the first season of ‘Cardo’ and in this second season, the ‘final motivation’ of the protagonist María is Teresa de Jesús. Even the scripture’s sentences open each of the six new chapters. How did you use this reference?
Claudia Costafreda: Saint Teresa was a figure who came to the project in this second season through another screenwriter, Lluís Sellarès, and helped us to give this new María something to hold on to, who has to cling to what’s good. . It’s not that deep of a commitment in itself, not that I’m an expert on Santa Teresa, but it’s a way of seeking salvation. It is also a bonding point with the prison partner. In addition, it allows us to continue pulling the strings of this religious symbology universe that we have already picked up from the first season, and to identify something a little different, namely the Saint, not the mockery and the Virgin. Teresa.
In the new episodes, we see some of María’s occasional ‘flashbacks’ in prison, but the second season takes place just as she gets out of jail. Why exactly did you decide to focus on that moment and not investigate his imprisonment?
Ana Rujas: We wanted to talk about what it was like to leave stigmatized, rather than the experiences in prison or how you could be inside.
María was so lost in the first season, but now she has a goal: to help her friend out of prison reunite with her daughter.
Claudia Costafreda: We needed an engine for this season and that goal has been good for us. The engine was an accident in the plot last season, but it didn’t require a clear goal on the hero, but it helps us guide through all the episodes this season.
María spends the first few episodes of the second season repeating “I’m great.” And the more he says it, the more you realize it’s not true.
Ana Rujas: You say you are great when you are not great, as in life. The difference from the previous season is that this season Maria has to put all her will to be really good and repeat that sentence to do it, well she will repeat it until she gets better, even if it’s not really good.
Claudia Costafreda: María has that stain, but she wants to show the world that she can adapt and reintegrate. This constant intent is constant to him: I’m fine, don’t look at me that way, don’t judge me with a sad face.
Why do they say this season is wilder? The first was already very obvious with the sex and drug scenes.
Ana Rujas: I think it’s going to get wilder because María is so out of touch with reality now. This looked different to us than the first season.
Despite all his efforts to relocate himself, do you think society judges him as a former convict?
Ana Rujas: He is the first to be judged.
Claudia Costafreda: The show doesn’t judge her, but she looks at it differently.
Ana Rujas: Tenderly.
Claudia Costafreda: You can see this in the different characters that appear in the first episodes, like friends who pity her but aren’t fully integrated with her. People who do not know that he is in prison have a different attitude towards him. On the other hand, characters who are aware of this situation approach them with contempt, patriarchy, but with a certain distance. This is rare. And that also makes it conceptually crazier, because last year María had become more integrated with her surroundings, even though she was hiding something very powerful before she developed further.
“We believe the story ends here”
In the first season, Maria was addicted to drugs like cocaine. She has now quit but became addicted to the pills she was prescribed in prison, ‘legal drugs’ in her own words. Why did you want to give this spin?
Claudia Costafreda: We found it interesting to picture this kind of consumption. Last season was more about the night, about being young and living your life, and this season we thought it was interesting to question how that could be a drug.
Ana Rujas: We wanted to depict another type of consumption that exists with such items as the order of the day to handle certain situations. Actually to be good.
The third episode of this second season is very different from the others. It even starts out in black and white. What prompted you to bet on this image?
Claudia Costafreda: When planning the entire trip that María was going to do, we thought that she would try to do things well and be in heaven first, which was black and white in our minds, and then she would go. hell. To make most of that difference, we’ve come to suggest that the first part of the series be black and white and the second part in color. But maybe it was a very risky bet and it stuck like a pill in this episode. It was also interesting to bet on something else in the middle of the series. Then it became a bit like the movie in María’s head, and we brought it officially to classical cinema through music.
Does Maria’s story end for sure in this second season? If they shelve ‘Cardo’, will they continue to work together?
Ana Rujas: We believe this place will remain closed and now each will discover something different.