Public Virtues
Episode 8 of Gloria Season 1 begins with firefighters putting out the fire. Sofia is fine, taken to the hospital on a stretcher, while Joao is also unscathed. At the hospital, Joao is examined and questioned over the gunshot wound on his arm. He pleads with the doctor not to include this in the report, doing his best to cover up that he was the one in the courtyard that night. Anne is suspicious of Joao’s motives though, especially as he went inside the house to get changed before running back out again. When the doctor appears in the hallway, he tells Anne that Joao has superficial burns and an old wound from a mortar blast. Tellingly, he doesn’t mention the gunshot wound. The other casualty, Sofia, is visited by Ramiro. She questions why it wasn’t him who saved her but it’s quite clear why. There’s nothing between them; no love or emotion left. Then again, being beaten and locked in a closet will do that for you. If it wasn’t for her being pregnant they probably wouldn’t even be together. Discharged from hospital, Joao and Alexandre get back to work, and specifically kidnapping Miguel to find out what he really knows. Miguel reiterates that Wilson is the one responsible for all this, along with the crucial bit of information that he recommended a psychiatrist for Mia. That guy works at Santarem Hospital, under the name of Doctor Carlos Silveira. RARET’s dismissal is brought up next, where he mentions the photos of women in underwear. As he sobs, Alexandre looks set to pull the trigger and kill the guy… until Joao saves his life. “He doesn’t seem trained to lie,” He shrugs. Either way though, the KGB can’t take that risk and choke him out after extracting everything they can. The Dr Silveira tip is enough for Joao to go up and chase this lead. He questions the doctor about Mia but he claims not to know who she is. He’s very clearly lying so Joao turns to the next best thing, sleeping with the receptionist. While she’s asleep, Joao steals keys from her bag and makes his way back to the doctor’s office. There, he finds a tape but for Sofia rather than Mia. With numerous other tapes there too, he feeds this back to Alexandre. In exchange, Joao finds out that his father has been lying all this time. He’s got a secret lover and family, including a daughter called Clara. Anne has been a constant wildcard through this season and here we see her getting close to the truth. She visits the American ambassador, Parker, and tells him what she’s suspecting. She believes Joao is working with the KGB, which of course is exactly what he’s doing. While all this is going on, Carolina and her family prepare for Fernando returning to the mainland. There’s a lot of buzz being generated around this but there’s a problem. Fernando is not in the right headspace and in fact, as the episode closes out, he sits alone with his gun. As the camera cuts to his squadron outside, a gunshot sounds. Has he killed himself?
The Episode Review
The latest episode of Gloria continues to blend the soapy melodrama with espionage action, and the balance here is a little better. Joao walking away from the fire absolutely fine is pretty farfetched, as is the idea that Sofia too walks away without a scratch. It’s more a shame because the first half of this show has not been shy about killing key people off, like Ursula and Irina. Despite Miguel meeting an untimely demise, he’s only a two-bit player. Either way, Gloria delivers another good episode, although the Fernando/Carolina subplot feels a bit misplaced; I’m not quite sure what this brings to the story beyond adding the obligatory love triangle.
