The Mole
Episode 9 of Gloria Season 1 begins with Sofia returning to the burned house and picking up her silver locket from the bedroom. On her way out, Anne notices her and invites the woman over for dinner. Sofia kindly refuses and hurries back home. Joao, still listening to the tapes obtained from Silveira, realizes that Sofia holds a big secret. It turns out she’s in love with Mia and the pair were actually involved in an illicit relationship together. Back at RARET, the place is abuzz with frantic operators as Nixon’s speech is being blocked by the Russians. While they work to get this sorted, the Parker is invited over to Wilson and Anne’s place for dinner. This heavily religious republican certainly raises some eyebrows with Anne, and it doesn’t take long before he rubs Anne up the wrong way. In confidence, she tells Wilson she’s unsure whether they can actually trust him or not. Speaking of trust, Henrique rings Wilson and confirms that they’ve figured out an attack on RARET is due to take place imminently. It’s at this point we also find out Fernando is still alive too, having shot his foot rather than his head. While he contemplates what it means to have his foot amputated, Joao and Carolina continue to grow closer together. Joao admits he’s ready to risk everything to be with her. He tells Carolina that his incident with the receptionist is a one off, given she knows he’s been with her, and the pair wind up kissing. After a hard day at work, Goncalo and his operator buddies gossip while drinking. Within this chat, Goncalo learns that Joao was originally dating Ursula. So naturally, Goncalo chases this up and visits Cesar in prison. There, he admits that the person Ursula was dating works at the National Radio. This further corroborates the story that Joao is the mole. Meanwhile, Sofia is given a secret note to meet Joao: “I have Mia’s diary. I’ll wait for you tonight at the dam.” Sofia shows right on time, where she finds Joao there waiting. As they talk, Sofia admits that she found out several days prior to her death that Mia was working with the Russians. They both had fake passports and were intending to leave the country. Sofia is adamant that she’s not involved in the murder, but was a big part of Mia’s life. Joao seems to believe her too, and after handing over the diary, walks away. Only, her diary is completely empty and a dud; a play to make her talk and spill the truth. Goncalo books a meeting with Henrique and reveals the truth he’s been hiding all this time. Between sneaking into James Wilson’s office (which Goncalo has seen) and sleeping with Ursula, Goncalo is more convinced than ever that Joao is the Russian spy. As they sit and smoke together, we cut across to Sofia and Joao, as she prepares to leave town. With Ramiro late for his training in Berlin the day of the murder, Joao figures out that Ramiro is the one who murdered Mia. Just before Sofia leaves, Joao has her drugged and taken away.
The Episode Review
So secrets are unveiled and it turns out it was actually Ramiro who killed Mia. To be honest though, it was probably obvious that he was involved, given his shady behaviour over the season, but it’s a nice reveal nonetheless. A better twist however, is that Mia and Sofia were romantically involved. This is definitely unexpected and it’s a nice way to subvert expectations. Meanwhile, Joao’s chances of remaining undetected are in serious jeopardy, with Goncalo discovering the truth and ready tot pounce on him for it. There’s a good bit of investigative work conducted by him across this season, and bringing Ursula and Cesar back into the picture works well to round out this story in a compelling way. However, the show continues to adopt these soapy melodramatic plotlines, with the Carolina/Fernando/Joao angle not really working that effectively. Still, the ending hints that we’ve got lots more drama to come so we’ll have to wait and see what the finale has in store for us.
