What exactly was Jenna up to during her time at The Coterie?
The mystery surrounding Joaquin’s sister intensified on Good Trouble Season 4 Episode 4, and his connection with Mariana feels different from a run-of-the-mill sexual attraction or flirtation.
Interestingly, Joaquin seems to be the only other person attuned to how upset and lonely Mariana is these days post-Callie.
Do you know who remains one of the most exhausting characters? Yuri.
He has this quality to him where he’s positively loathsome, but he also has such endearing glimmers of decency and humanity that you can never write him off altogether.
At his core, he’s a sorrowful, lonely father who misses his daughter, and everything he does in his life is dictated and driven by that.
It puts him in an incredible position to advise Gael, give his input, and do things like loan Gael thousands of dollars if only so Gael won’t endure the same heartache as a father that Yuri has.
But Yuri also upholds this stifling and problematic system on so many levels it would take ages to unpack them all. Gael has been the only thing keeping Yuri afloat as an artist, and at some level, even Yuri must realize that.
At least he had a brief moment of hesitation and awareness of how demoralizing Gael’s position is when Yuri paused for a moment before signing his name to more work he did not complete himself.
It’s a tale as old as time in more than just creative endeavors when someone like Gael is behind all this brilliant art. He’s in the shadows while Yuri gets to shine.
At best, all Gael is getting from this is a cut of the sales, yet they keep selling this as if it’s the best deal in an industry that is far worse and more exploitative.
It’s disheartening to see this because when Gael quit his well-paying tech job to pursue his passion and calling, this is not what he had in mind. But it speaks to a thought process where the scenario he’s in will be celebrated as a time where Gael has to “pay his dues.”
It hurts most when we know that Gael had to put up with all of Yuri’s antics again to pay off his debt, and it kept him from doing the things he wanted to do with Isabella.
Isabella: Ever since that scare, I’m so scared the doctor’s going to give me horrible news or something.
Dennis: Why don’t I take you?
And Isabella resented him for it. Gael is doing the best he can, and he’s a good enough guy that he doesn’t admit that he’s literally missing all of these moments he desires for her.
Gael iss doing everything in his power to keep her there so he can be part of his child’s life, and in the interim, he’s catching hell from Isabella for not doing enough because she’s unaware that he’s paying rent for both of their places.
And you could tell how much Yuri’s warnings about Dennis sank in, especially when Gael learned that Dennis accompanied Isabella to her appointment and was by her side. Gael enlisted Dennis’ help with Isabella, but he also hates that his friend is getting closer to her and feels displaced.
And Gael is doing all of this while Isabella is still talking about relocating to Santa Barbara anyway since the food truck isn’t making enough money yet.
It was odd that they would’ve expected instant profits for a small business that had literally just started. The Toast truck was never going to provide a steady income for any of them in its first year.
But it’s also unfair that Isabella can keep holding her ability to pack up and move over Gael whenever she gets in her feelings. It feels manipulative and gross.
And why is she acting as if Santa Barbara is the only place where she can find a decent job? Is there nothing else worthwhile for her to do in LA?
She has a good head on her shoulders, too. We see as much with how she’s pretty much the singular brain cell at the food truck. She can figure out menus, how to cut costs, and she knows the importance of social media and marketing.
Dennis would be lost without Isabella, so they make a great team. Her annoyance with all the stipulations for a food truck was amusing, and the two of them teaming up to vandalize an opponent’s food truck was a choice.
Dennis and Isabella have developed quite a bond. She shows him some tough love, as we saw when she called him out for caring too much about how he looks to people he hasn’t even seen in ages.
And he provides her with some nurturing and support that we know she always feels like she lacked. They seem to imply that it could be something that takes a romantic turn or at least get messy, and that’ll be a hard one to swallow.
Good Trouble adores a love triangle or something akin to it, but who had Dennis/Isabella/Gael on their 2022 Bingo Card? Not me!
Of course, I also didn’t anticipate Kelly throwing herself at Joaquin in ways that gave me secondhand embarrassment and required me to walk away for moments to gather my bearings.
Kelly is an acquired taste type of character, and you can always count on her for some entertainment and levity.
But that toothbrushing scene had me itching to yeet myself into the sun. Her thirst level for Joaquin and his lack of interest in anything other than the interrogation about Diana Graham made it all the more awkward.
Joaquin’s ability to pivot to what he’s interested in is admirable, but his approach to questioning people needs some work.
Kelly: So what’s your preference? Waxed or unwaxed?
Joaquin: Um…
Kelly: Your floss?
Joaquin: Waxed.
Kelly: OK, I’ll have to make an appointment, but that can be arranged.
He came across as a stalker ripped from one of those Lifetime movies when he called to find out when Diana’s final massage appointment was and showed up outside of her office like some creepster asking about the last place she lived and pretending as he knew her when he didn’t.
Who would have responded to Joaquin in another way than wanting to call security? How was his approach practical?
Diana Graham seemed shaken, but given Joaquin’s approach, it was understandable. It’s still possible that she knows more about something, assuming Jenna didn’t steal this woman’s identity without her knowledge.
It was shocking that Jenna and the Coterie’s Diana Graham were the same. Joaquin has some work to do if he wants to resolve this mystery.
It still begs to wonder why he won’t take a more forthcoming approach to ask people about it. Does he think someone there killed his sister or something? What gives?
But this supports why he allows himself to get drawn closer to Mariana since he knows she wasn’t there at the time of Jenna’s duration at the Coterie.
It was amusing to see him get squirmy when she talked about going undercover and so forth, and he feared she spoke about him when she was referring to herself.
Joaquin and Mariana have an intriguing connection because, frankly, Marina feels so isolated since Callie left, and it’s like Joaquin is the only one who sees how sad she is.
He regrets not being closer to his sister, so his advice to Mariana about not pulling away from Callie comes from experience.
And while there was some sexual tension during that pool scene, Joaquin seemed genuinely concerned about a sad, buzzed Mariana going to swim by herself. The quiet tenderness he showed there was lovely, so what they have feels distinctly different from the usual flirty, sexy stuff.
It hurts to see Mariana withdrawing this much when he’s notoriously a social creature, but Ramirez does well capturing this more subdued Mariana.
No, we don’t have much to go on outside her ignoring Callie’s calls or things of that nature, but through Mariana, you still feel Callie’s absence because of Mariana trying to avoid facing her sadness much.
So she’s throwing herself deeper into this thing with Revitalize and Bulk Beauty. And she’s not the best double agent. It didn’t make sense that she’d give FCG all of Revitalize’s leads like that and not think about how suspicious it looked.
It’s no wonder she was on Liza’s radar instantly. The problem with this whole thing is that Mariana is immediately suspicious of everyone because of where she came from and her association with Bulk Beauty.
She keeps doing suspicious things, and if this whole thing wasn’t already irritating enough with her friends, they don’t consider the risk to her and barely want her to pull back because she’s been successful.
And now Mariana is doing all of this risky work for the FCG to benefit, and she can’t even partake in the celebration. All of this comes at a high cost to Mariana, and it’s disturbing that she has to become this martyr for her friends, who aren’t the best of friends in the first place.
Mariana: Have you ever had to go undercover for a story?
Joaquin: Uh, what do you mean?
Mariana: I don’t know. Like maybe taking a job somewhere or joining a group to expose wrongdoing.
Joquin: I’m a reporter, not a spy.
But they added an extra layer to how complicated this is when Mariana finally gave the impossibly incompetent Revitalize women a win by helping them land a big account.
Mariana is focused on how she and the FCG were screwed over, but she didn’t consider that the Revitalize team, with their all-female team in the same industry, faced the same battles that she and the FCG did.
After some drinks with them, Mariana realizes that they aren’t the enemy in all of this, and they face the same burdens and uphill battle as an all-female team who has to work twice as hard at every turn.
They needed a win, and they were none the wiser about where Jackie got the code. They pitched sustainable houseware, and it was a conniving Jackie who made them refocus on beauty products and gave them Bulk Beauty’s code.
It’s now a more complicated thing where Mariana doesn’t want to burn these women either because it would be foolish to assume they wouldn’t face ruin if the truth got out even though they did nothing wrong.
Jackie is diabolical, though. She has it in for Mariana. Now that Liza seems to have confidence in Mariana and sings her praises, she tossed Evan into the mix as the new creator in the group.
You can tell she wants Evan to stir up trouble and keep tabs on Mariana, and one can only assume that, consciously or not, that’s what he was doing. He probably told Jackie that Mariana seemed upset when they had their elevator moment.
And again, Evan’s lack of morals by now is offputting. Even if Mariana worked with Revitalize without another agenda, it would be vastly different from Evan. She doesn’t have the options, opportunities, access, or power that he does.
Mariana: So, you don’t mind doing business with a company that steals other people’s ideas?
Evan: You don’t mind either, I guess.
Isn’t that what he should’ve learned from the entire discrimination blowup at Speckulate?
Now, Mariana has to continue this double spy shtick with the extra pressure of Evan in her face all of the time because apparently, he has nothing else to do anymore and likely wants to be around Mariana more. Jackie will exploit that for all that it’s worth.
Ugh, poor Mariana.
Over to you, Good Trouble Fanatics.
Are you invested in this storyline with Joaquin and his sister? Do you think they’re headed in a love triangle direction with Gael, Isabella, and Dennis? Sound off below!
You can watch Good Trouble online here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
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