This isn’t your average review. Personally it was like none that I’ve ever written. Why? Because everything that I had to say about Amazon Prime’s Undone was positive. Seriously. Every single thing that happened on this show blew my mind away, left me wondering how I could live a life without such good TV, and like I need season 2 RIGHT. NOW. PLEASE. So if you’re looking to cry over Alma’s story, the mesmerizing music on Undone, then you’re in the right spot!
The Good – Alma’s Everything
I adore Alma. Let’s make that abundantly clear in case anyone doubts or doesn’t understand my love for this character. I adore every broken, fractured, jaded, complicated, fucked up bit of her. And I love her even more for the fact that she’s a time traveling Latina (like me; the Latina part) who made me tear up as soon as I realized the representation that would be alive and well in Undone when I got my hands on it.
Even thinking about her now, after finishing the first season and contemplating hitting play all over again, I get chills down my spine at what Alma represents. She’s the broken mind and broken heart that believes herself to be too much, all the time, and twice on Sundays. Alma is hope and pain tied in a fucked up little knot that is more than ok because who isn’t a bit hopeful and yet filled with pain at the same time.
And ultimately, Alma feels like taking a mirror up and looking into the pieces of me that are on fire, flying, and fighting to survive one more day in a brain that doesn’t quite work like everyone else’s. And even after banging out this piece, I still have trouble explaining the amazing work that Rosa Salazar and everyone behind the scenes has done with Alma and how much I will treasure her fight to understand her fractured mind. She is what complicated and unforgettable characters are made of and I desperately need more of her!
The Amazing – The Stories of Those Around Alma
With such a strong presence in the form of Alma, I thought that those around Alma would suffer. Let me clarify. I thought that they would be put on the backburner, only coming into play when they were needed to advance Alma’s story. Oh, how wrong I was. Everyone surrounding Alma is just as complicated and real as Alma. And that is why this is under that amazing section.
Alma’s mother Camila suffers through the pain that her daughter is going through something similiar to that of her late husbands and of his mother. She wants to fix Alma and make her take her medicine as a way of avoiding something that Camila couldn’t fix the first time around. This makes her real, interesting, and like her journey in itself is worthwhile.
Becca, Alma’s sister, is just as broken and jaded as the rest of them. The difference is that she can hide it better. Or at least she tries to handle it better. She hides what she’s really feeling and the disgust she feels inside for her betrothed by plastering on big and happy smiles that food everyone besides those who really know her. All of this makes Becca an important part of the tapestry that is Undone.
Even Sam and Jacob have a wealth of character development and life that was breathed into them by the talented Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creators of Undone. They understand that we want complex, we want more, we want dynamic. And that’s what they gave us with every single person on Undone.
The Mesmerizing – The Music
I’m not going to lie, what sold me on Undone (when I just watched the trailer) was the music and the way it came together with what our protagonist was going through. The music took every moment of pain, confusion, and uncertainty and turned it into a beautiful character profile that made you love Alma even more. You felt her desperation, her need for answers, and her anger at having to deal with all of this alone through the music.
The music by Amie Doherty acts as the perfect companion as we travel through Alma’s unwinding of self and of those around her. And what the music does is turn our lead protagonist into the hero of her own story. Sure there are moments of pain that make it so Alma can’t see what’s right in front of her and which is accompanied with beautiful music to complement her pain. But she still remains the hero of her own story. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
Amie Doherty breathes life into the story of Alma. She takes the monotony of this young woman’s life and takes us on a journey full of loops, twists, and turns that make no sense but somehow still do in the grand scheme of things. And without this music, I don’t know if we (aka me) would’ve felt and connected with this story as much as I did. Because at the end of the day, Alma just isn’t the protagonist or hero of her story.
She’s experience.
She’s life.
She’s all your mistakes.
She’s all your achievements.
She is you. She is me. And that could be felt in the music; every second of it.
Undone is available to stream now on Amazon Prime.