While it seems that the five-year gap between the first and second seasons of Her Mother’s Killer seems excessive, the Colombian telenovela dropped a first season that was five-and-a-half times longer than an typical season for a Netflix show. For all we know, it took most of those five years for fans to watch the first season. Now, the show is back with an even longer second season, with as many twists as the first.
Opening Shot: After a much-appreciated recap of 2020’s first season, we see Analía Gurrero (Carolina Gómez) in the back seat of an SUV with Pablo de la Torre (George Slebi) and his daughter Helena (Julieta Villar).
The Gist: After Analía finally put her nemesis/biological father Guillermo León Mejía (Marlon Moreno) in prison for his misdeeds, she’s been helping her childhood love Pablo run for president. It’s election night, and if he gets over 50% of the vote, he wins; if not, there will be a runoff with the second-place finisher. He falls just short of 50%, with Jaime Rosales (Felipe Calero), the candidate from Guillermo’s party who thinks the former president was railroaded, coming in second.
Mariano (Gerardo Calero), the party leader, insists to Jaime that he forget about defending Guillermo, but Jaime insists that he stay the course. In the meantime, Guillermo is in prison having hallucinations. When he falls into a coma, he is sent to the hospital. Paulina Peña (Paola Turbay), who has come into Guillermo’s life since he was sent to prison, gets word about his illness, and puts her plan into action, posting as a prostitute in order to take Mariano out of the picture.
Before Analía hears about Guillermo’s coma, though, she delights in a potential fresh start when Pedro proposes to her. But her happiness doesn’t last long; she insists on going to the hospital to see Guillermo and is surprised when Paulina, whom she’s never met, intercepts her and tells her she’s not allowed to see him. We also find out that Paulina and Guillermo are romantically involved, and she’s been supplying him insulin; he’s been ODing on it in order to induce the coma and fake a psychiatric illness. His goal: To get out of prison for good, return to power, and get his revenge on Analía.
But Analía is on to him; she has Fabiola (Ana María Sánchez), her contact in the district attorney’s office, make her way to Guillermo’s prison cell to see what she can find, and Fabiola finds a hidden cell phone with pictures of herself, Analía, Pablo, Mariano and others on it. After Guillermo is transferred to a psychiatric hospital, she manages to get into his room, and the two of them have a confrontation.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Her Mother’s Killer (original title: La venganza de Analía) is a pretty classic telenovela with Netflix-funded production values, much like Pact Of Silence.
Our Take: Trying to summarize everything that happened in the 54-episode first season of Her Mother’s Killer would be impossible, but a quick refresher might help: When Analía was a child, back when she was Ana Lucia Junca, Guillermo killed her mother when he found out that he was Analía’s biological father, a result of his rape of Analía’s mother. She plotted her revenge ever since, and as a political strategist, she got her chance when she started running his campaign.
Given that it seemed like there was closure in that epic first season five years ago, you have to wonder where creators Clara María Ochoa and Ana Piñeres are going in the show’s second season, which clocks in at an even-more-epic 67 episodes. That answer is in the form of Paola Turbay’s character Paulina. She might be more venomous than Guillermo is, and the fact that she seems willing to do just about anything to get him back on top makes her a fierce opponent for Analía.
If Paulina wasn’t there to scheme along with Guillermo, the second season would just seem like more of the same of what we got from the first season, but it doesn’t take long to see what she’s capable of, up to and including being able to induce one of the country’s most important political players to have a heart attack. Given all of the twists the telenovela format has, it seems fitting that a strong protagonist like Analía get an equally strong antagonist, and we’re looking forward to seeing these two try to outsmart each other for dozens of episodes.
Sex and Skin: There’s sex, but not a ton of skin, at least not in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Paulina confronts Analía at the psychiatric hospital after Analía sees Guillermo. Paulina grabs her, but Analía seems unfazed by this new enemy in her life.
Sleeper Star: Ana María Sánchez’s character Fabiola provides a little bit of comedic levity in what’s a pretty serious telenovela — yes, those actually exist.
Most Pilot-y Line: After Analía and Pablo get engaged, we see them embracing each other under the sheets. When they kiss and separate from each other, there’s an actual line of saliva between them. Eww. Well, at least those kisses aren’t fake.
Our Call: STREAM IT. After five years away, Her Mother’s Killer has returned with a refreshed story, thanks to the addition of Paola Turbay as Paulina.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.