Women in Blue – María

By: Gladys Luna

The year is 1971 and Lucy (Eli Loga) works in a textile factory while she dreams to be an actress. One night, while working her shift along her co-workers, one of the sewing machines is broken accidentally by one of the employees. The owner, Félix (Orlando Moguel) who is not precisely the most comprehensive person in the world, gets mad about it and in order to save the other woman from being fired, Lucy blames herself for what happened. As a punishment, she is forced to work five extra hours without payment. At the end of her shift and when the factory is completely empty, she walks outside of the building where a car is waiting for her; she smiles happily then gets on the car and leaves. Unfortunately, the next day Lucy’s name is all over the news and not for the reasons she had expected but because her dead body was found in a bathtub inside of a hotel room. According to the police reports, she was another victim of the serial killer known as “The Tlalpan Undresser” who has been recently terrorizing the city.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city we are introduced to María (Bárbara Mori), a housewife whose childhood dreams of becoming a detective were put aside when she got married and decided to build a family. Today is her husband Alejandro’s (Leonardo Sbaraglia) birthday and along with her kids Alex (Diego Escalona) and Mar (Isabella Oceguera) she is ready to celebrate. However, her husband has other plans as he rushes down the stairs, thanking them for the gesture and telling Maria that he needs to go to the office and soon he’ll have to travel to Acapulco for work.  Then we meet Valentina (Natalia Téllez), María’s sister, whose rebellious and free spirit is always looking for justice and that is exactly how we find her, in the middle of a protest against the police until sadly she is arrested for this.

Somewhere in the city there’s Gabina (Amorita Rasgado), the daughter of the respected Police Commander Aldo Herrera (Mario Zaragoza) playing against her brother Gerardo (Horacio García Rojas) – who is also part of the police corpse – to see who is the fastest to load a gun. Unfortunately for him he gets beaten by her. Although Gabina has always secretly aspired to become a police officer herself, her father keeps reminding her that her place belongs in the house next to her mother. Last, but not least, we meet Ángeles (Ximena Sariñana), a religious and devoted young woman who lives with her grandmother Consuelo (Paloma Woolrich) who has instilled in the woman her love for religion. Ángeles is ready to start the day when her grandma informs her that her stove is broken and they need to call someone to fix it but Ángeles cannot afford to pay anyone to do it which makes her realize that maybe is time for her to actually ask for a raise or to find another job.

Later on, Maria has a conversation with her mother Luz (Rosa María Bianchi) in which she complains about the number of hours her husband works and the other woman suggests her to be more comprehensive with him since she believes that everything he does is because he loves them. This ignites an idea in María who decides to surprise him at work and convince him to celebrate with them. however,  she ends up being the one taken by surprise when she eavesdrops a conversation in which she finds out that he is cheating on her.

The life in the city goes on just the same as any other day until the Chief of Police Emilio Escobedo (Christian Tappán) announces on national TV that him, in accordance with the President Luis Echeverría (Alejandro de la Madrid) and the First Lady María Esther Zuno (Marcela Rigoletti) have planned to add a twist to the Police Corpse of the city which is to incorporate a female squad to where every woman interested is open to participate. These disruptive news immediately raises all sort of comments from the citizens, but mostly it manages to draw the attention of María, Valentina, Gabina and Ángeles. At the police station Valentina watches in awe this new opportunity that has opened for her at the same time that she decides to call her ex-boyfriend Lucas (Sebastián Buitrón) to pay her bail. The man decides to help her, but when he gets there they have a disagreement so he decides to leave her locked up. Gabina shows up carrying the lunch for her brothers and father and gets excited when seeing the news, but soon she is brought back to reality when she is told that her that her father will never allow her to be part of such squad.

The night has come so María meets Alejandro and other friends for dinner. At first she imagines that she confronts him for cheating on her, but in reality she pretends not to know anything at all. The dinner goes well but it makes her realize of how much she wanted to be a detective and makes her to take the biggest decision of her life. When they go back home the woman attempts to have a romantic night with her husband but they are interrupted by their kids, much to her disappointment. Suddenly, she gets a call from Valentina asking her to help her out of jail so she goes in search of her. Afterwards, they go to a bar to have some drinks together where Valentina informs her that she will join the police force and encourages her to do the same. María takes the chance to tell her what she knows about her husband and her sister suggests that for once she do something unpredictable in her life.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Police Emilio goes to a bar looking for Octavio Romandía (Miguel Rodarte), a former police officer who used to get in trouble very often until he was finally dismissed form the station. Emilio offers him the job to become the captain of the women squad and Octavio’s expertise makes him recognize a couple of things: one – Emilio is not a real police man which the other one admits to and two – he is aware that there was no other officer willing to take the job. At this Octavio accepts to do what he is asked under the condition that even if the squad fails, he still remains hired as a detective.

A new day has arrived and the time has come to enroll to the female police squad. Valentina, María, Gabina and Ángeles show up there ready to achieve their purpose. Octavio stands in front of them and asks them to get in line then delivers a speech in where he gives them the chance to give it another thought and step aside. Based on what he said, a lot of women decide to give up including María who is ready to leave but is stopped by her sister who reminds her the reason she is there – to be unpredictable and to follow the dream she had as a kid. The women are sent to their dorms in which they have the chance to hangout a little and get to know each other. The next day the real training starts; María arrives late to the practice and because of her Octavio punishes the whole team making them run extra rounds. A whole week goes by and the women give their best every day at the same time they start strengthening their bond. In the meantime, another body is found in a pool; the women watch in horror what is happening and the town demands answers. The training goes on and María wins a fight match. Wn the day is about to be over, Gerardo shows up to take Gabina home with him but she refuses to go. Then, the whole team joins blocking the aisle and preventing him from taking Gabina with him. He surrenders but advises his sister that the sooner he speaks with their father about her decision, the better. Alejandro has returned from his trip and when asking for María his mother-in-law puts him up to date about where she has been while he was away.

The last but most important part of the training has come and Octavio informs the team that they have to jump off of a plane. Once they reach the height they need, Octavio asks the cadets to prepare one by one to jump and they do except for María who is terrified and glued to her seat but Octavio won’t allow her to stay there and drags her to the door of the plane where he reminds her the reason why she is there.

The days have gone by and María haven’t heard from her husband yet. Octavio congratulates the team for completing the training and announces them that they are now part of the Police Women Squad. Right that moment he asks María to go with him to the other room and she is surprised to see Alejandro there who apologizes to her and asks her to go with him. However, she confesses that this has been her dream since she was a kid and she is not willing to give up on it. At the same time she promises that she can be both, a police officer and fulfill her tasks as a mother.

Graduation Day comes and one by one the cadets are congratulated by their efforts and the First Lady María Esther refers to this day as the one where they are making history. Meanwhile, not so far from there, Paola (Claudia Pineda) who works along with her sister Jessica (Montserrat Ángeles) at a dinner watches the ceremony on TV and gets excited about the news. Then, she waves goodbye to her sister and leaves the place without explaining where she is going. Some minutes later, Jessica takes the trash and sees a suspicious car with a with a white roof and the engine on waiting outside the dinner then leaving as soon as she attempts to see who is in there.