True Companions stay toguether forever! Or perhaps not
Amar después de amar is a 2017 Argentine telenovela, starring Mariano Martínez, Isabel Macedo, Eleonora Wexler and Federico Amador.The program is structured in two halves. A half of each episode is set in the modern day: Damián Kaplan and Carolina Fazzio have a car accident in the countryside, where Carolina dies and Damián ends in a comma. They were not husbands, they were lovers, and they were about to leave the country. Both families are devastated by the event and the reveal. Myriam, Damián's mother, denies any wrongdoing from his beloved son, and tries to fire Raquel (wife of Damian) from the family business and became the legal tutor of the kids, and to influence the police investigation into a sentence for Santiago (Carolina's husband, which she considers the murderer). The other half of the episode is set three years earlier, and detail how both families met and became friends, and the cheating adventure of Damián and Carolina.
Tropes
- Amoral Attorney: The prosecutor is fully aligned with Miriam, does everything at his disposal to incriminate Santiago, ignore the evidences that exonerate him, and ignore the evidences against Andrés.
- Art Shift: The scenes set three years ago are well lit and with a positive and upbeat tone. The ones set in the present are usually in shadows and badly lit places, with more gray colors, and the story is way more dramatic. And the story goes back and forth between both styles.
- Bad Liar: As Raquel can not prove her whereabouts at the time of the crime (and it was proven that she left the house, and did not go to the casino as initially claimed), Santiago "confessed" to the police that she was with him, that they were lovers at the time. Godoy did not buy that. He can notice by his face expressions (both then and during previous events) that it is a lie, only done in an attempt to exonerate Raquel.
- Berserk Button: No matter the context, not even if they are temporary allies, Roth does not like the name of his late son mentioned by Alina.
- Bungled Suicide: Damian tried to kill himself, after he shot Carolina by accident while trying to kill the thief that tried to rape her. He couldn't, he had used all the bullets trying to kill the thief. So, he got into the car, build up speed and crashed on purpose. But all he got from doing so was a coma
- Cassandra Truth: Deconstructed. When Raquel discovered the little hut that Damian and Carolina used for cheating, she stole a gun from Andres, went to the hut, and emptied the gun against the bed (the bed where they had sex), to vent her anger. Some time later, the police finds the house, the holes in the bed and the bullets beneath it, whiich match the stolen gun. They asked her who was in the bed, who did she kill, and explained what happened. The scientific police made further exams to the crime scene and found no traces of blood (not even washed blood), and eventually accepted that yes, she was telling the truth, she simply fired at an empty bed.
- Daddy DNA Test: Santiago and Carolina had a little son, but Carolina was already cheating Santiago with Damián when she got pregnant. Santiago is first on a "I don't want to know" attitude, but eventually orders a DNA test to find it out. The father is indeed Damián.
- Fate Worse than Death: Blaming Alina for the death of his son, Roth took his gun and shot her. But, instead of killing her, she shot her leg three times, to cripple her. Let's see how many kids she can seduce now, as a crippled Femme Fatale!
- First-Episode Twist: When the first episode starts, we see a loving couple in a car, and then the car accident. It isn't until some time later that we discover that those two people are not really a couple, but that each one has his own family.
- Foregone Conclusion: All the events of the past lead to the car accident that started the whole story. That means that every time that Carolina claims that she will break with Damian and end the romance, it won't stick.
- The Gambling Addict: Raquel became one to deal with her sorrows. Not a good idea, if we consider that Miriam left her without money.
- How We Got Here: The "Three years earlier" part is not a flashback or an origin story, it is built at the same time of the story set in the current day. Everything in that part builds up to the tragic car accident and the police investigation.
- If I Can't Have You…: Damian is hospitalized, and in a comma. Miriam wants to have him on home care at her own house. Raquel wants so as well. Everyone (even her close allies, Andrés and Roth) tells her that it's a hopeless fight, that the will of the wife would prevail, but she insists: she will do anything to keep him out of that scum Raquel. Even kill him before they translate him.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The night of the accident Damian was struggling with "el Sarro", while "El guacho" tried to rape Carolina, a pair of feet away. Damian managed to get the Sarro's gun. But not only he shot Carolina by accident, he failed to hit a single shot to el Guacho while he left Carolina, got on the motorbike and escaped. He emptied the whole gun trying)
- Last-Name Basis: Detective Godoy, we never hear his actual name. Not even when he's at home with Laura. Cynthia once tried to seduce him and asked his name, and he replied "Detective Godoy is fine".
- Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: Miriam refuses even to accept that Damian cheated his wife. The one to blame is Raquel, never Damian!
- My God, What Have I Done?: Although Bebo attacked Roth and left him in hospital, Roth accused Nico for the attack, just to spite Alina. But then Nico was shot by the police while trying to escape, and ends in the hospital with grave danger to his life. Roth, who had lost his own son, realizes that his vengueance against Alina has gone completely out of control, and tries to atone for it.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The TV commercials of "May in Telefe", and some for the series itself, featured Adrián firing several shots to Santiago at blank point. It turns out that the scene was from a Daydream Surprise.
- Not Helping Your Case: The police chief interrogates Cristian about his activities on the night of the murder. Cristian goes into full Sarcasm Mode and "confesses": yes, that night he was alone in the road, waited for the car, threw a big stone to the front to make them crash, shot Carolina and escaped in the night. The police chief finds that very interesting... not because of being Sarcasm-Blind, but because the part of the stone throw is Classified Information.
- Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: Raquel is not exactly amused to find out that someone wrote down their drama as a literary work in an internet blog.
- Plot-Triggering Death: The car accident, that killed Carolina and left Damian in a coma, starts all the events in the series.
- Retired Badass: Before this whole accident, and also before meeting the Kaplans in the scenes set in the past, Santiago used to be a cop. Now he's just a stone mason.
- The Scapegoat: The autopsy of Carolina revealed the size of the gun used. Prosecutor Roth considers that Santiago is the murderer, as he was being cheated. When a police raid finds a gun of precisely that size at Carcamo's house, he orders to have him arrested, as he was surely Santiago's henchman. Then, Bebo steps in and confesses that he was the one who murdered Carolina. Not because he was, but just to save his father from prison. They were released when a deeper search of the crime scene revealed the actual murder weapon.
- Social Media Before Reason: Laura Godoy is the wife of the detective leading the case. She is a writer, and found the case so interesting that she started a blog narrating it as if it was a thriller (of course, changing the names of the characters). So far, fine. The problem is when she starts to interfere with the investigations by investigating herself, or even uploads evidences "borrowed" from her husband to the blog (such as the transcripts of the chats of Damian and Carolina). She keeps asking What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, even when his husband points that this could lead to him getting fired.
- Spinoff: The Telefe web page has a related series, "La búsqueda de Laura", focused on Laura and her own investigation and blog.
- Surprise Incest: "El Guacho" tried to rape Carolina after the crash, ignoring that it was his mother.
- Unperson: There are no legal records about Carolina's first baby, which died on birth. It took place in the countryside, so he was just casted into the river and that's it, no paperwork was made. No birth or death certificate to help the case.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In the first episodes, the whereabouts of Carolina after the accident were unknown. The police finds a Carolina that is held kidnapped, and a great police operation liberates her, but she was not Carolina Fazio: she was just a victim of forced prostitution. Congratulations for finding her, who was reported missing as well, but the main plot must continue.
