Keep Breathing is a 2022 Netflix limited series. It premiered on July 28, 2022.
Liv (Melissa Barrera), a sharp American Latina who's an attorney, gets stranded while taking a trip to Canada. Hitching a ride on a private plane, she then gets stranded out in the wilderness after it crashes in poor weather. With the only other survivor, Sam, dying soon afterward Liv is left alone to survive. Using skills she picked up long ago during her time as a Girl Scout, Liv struggles not only against hostile wilderness but also baggage from her own past.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Liv's mom was pretty cold to her as a girl, treating her as a nuisance usually. It really messed up Liv, leaving her fearing intimacy and thus pushing away Danny although he's a good man who's loving toward her while desiring a relationship. It's also indicated to be why she's leery of being a mother herself after she's gotten pregnant by Danny, afraid she'll be bad at it given her experience.
- Action Survivor: Liv is a fairly average urban professional woman who's stranded out in the wilderness, but survives due to skills she picked up long ago as a Girl Scout along with sheer force of will.
- Bears Are Bad News: One shows up in the second episode and devours the last of Liv's rations. It also shits on the beach, to rub it in.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Liv is scuffed up with her hair bedraggled as a result of her time in the wilderness, along with getting injured, though it's not that visible. She's still good looking, with only minor bruises that are hidden under her clothing.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Liv's hallucination of her mom claims she left to spare her more pain since she'd been a terrible mother to her.
- Daddy's Girl: Liv was always closest to her dad, as her mom mostly neglected her. Though it was a relative thing, as we see she also had many spats with him as a girl and is pretty callous when he's hospitalized after she's an adult. He in turn withheld postcards which her mom sent her as a girl. It's made clear she always loved him dearly though despite this.
- Due to the Dead: Even after learning Sam was a drug smuggler, half the reason she's in the mess she is since no-one's looking for her, Liv still buries him so he wouldn't get devoured by bears.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Liv survives multiple dangers in the wilderness and is finally rescued apparently without lasting harm at the very end.
- From Bad to Worse: Liv escaped the crevice only to fall down an entire mountainside into forest below, bruising her torso and spraining her leg while she lands there, then gets swept down a river in which she nearly drowns.
- Hallucinations: After she's left alone in the wilderness, Liv hallucinates that Sam is there and he criticizes how she'd dealt with it. She also hallucinates herself as being in previous situations from her life prior as well at times, sees herself as a girl running around, her mom, entire situations etc.
- Hello, Attorney!: Liv is a skilled, successful lawyer who's also very beautiful. Her business attire is not revealing, though it doesn't matter-she's attractive enough without doing anything more.
- Helpful Hallucination: Liv's hallucination of her mom offers her useful advice about how to help herself when she's out in the wilderness and also urges Liv to keep going.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Liv is stranded in the Canadian wilderness with no one to help and facing the perils which this brings when in the early months of pregnancy. The most dire situation is when Liv falls into a crevice where she gets trapped, then falls down a mountain and goes in the river on a log where she nearly drowns.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Liv's mom actually sent her many postcards after she had left, reaching out to connect with her again, but her dad had gotten rid of them before she saw. Her dad claims the words weren't for Liv, but her, as she knew where they were but never came to visit. As a result, he didn't want Liv hurt by her any more. Liv insists it wasn't right to decide that for her, and she left but didn't forget at least as shown by the postcards. It turns out this is why she went out into an isolated region of Canada-her mom's last postcard was from there, and Liv wants to reconnect with her.
- Life Saving Misfortune: Before the events of the series, Liv got extremely drunk and overlooked a fire hazard. When the firefighters pull her out of the blaze, they had to pump her stomach since she was almost dead of alcohol poisoning. The nurse remarks that she was lucky like that.
- Lingerie Scene: Liv goes into the lake in her underwear to try and dive for the plane, but doesn't last long as it's very cold.
- Meaningful Name: Liv strives all she can while in the wilderness to survive.
- Money to Burn: One of the few good things to come out of Liv getting onboard a smuggler's plane is she has a lot of cash to keep warm at night.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Liv didn't tell Danny after she got pregnant, which likely stems from her fear of intimacy as she rejected a relationship with him before, while having a baby would draw him closer. She also is very unsure she'll be a good mother or wants to have a baby at all initially.
- Nice Guy: Danny is a very nice man who wants a relationship with Liv, but she continually pushes him away due to being afraid of intimacy. The hallucinations she has near the end, including showing the two with her having their baby, indicates Liv does care for him, she's just afraid to get close.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: Liv continually resisted getting into a real relationship with her on again/off again lover Danny, rejecting his offer to make breakfast the morning after they slept together. It's made clear from her past that she fears intimacy due to her mom abandoning her, thinking he'll just leave her as well later so she avoids it this way preemptively, despite Danny's protests.
- Parental Abandonment: By the present, Liv's mom has left years ago, while her dad's dead.
- Parental Neglect: Liv's mom was an artist more interested in her painting than her. We see that she once forgot to pick Liv up from school for instance and this made her have to walk home in the rain, which her dad berated her mom over.
- Parents as People: Liv's father cared deeply for her and raised her after her mother ran away. However, he could be temperamental and controlling, and made the questionable decision to hide the fact that her mother was trying to reach out to her by hiding the postcards.
- Pregnant Badass: Liv, who's pregnant when she gets stranded out in the wilderness, proves herself very capable (partly due to having been a Girl Scout years before). She even manages to get free from being trapped in a crevice through her sheer determination, survives falling down a mountain afterward (splinting her leg when it's sprained) then goes down a river on a log.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Liv definitely didn't intend to get pregnant, and isn't sure whether she's cut out to be a mother after the poor relationship she had with her own. She's also not told the father, Danny, as she fears intimacy and realizes this would draw them closer in spite of her wishes.
- Title Drop: The phrase is used as part of a meditation technique Liv uses to aid her in the wilderness.
