Series / Casi Ángeles

The main cast minus Bauer. And Malvina.

Casi Ángeles (lit. meaning Almost Angels) is an Argentine live-action TV series about a group of orphans who are exploited and forced into robbery by the orphanage director, Bartolomé Bedoya Agüero. However, Bartolomé is running low on cash and in order to receive his dead aunt's inheritance there are two conditions he must meet: keep the orphanage running and make his younger sister Malvina get married. The woman's current boyfriend, Nicolas Bauer, arrives to the Bedoya Aguero mansion after getting engaged to her, accompanied by his son Cristóbal and a savage named Mogli.

Around the same time, a young circus performer named Cielo Mágico catches one of the girls from the orphanage, Alelí, stealing at her circus. She's able to save her from the man she robbed and gets her back to the orphanage, but on their way they find other kids from the orphanage putting up a show to steal. Alelí takes advantage of the occasion to pick a man's pocket, but Cielo catches her and takes the wallet she stole from her. However, the man (who happens to be Bauer) finds them and accuses Cielo of being a theif. Cielo then runs away... with the wallet. She later returns it to Bauer, who realizes she isn't a bad person after all, and gets her a job as maid in the Bedoya Agüero mansion... much to the dismay of Malvina, who (unlike the other two) notices a Love Triangle blooming.

The series had a total of four seasons.

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"Casi Ángeles" includes examples of:

• Abduction Is Love: Ibarlucía seriously believed that by kidnapping Cristobal and Carla they'd love him again.
• Abusive Parents: Bartolomé and Malvina's father is mentioned to have been abusive, especially towards him.
• Adults Are Useless: In season one Cielo, Nico and his friend Mogli spend most of their time in the Foundation, and yet fail to notice all of Bartolomé’s evil schemes. When the kids actually tell Cielo something, her reaction fuels even more trouble than before more often than not.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Nicolas Bauer.
  • His father Luis was one too, and his mother is currently one as well.
• Affectionate Parody: The many screenplays Valeria attempts to write throughout the series fit this trope, alternately parodying different TV formats (Telenovela, Sitcom Horror Films...), worldwide famous blockbusters (Titanic, Ghost, Pretty Woman) and the show itself.
• All Love Is Unrequited: And how! Let's count: Malvina for Bauer, Rama for Mar, Alelí for Lleca, Salvador for Cielo, Tefi for Thiago, Ibarlucía for Cielo, Tefi for Simón, Melody for Thiago, and the list goes on and on...
• All There in the Manual: The "Team Angels" section at the end of every season two episode often provided background on some characters, aside from interviews that often broke the fourth wall and funny moments.
• Alone Among the Couples: Towards the end of season 1, Thiago was with Mar and Tacho with Jazmín, leaving Rama to be the only one in their five-people band that was alone (plus, his love interest had been recently Put on a Bus).
  • In the second season, Tefi suffers from this. Hard.
• Alpha Bitch: Tefi.
  • Melody takes it even further, to the point that Tefi (who was the main Alpha Bitch in season 1) becomes her Girl Posse.
  • Dolores, who appeared briefly in the first season, fit the trope as well. However, while the previous two later become lovable alpha bitches, she... is never heard of again.
  • Juliette, Simón's french ex-girlfriend, has some traces of it as well.
• Already Met Everyone: In episode 141, season 2, it is revealed that Caridad and Nacho had already exchanged glances at a young age, while Melody and Valeria had argued once.
• Ascended Extra: Tefi was initially just Thiago's Girl of the Week, but after being revealed to be Mar's step-sister, she becomes more important to the plot. By the second season she is already a main character.
• Becoming the Mask: In the second season, Justina becomes really fond of replacing Felicitas, to the point where she actually warms up to those whom she used to hate in the previous seasons, like Lleca or Alelí.
  • Luca too. He was denied love during his whole existence until Franca saved his life, and with the others he finally feels at home and part of a family.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Nico’s frequent “¡Baaaaaastaaaaa!”s (“Stop it!”) whenever the kids are taking the chaos too far.
• Birthday Episode: Mar is the only one to get one in each season.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the end, the main characters are able to go back to their original time and reunite with Cielo, Bauer and the others, having a happy ending as they also stop Luz's kidnapping to prevent the villains from making her the Big Bad. However, it's not as happy as it sounds; Simón and Vale were left in 2068 (although they seem to be happy).
• Bodyguard Crush: Justina on Bartolomé.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Nacho puts an awful fake Spanish accent on when recruited as a speaker for Valeria’s movie in S3 Ep104.
  • Tefi does the same while playing Jazmín in that same movie, due to her being Romani (in spite of Jazmín actually having no Spanish accent whatsoever), prompting Nacho’s surprised exclamation.
  Nacho: Sh*t, she’s my compatriot!
• Cassandra Truth: Hope spends the entire first half of season four unsuccessfully trying to persuade the others living in the NE that they're being controlled by the evil Government, which had previously brainwashed them.

• Catchphrase: And how.
  • Bartolomé: “WHAT THE HELL!?”
  • Justina: A collection of jokes connected with death and everything that has the word Parca in it.
  • Marianella: Odd metaphors of mechanical sort, such as “You fill my spark plugs with oil!”
  • Valeria has the habit of calling people “cat”; to the point that it has become her nickname. Played for Laughs on various occasions.
  “Hey, cat, it’s not like I use the word cat that much, you cat!”
  • Malvina and Esperanza share “There’s no crisis!” and “The curl always comes back”.
  • Nacho: “What's up, man?”
  • Torito: “It’s life, buddy.”
• Cheerful Child: Alelí and Monito. Cristóbal too, to some extent.

• Creepy Child: Luz, especially in the first season.
  • Alelí for some time in season 2 as well, while she was being drugged by Justina.
• Curse Cut Short: Caridad will interrupt whoever might be trying to swear (usually Mar or Valeria).
• The Dragon: Justina is this to Big Bad Bartolomé in season 1.
  • Luca is initially this to Franca as well, and Franca herself is later revealed to be The Dragon of CC boss Juan Cruz.

• Disappeared Dad: Rama and Alelí's bilogical father is never seen or heard of.
• Disaster Dominoes: Tends to happen a lot around the Hogar Mágico, but especially on busy school day mornings, much to Nico’s dismay.
• Disguised in Drag: Teo and Tacho pull off this trope in S4 Ep102, in order to get into the NE without being recognized.
  • A man also gives Tacho his phone number, despite him looking, in Teo’s words, “like a helicopter pilot”.
• The Ditz: Malvina.
• Don't Split Us Up: While under Bartolomé's care, Rama and Alelí are often threatened to be sent to different orphanages.
• Drives Like Crazy: Poor Rama has experienced Valeria's driving during a Chase Scene with the Police, and is not willing to do so again.
• Dysfunctional Family: The orphanage in season two. Probably the best example is early in that season, on the first day of school (clip's not subtitled though).
• Ear Worm: Everyone seems to find MAN’s song “Lobo Está? (Is the wolf there?)” quite catchy, and wants the world to know it. This is initially a problem for Nacho, the supposed author, since he actually stole it from the Teen Angels.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: In season two, after her stay in Eudamón, Cielo becomes acquainted with pretty much everything, thus unfortunately losing her memory.
• Ensemble Cast: At the beginning, Cielo and Nico were obviously the protagonists, but as the series went on, it leaned more and more towards this trope (although characters like Mar or Thiago were usually given more screen time than others anyway).
• Evil Uncle: Jazmin's uncle, who is also the murderer of her parents.
• Extranormal Institute: At Mandalay, the high school attended by the kids in the future, you're more likely to hear about Lateral Thought, Nonviolence and Riddles, rather than mainstream subjects such as Maths, English or Spanish.
• Face–Heel Turn: Luz, who is the Big Bad of season 4. However, it's not really like she voluntarily did the turn, she was kidnapped while all the others were in the future (including Justina, the only one who could protect her) and forced into becoming evil, so it isn't like she was Evil All Along. Plus, by the end of the season, the main characters return to their original time and save her from being kidnapped.
  • Thiago pulled this off for some episodes in season 2, during which he looks and acts scarily like his father, after Mar leaves him for Simón.
• Flanderization: Tacho and Tefi are two glaring examples. Having started off respectively as a street smart orphan who practically grew up in a theatre (and was able to quote Lope de Vega) and an upper-class girl who struggled both with her adoptee status and her jealousy towards Mar, as the seasons go on they both end up leaning towards comic relief territory most of the time.
• Gag Haircut: In the end of season 2, Thiago wants to shave his head. Mar is fiercely against it –which results in a number of haircut-preventing ambushes and horrified shrieks before the guy actually succeeds.
• The Glorious War of (Step)Sisterly Rivalry: It takes a lot of time for Mar and Tefi to strike up a civil conversation.
• Government Conspiracy: Played for Laughs in S2 Ep88, when the kids wrongfully assume that the Argentine president is the head of CC.
  • Played Straight in seasons 3 and 4.
• The Great Wall: Built by the Government in order to separate the ones living in the NE from the so-called savages.
• Gypsy Curse: In the first season, Jazmín curses Bartolomé in a fit of rage.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Pretty much everyone in the orphanage ( Mar becomes the exception when she's taken in by her birth mother by the end of season 1, but she later returns to live with them when her mother moves to Spain).
• Heel–Face Turn: Malvina towards the end of the first season. She turns against her brother and Justina, siding with Bauer and Cielo, feeling deeply sorry for her actions. She redeems herself completely when she speaks against Bartolomé in the trial.
  Malvina: I heard screams every night. And that wasn't the worst; I covered my ears with the pillow so that I wouldn't hear.
  • Justina goes through this in the second season.
  • Franca as well. Unfortunately, it isn't enough to save her.
  • Luca qualifies too, although he never was truly evil, he just didn't have much of a choice.

• In-Series Nickname: Every character has got at least one nickname, but they tend to be many, from funny ones to ones which actually sound kind of offensive.
• Incest Subtext: In one episode, a drunk Malvina kisses her nephew Thiago.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: At first, the main characters are exploited by a powerful man. They later get involved in the fight against Juan Cruz and are eventually sent to the future without previous warning, and aren't happy about it.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Played straight in season 1, when Bartolomé constantly threatens to hurt Monito and Alelí if the kids ever give away anything concerning his illegal activities.
• Kick the Dog: Juan Cruz just loves to do it. A glaring example can be found in S3 Ep124, where he gleefully reminds all the characters the hell they've been going through thanks to him.
• Lamarck Was Right: Paz has inherited Cielo’s abilities.

• Literary Allusion Title:
  • S2 Ep 22: En El Nombre del Padre (In The Name of The Father)
  • S2 Ep 83: Sueño de Una Noche de Verano' (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
  • S2 Ep 85: El Escorpión y La Rana (The Scorpion and the Frog)
  • S3 Ep 56: El Túnel (The Tunnel)
  • S3 Ep 90: En Busca del Tiempo Perdido (In Search of Lost Time)
  • ...And so on.
• Love Theme: Recurring; usually a song from the series (averted in Cielo and Salvador’s case, since their theme, Silencio, is taken from another show).
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The revelation that Ibarlucía is actually Cristóbal's biological dad.
  • A similar case happens in season 2 when Mar's Disappeared Dad is revealed to be her boxing instructor, Terremoto.
• Missing Mom: Thiago's mother, who is mentioned more than once through the first season and finally appears in the second season.
  • Carla, Cristóbal's mother, who was in Africa getting treated for an unknown disease in season 1. This, it is later revealed, was a lie Bauer told Cris to avoid hurting him, since Carla abandoned both of them for her lover Ibarlucía.
  • Rama and Alelí's mother abandoned them to get a job in the United States and raise money. However, once there, she remarries and starts a complete new life.

• Morality Pet: Luz has been this for Justina for ten years. She claims Luz is the only thing that makes her feel human.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: One of the main rules in the third season, while much of the cast is in the future.
• The Nicknamer: Malvina. Due to her tendency to sometimes talk in English instead of Spanish like the rest of the cast, she often nicknames other characters by translating their names literally. The most common nickname she uses in the series is "Sky" for Cielo, but she also has nicknames for Cristóbal (Christ), Justina (Justine), Nicolas (Nicky), and Luz (Light), among various others.
  • Justina is this too, but her nicknames tend to be... er, less sweet.

• Open-Door Opening: The series begins with the director of the orphanage in which Mar is living opening the gateway of the aforementioned to let Bartolomé and Justina in.
• Our Angels Are Different: Cielo Mágico is an angel who is super fast or possesses Super Hearing.
• Our Time Machine Is Different: Throughout the four seasons, the main characters travel in time through a magical, golden book, some teas and also a perfume. Mar hilariously points this out in season 3, wondering if it wouldn’t have been easier to come up with an actual travel machine once and for all.
• Passing Notes in Class: In her entrance test to high school, Mar gets stuck in her English exam, where she is supposed to translate the song "Let It Be", and asks Jazmín for help through a note. While she doesn't know either, the guy who sat behind her does and, as he leaves to deliver his test, he leaves Mar a note with the song completely translated.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The guys in Mandalay are expected to be this; not all the characters completely agree, particularly in season 4, when the Evil Government has brainwashed everyone who had been caught and the ones who are still free are continually chased after by the so-called Hunters.
• Police Are Useless: Most likely, 95% of the Argentine Police Forces are alternately controlled by our resident Big Bad.
• Posthumous Character: Amparo, Jazmín's mother, who appears to her daughter in a dream and as they dance together, warns her of the dangers to come.
  • Jazmín's father appears as this too in the second season.
• Product Placement: Obnoxiously done in season 3 with brands like 47Street, Sweet Victorian and Coca Cola. Luckily, it was toned down in season 4.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mar gives one to Nacho in S2 Ep55, after he has tried to frame her by putting a substance similar to cocaine in her bag.

• Robinsonade: In the first episodes of season two, a pregnant Malvina and Cristóbal show off their survival skills while stuck in the forest after a plane crash.
• Running Gag:
  • Never bring Tefi with you on a mission: she’ll get you busted in two seconds flat.
    • Featuring high heels breaking, phones ringing and high-pitched shrieks.
  • Jazmín supposed “hysteria”.
    Jazmín [shouting hysterically]: I am *not* hysterical!
  • The Red Angel, your new local superhero, is in fact Tacho hiding behind a Paper-Thin Disguise. Everyone but Jazmín notices.
  • Mar’s mistakes (and Thiago’s corrections).
    Mar: Don’t correct me!
  • Rama and Vale blowing up cars (whether it’s accidentally or on purpose).
  • Justina starts addressing Bartolomé as “My love...”, only to quickly get a hold of herself and replace the epithet with a more proper “My lord”.
  • Rama is number 8 for Nico.
• Satellite Character: Jero was built paying special attention to this trope. We only get to know him from his interactions with Nacho and Melody, as well as his confrontations with Thiago and the others, but he never gets a scene for himself.
• Satellite Love Interest: All we know about Ciro, Malvina's husband by the end of the series, is that he owns a convinience store and lives near her. Period.
• Separated by the Wall: Happens to many couples in season 4, but Mar and Thiago are the clearest example.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Played straight in the third season with Valeria and Simón. They end up together anyway.
• Talent Shows: La Bestia Pop ("The Pop Beast") in season 2, and La Nueva Ola ("The New Wave") in season 3.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Jazmín and Matt at the beginning of season 2.
  • Also Valeria and Juan/Victor in season 3.
• Titled After the Song: A common strategy in the show. More often than not, the song will also be the episode main theme. Some examples are:
  • Season 2: Dejalo Ser (Let It Be), Vamos Juntos (We Go Together), De Una Manera U Otra (One Way or Another), Bajo Mi Piel (Under My Skin), Melody Desencadenada (Unchained Melody), ¿Alguna Vez Viste Llover En Un Día Soleado? (Have You Ever Seen The Rain [Coming Down On a Sunny Day?])
  • Season 3: Caballos Salvajes (Wild Horses), Todo Lo Que Necesitas Es Amor (All You Need Is Love), No Me Arrepiento De Nada (I Regret Nothing), Un Lugar Que Sólo Nosotros Conocemos (Somewhere Only We Know), Las Puertas Del Cielo (Heaven’s Doors)
  • Season 4: Nunca Volveré A Amar (I’ll Never Love Again), Todo Cambia (Everything Changes), Colores Verdaderos (True Colors), Un Paraíso Para Todos (Heaven for Everyone), Tu Canción (Your Song), Detenidos En Un Momento (Stuck in a Moment)
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mar is the tomboy to Jazmín's girly girl.
  • Curiously, Caridad (girly girl) and Vale (tomboy) have a similar relationship.
• Twin Switch: A rare example that doesn't involve twins, but identical cousins (which are treated like twins by every character). In the first episode of season 2, CC kidnaps Felicitas (Justina's identical cousin and new maid in the mansion) and exchanges her with Justina, who is in prison, in order to get Justina into the mansion and have an internal agent.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Cielo and Paz, mother and daughter, are both played by Emilia Attias.
  • Same goes for Big Bad Juan Cruz and his son Camilo, played by Mariano Torre.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Bartolomé.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Cielo Mágico literally means "Magical Sky"... it's pretty much impossible to be named like that in real life.
  • Ultimately subverted when it's revealed that she made up her name. Her real name is Angeles.
• Yandere: Malvina was this in the first season, willing to kill Cielo if that helped her win Nicolas back. She gets better.
• You Are Number 6: Non-dehumanizing case. Nico, for reasons never made clear throughout the series thought that by giving a number to all the kids living in the Magic House (although he remembered their names perfectly) it would have been easier to control the situation.
  Nico: Recite your numbers, now.
  [each of the kids says his/her number]
  Nico: This is the question... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!
  • Becomes a running gag with Rama, who gets called 8 more often than not.
• You Can't Fight Fate: At least, not always. But, well, if you can come back in time we can talk about it.