The Secret of the River Review 2024 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
We see the man talk to the young boy, then another boy comes to the cave, hearing his friend struggle. He defends his friend against the man, who calls the kid a gay slur. A fight ensues. The man, who is visibly drunk, stumbles back and falls into the river, smacking his head on a rock underwater. Blood flows up, and the man is either unconscious or dead.
A few weeks earlier, Manuel (Frida Sofía Cruz Salinas) comes to a small town in Oaxaca to stay with his grandmother Rafaela (Mercedes Hernández). Luisa (Iazua Larios), a friend of Manuel’s mother, introduces him to her son Erik (Mauro Guzmán), who’s the same age. They don’t seem to have a lot in common; Erik plays baseball, but Manuel doesn’t really love playing sports. But Erik was told to make Manuel feel comfortable, and the two start to bond when Manuel does some daring things like taking iguanas away from teens trying to hunt them, taking the hunters’ bikes, and riding into a restricted wind farm.
When Manuel goes to the market to deliver his grandmother’s dishes to some of the vendors, he’s fascinated with Solange (La Bruja de Texcoco), a transgender woman. In Zapotec culture, people like Solange are called Muxes, or men who act and dress like women; Zapotecs consider Muxes a “third gender,” though more traditionally-minded men like Erik’s father Jacinto (Jorge A. Jimenez) disagrees.
Jacinto isn’t happy that Erik is hanging out with Manuel; he also calls Manuel a gay slur and tells Erik that hanging out with Manuel might make him gay, too. Erik does point out to Manuel that he walks differently and holds himself differently. Manuel doesn’t seem to care, and essentially neither does Erik, but he’s saying it in order to look out for his new friend. They hang out at a cave over the river that has been Erik’s private spot for years.
Rafaela takes Manuel to Solange’s residence, where she and other women make dresses. Solange talks to Manuel about Muxes, and Manuel is fascinated. It also helps him solidify his identity, which we see when Erik takes him to another secret spot, where both men and women are bathing.
At the center of The Secret Of The River is the friendship between Erik and Manuel, which starts as a pretty fast and close friendship and only gets deeper as the two boys try to cover up what happened at the river.
By no means are they at fault; Manuel goes off to the river during a family wedding when Jacinto gives him a smack on the head and tells him he’s happy he’s going back home, and one of the people in the wedding party stumbles over and attacks him. Erik defends him, and that resulted in the attacker stumbling and hitting his head in the river.
But that’s not what the boys are going to think; they think the death is their fault, and as it’s investigated, it’s likely the friends will grow even closer as they try to keep their stories straight.
In the second half of the season, a grown-up Erik (Diego Calva) will confront this death, though we’re not sure if it will be with a grown-up Manuel or not — perhaps Manuel discovers he’s a Muex and changes names. Either way, the first half of the season is an illustration of how someone like Erik can overcome the biases present in the household he grew up in and expand his horizons through his friendship with Manuel.
