Episode 3 of The Crystal Cuckoo opens with a flashback to 2023 when Maria and Carlos were madly in love. After that, it briefly shows their fight in which he accuses her of pitying him and she doesn’t try to stop it. In a rage, he takes off in Marta’s car and it crashes off a cliff.
The festival day has arrived. Carla informs Juan of Carlos’ dance and he tells Rafa about it however they don’t take any steps further. Juan is not indifferent to Carla anymore and he even asks her to the festival.
In 2004, Miguel decides to break into Gabriel’s house at night. The house has animal skulls, bird masks, birds that are taxidermied and bird pictures. Soon, he finds out the fact that Gabriel has disappeared. The most surprising thing is that nobody seems to be bothered by it and they refer to him as a capricious guy.
Miguel is juggling a lot as Carlos’ test results are going to be out soon. The boy is terrified and both Miguel and Juan assure him that they will be with him. During a get-together with Rafa and his wife, Patricia, the secret comes out that Magda was rumoured to have run off with an older man. Miguel asks Patricia why she keeps the lie going and Marta pleads with him to calm down. Nevertheless, he shares with her the necklace and his new theory – what if Gabriel was having an affair with Magda and he killed her?
He even strays to ask Gabriel’s sister, Raquel whom he hasn´t spoken to in decades. She always went out of the way to keep Rafa away from Gabriel and we eventually find out why. Gabriel treated every woman he was with like shit. And his great love, an Italian painter, vanished soon after teaching him to sketch. Magda “left” too incidentally Gabriel even left the day after she did.
Fast forward to 2023, Carla’s gaze lands on Ramon the town historian. In the past, there have been 11 disappearances in the last 30 years. The case haunted Miguel and after Carlos became a grown man, he followed in his father’s footsteps. Ramon complains to Carla that Carlos has borrowed some of his case files and never returned them.
Nearby, a young man named Chelo who appears to be is an undercover cop has been insisting to local law enforcement for years that Miguel is alive and snatching people. Maria takes a drunken Paco to the festival, but he doesn’t want to go. He draws some attention and runs into Braulio. Grandfather of little Manuela, Braulio suspects Paco and takes him on for a fight. The guy who set Paco free is Maria, and that’s why he walks the dirt unharmed.
Carla hears from Maria that Carlos danced like he was flapping wings. And that for the past 4 years, Paco has been trying to sober up. There’s a dance by dancers with bird masks. They are, Maria explains, the wayward souls that wander lost in the woods. In 2004, Carlos is diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta. The mood is tense, but Miguel tries hard to uplift the spirits of his family.
Fast forward to 2023 and Carla asks Marta about Carlos’ death. He was hurting, Marta says, but he refuses to believe it was suicide. She wants to do something else and Carla goes with her to the bonfire that night. Paco sobers up and returns to Maria again to try to make up. Maria tells him everything is going to get better and tosses Carlos’ Thoreau poetry book into the fire. Suddenly, Braulio shoots someone.
The Crystal Cuckoo Episode 3 Review
The Crystal Cuckoo is a slow-motion kind of film, and the slowness is so almost that it hurts, and it wouldn’t really be a problem if the story was more complex. But as it is, there isn’t much happening. Quite a few of the scenes give out the impression of being mere fillers or transitions, while only handful of bright and indispensable moments are scattered here and there.
Of course, there have been highly regarded series that moved slowly, yet they received their praise mainly for the well-done characters. Here, though, nobody is given time or sympathy nor do they evoke any emotions. All of them are like cardboard figures just repeating the same movements for the sake of the story. Miguel alone possesses some kind of appeal; he is portrayed as a perfect man always taking care of his relatives and doing good deeds. However, we question if this quality is enough to make the series last.
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