De brutas, nada is a Mexican comedy-drama built on an old lie and a new city. Produced by Sony Pictures Television from a screenplay by Isabella Santodomingo, it follows Cristina, a young woman about to be married who discovers that her fiancé cheated on her. She ends up alone in her apartment and goes looking for a new roommate. Alejandro, a single man looking for a place to live, meets her and falls for her at once. Out of fear, he lets her believe he is gay.
Trailer, via PANTAYA.
The Setup
That is a sitcom premise, and the show knows it. What makes it more than a sitcom is the world around the two of them. Set in contemporary Mexico City, the series follows a group of six sophisticated close friends through everything at once: love, lies, heartbreak, marriage, divorce, kids, careers, job loss and the fights and reconciliations that keep a friend group together.
Tessa Ía and Christian Vázquez
Tessa Ía plays Cristina and carries the show. She is funny without mugging and hurt without milking it, and the scripts give her more to do than react to Alejandro’s deception. Christian Vázquez plays Alejandro, and his job is harder, because the audience has to like a man who is lying to the woman he loves. He manages it by playing the fear honestly. The lie is cowardice, not cruelty, and the show never lets him off the hook for it.
The Ensemble
Marimar Vega, José Pablo Minor, Carolina Ramírez and Julián Román fill out the friends, and the series is at its best when it lets them run. Vega’s Esther Duarte and Ramírez’s Hannah Larrea get subplots that could carry their own shows. The ensemble structure means the central lie never has to bear the whole weight, which is what keeps three seasons from feeling like one joke stretched thin.
Three Seasons
The first season premiered on November 6, 2020, the second on January 15, 2021 and the third on January 18, 2023. The first is the tightest. The second widens the world and the third starts paying off threads that had been building since the pilot. It is a show that gets more confident as it goes.
Where It Falls Short
A premise built on a lie has a clock in it, and the show sometimes stalls that clock to keep the engine running. There are stretches where Cristina should have figured things out and does not, and the writing has to work to explain why. The drama, when it comes, can swing broad. And the friends’ lives occasionally read as a checklist of life experiences rather than a story.
The Verdict
De brutas, nada is warm, quick and better made than its premise suggests. It is a comedy about people who lie to protect themselves and a drama about what that protection costs, and it has a lead performance that makes both halves work.
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