Valeria
ヴァレリア
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A blocked novelist in Madrid, her three friends and a sexless marriage; Sex and the City's Spanish daughter.
Valeria, a writer in Madrid, has won a literary prize and a publishing contract, and cannot write the novel she owes. Her marriage to Adrián has gone distant and quiet. Her refuge is her three closest friends: Lola, an interpreter hooked on an affair with a married man, Sergio; Carmen, who works in advertising and is falling for a colleague, Borja; and Nerea, a lawyer at her parents' firm who has not told them she is a lesbian. Through Lola, Valeria meets Víctor, charming and elusive, and the attraction wakes her up. By the end of the first season she has left Adrián and retreated to Valencia, ignoring Víctor's messages.
In the second season, short of money, Valeria sells her novel, and it becomes a bestseller. Nerea, now out, looks for work beyond her parents' firm; Lola keeps going back to Sergio and finally sets off for Vienna to leave him behind; Carmen and Borja get engaged. The season closes with Valeria unsure whether to accept an affair with Víctor that promises nothing.
In the third season she ends it when she finds he is seeing other women, and meets Bruno Aguilar, a novelist at her publisher with a young daughter, who says plainly what he feels. Víctor comes back wanting a future; she sleeps with him once more, and at Carmen and Borja's wedding she chooses Bruno. Lola, turning thirty, falls for Rai, who is ten years younger; Nerea, running her own events business, falls for Georgina, the photographer she hires; Carmen is pregnant.
In the fourth and final season Valeria's life with Bruno is steady, and she is blocked again. He moves into her flat while his book is adapted for the screen, dismisses her novels as unserious, and asks her to move to Asturias with him and his daughter; she agrees. Víctor, in therapy and changed, becomes her friend and tells her that her writing matters. At the Madrid book fair, signing for the first time, she watches Bruno scoff at a reader who says her books changed her life, and she leaves him. She stays in Madrid and writes, and only after that do she and Víctor find their way back to each other. Carmen returns to her agency before her maternity leave ends while Borja stays home with their son, Gonzalo; Lola chooses Rai; Nerea keeps working on Georgina's fear of commitment.
Starring
Diana Gómezas Valeria
A blocked young novelist in Madrid whose quiet marriage and wavering loves become the material for her books.
Valeria’s story
Valeria owes her publisher a novel she cannot write, and her marriage has gone silent. Lola's friend Víctor wakes her up; she leaves her husband and hides in Valencia. Her novel becomes a bestseller, and she keeps going back to Víctor, who promises nothing, until she finds another woman's bra on his sofa. She meets Bruno, a novelist who says plainly what he feels, and after one more night with Víctor chooses Bruno at Carmen's wedding. A year on, Bruno moves into her flat, belittles her books and asks her to move to Asturias, and she agrees. At her first signing at the Madrid book fair he scoffs at a reader whose life her books changed, and she leaves him. She stays in Madrid and writes, and only then finds her way back to Víctor.
Maxi Iglesiasas Víctor
Lola's charming friend, afraid of commitment, who keeps drawing Valeria back until he learns to change.
Víctor’s story
Víctor meets Valeria through Lola while she is still married, and when she leaves Adrián she hides in Valencia rather than answer him. He wants her without wanting a relationship, and offers her an affair that promises nothing, until she finds another woman's bra on his sofa and ends it. Sleeping with other women to forget her only makes it worse, and when she starts seeing Bruno he comes back wanting a future; they spend one more night together and quarrel, and at Carmen's wedding she chooses Bruno. A year later, in therapy at his mother's insistence, he returns as her friend, keeps his distance, and tells her that her writing matters because it touches and represents people. After she leaves Bruno and finishes writing on her own, they find their way back to each other.
Silma Lópezas Lola
An interpreter and the boldest of the four, who must break a toxic affair before she can trust a kinder love.
Paula Maliaas Carmen
An advertising worker with little experience of love, who falls for a colleague and later juggles a baby and a career.
Teresa Riottas Nerea
A lawyer in her parents' firm who has not come out to them, and who leaves to build her own life and business.
Federico Aguadoas Bruno Aguilar
A novelist at Valeria's publisher who offers her stability and, in time, little respect for what she writes.
Why it matters
Valeria is a comedy about four women near thirty in Madrid, and its steadiest love story is their friendship. What it puts in front of us is the ordinary work of a woman's life that romances skip: writing while blocked and broke, leaving a marriage that has gone quiet, coming out to parents, a pregnancy that arrives with a promotion, a return to work that feels like betrayal. It is frank about sex and about wanting it. Late and pointedly, it also argues about whose writing counts: the man who calls Valeria's books unserious loses her at the moment a reader says they changed her life. Fans protested when the third season departed from Elísabet Benavent's novels and gave Valeria to Bruno; the final season, drawn from the last book, returns her to a changed Víctor. What it leaves open is whether the healthy choice and the wanted one can ever be the same.