Bridges Of Love; The Review!

 Bridges of Love chapter finally came to a close on Monday, 15^th of February here in Kenya and I believe am within accuracy to say that we are all going miss the show regardless of who we were supporting; Gael or Carlos. It has been an emotional ride, combined with epic entertainment and awe at how well the story was written. It is was therefore imperative that I give a final review of my thoughts about the show and a critical overview.

The first thing I would like to acknowledge about the show was the amazing choice of actors that they chose to play the lead roles. The three leads played their roles to perfection and had such  tangible chemistry; from the brothers Carlos and Gael to Mia’s individual relationships with both of them. The person I give most credit to however would be Paulo Avelino; not taking any of it from both Jericho Rosales and Maja Salvador. Paulo Avelino gave Carlos Antonio the best portrayal that I believe few other actors would have been able to. Carlos’ tragedies through life had shaped the harsh person he had become, but even with his callous attitude, one was still able to relate to his plight and empathize with him, however ruthless and unkind he became. It is therefore still hard for me to categorize him as an antagonist or villain because somehow, his behavior was justified from all angles because Paulo Avelino was able to internalize and identify so well with his character’s struggles. It had always been the one thing that always intrigued me about the show.

Brothers Carlos and Gael

The entire plot for me was quite well written except for one tiny detail that I wish the writers hadn’t exerted so much effort inserting into the plot; The rape case. It was very shameful for Carlos to result to such a barbaric act no matter what the reasons were, but like I said, you always had a way of understanding why Carlos did whatever he did. My issue with that incident though had nothing to do with Carlos’ behavior. The issue was that I cannot understand why the writers chose to include  it because even without it, nothing would have changed in the plot since Mia was unable to or did not react accordingly to something that she had guarded so dearly and with such effort. Her innocence had been taken away and I was quite disappointed with her reaction or rather her non-reaction because she only became aloof. At best, she should have been the one to call off the wedding but instead she chose to go along with it for reasons we all failed to comprehend. The one time she actually reacted to Carlos' behavior was because of gossip and that set her off as though it was the first bad thing that she knew about him, when she actually knew worse. There was therefore no point in that rape incident if it had no impact to the story.

Carlos and Mia

As pertaining to Mia’s relationship with both Gael and Carlos, I honestly have to admit that her relationship with Gael had much more depth than her relationship with Carlos mostly because we were able to see all the struggles they went through to be together. It was therefore easy to understand why Gael was never able to get over Mia unlike with Carlos where they gave a two year time jump and hence deprived us of the chance to see how their affection for one another developed. I however believe hers and Carlos’ relationship was almost getting to that point of undying love but it was cut short when we had to deal with Carlos’ issues which then denied their relationship the kind of depth it was supposed to have so that we could understand why Mia chose to be with Carlos each time. Gael was the hero of the story and he proved that time and again, but Paulo Avelino’s performance seemed to have written off that significance and the writers ultimately chose not to have Gael and Mia as the great lovers that they had meant them to be. Although I was rooting for CarMia, I concede that Mia should have ended up with Gael given the dynamics of the story and how it was told.

Gael, Mia and Carlos

My other little criticism comes from the finale episode. The scene that Lorenzo fired a shot that appeared to have caught Carlos but we had Gael getting shot instead. (The dynamics of that scene still bother me) I also felt that a story that had so much depth throughout its run was too quickly summarized. We never got to see how Gael recovered from his gun shot wound, how he finally settled on Eva, how Mia and Carlos really sorted out their relationship and how Carlos dealt with Lorenzo having being the one who killed Muloy. It all felt too easy when there had been so much at stake. However, I appreciated the simplicity of it because it appeared to have been a deliberate ending. We can only hope that there will be more to come from the Bridges of Love creators so that they can answer all that we still have! Gael’s wedding to Eva was such a beautiful scene as well!

 All the criticism aside, i offer huge props and thanks to the entire team for an amazing show; to ABS-CBN, Star Creatives and to our local station KTNKenya for always giving us the best.

Those are my few critics about the amazing show, please feel free to cue in your thoughts!