The Department of Time: Tiempo de leyenda (Time of Legend)   First Watch 
May 22, 2018 8:29 AM - Season 2, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Season Premiere: Lola Mendieta is in prison. Julián is back after some rest and psychiatric therapy. A new case awaits: the discovery of dated remains that could belong to El Cid, who was thought to be buried in the Burgos cathedral. Alonso and Amelia are sent with Ambrogio Spinola to the eleventh century to lead the investigation... which means pulling Julián from the team.

Notes (contain spoilers)

* Julián spent some time in therapy between Season 1 and Season 2, recovering from the shock of trying and failing to save Maite's life, and possibly even causing her death.
* Throughout Season 1, Alonso and Amelia were learning about modern times. Now, Alonso has become a teacher, showing Spinola a cigarette lighter. Alas, his efforts to share his knowledge about DNA to people from other time periods don't go as well.
* Amelia puts Spinola firmly in his place in this episode, establishing herself as team leader.
* Why does Spinola say, "¡Yippie kai yay, hideputas!" before a battle scene? Ambrogio Spinola is played by actor Ramón Langa, who has been the voiceover actor for Bruce Willis in Spain since the early 1980's. (He dubbed the Die Hard movies in Spanish as Bruce Willis' character.)
* Rogelio Buendía, the Ministry agent who was tasked with replacing El Cid after accidentally causing his death, learns about El Cid's life through Medieval epics, which portrayed the man as a larger-than-life hero. Because of this, the legend of El Cid arises from Buendía's own actions, rather than their supposed historical inspirations.
* The conversation between Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Charlton Heston was based on a real event from when Heston was preparing to play El Cid for the 1961 film. Heston asked if there were rifles in El Cid's time and he was related to Christopher Columbus. (I'm guessing the real Pidal didn't reply: "The only relationship between them is the letter C. Of Cid, of Christopher, of Columbus and of how much of a cunt you have to be to ask those questions.")
* Alonso literally creates the El Cid Ploy by impersonating El Cid in battle.
* The Canarian agent is played by David Sainz, who also played "The Black" in the webseries Malviviendo. (The show is available on Vimeo with subtitles.) His catch phrase in Malviviendo is "That's flow." and his lines in this episode include it and a couple of other 'meta' references.
* When Terminator 2 was dubbed into Spanish, Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic line "Hasta la vista, baby" was changed into "Sayonara, baby." This is why Velázquez said "Sayonara, baby.'' He, Alonso and Amelia have just seen the film.
posted by zarq (12 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Correction: The link under "Vimeo" in the next to last bullet only goes to the first episode of Malviviendo. The series does not appear to be on Vimeo in its entirety.
posted by zarq at 8:39 AM on May 22, 2018


Yay, new thread! (I couldn’t wait any longer last night and went ahead and watched S2 E2, so I may need to give this one a rewatch to come up with anything relevant for discussion.)
posted by oh yeah! at 9:21 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I was going to hold it until tomorrow, but just for you, here's the post for the next episode, a day early. :)
posted by zarq at 10:30 AM on May 22, 2018


I missed something in the post:

Buendía's partner in the Middle Ages while filming El Cid is Alberto Ortigosa. We last saw him as a Ministry Agent the team contacted in 1924, in the previous episode. At the time, he said he was a gardener, and working for the Ministry was a way for him to earn some extra cash.

Now, Ortigosa appears to be assigned to a Ministry post in the 1960's patrolling time.
posted by zarq at 10:38 AM on May 22, 2018


I think I also caught that Heston said "Christopher Colon"... which is not what an American would say.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:46 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


This was the episode that made me fall in love with the series, and now its people shall be my people and all of that, in spite of the Ministerio sending rogue agents to a mediaeval torture dungeon and being cavalier about how many doors there even are. I think it's also the episode where I realised Alonso is speaking old fashioned Spanish and this might just be a running joke.

But what a tough job it is to be an agent. I can't think why people would even do it, let alone be so heroic and stoical about it. It was a delicate treatment of the time-loop dilemma here, where the imposter fulfills the legend in a way the real Cid never did. Also, shades of 'The Return of Martin Guerre'? which has the same I guess you'd call it twist.
posted by glasseyes at 11:52 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Heston's El Cid was one of the few films I saw in the cinema growing up, and it was confusing as I have a feeling the reels may have been played in the wrong order, not a rare event in that place, at that time. It's hilarious to know the silly questions actually happened! Comic effect fair enough, but not exaggerated. I'd love to find out the Spanish reply was true - how would Heston have guessed what was being said?

Heh. To think he may have been considered for the role of el Cid simply by power of association, having played Mexican (close enough) in Touch of Evil.
posted by glasseyes at 12:01 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Their failure to prevent Maite's death makes it seem like they can't change or time, or at least that the future already accounts for their attempts to. If that's the case, then the premise of the ministry, that they are preventing changes to history, makes no sense. I haven't been trying to make the time travel stuff make sense necessarily, but whether or not you can actually change history seems like a big question.
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:13 PM on May 22, 2018


Their failure to prevent Maite's death makes it seem like they can't change or time, or at least that the future already accounts for their attempts to. If that's the case, then the premise of the ministry, that they are preventing changes to history, makes no sense. I haven't been trying to make the time travel stuff make sense necessarily, but whether or not you can actually change history seems like a big question.

The short answer to this is that according to the show it is possible for someone to go back in time and change history in small or even drastic ways. But how they accomplish it seems to be part of a larger puzzle. For example, Julian could have shown up at his own apartment and stopped Maite from going for a jog that fateful morning. But preventing her death means he won't be recruited to join the Ministry. If he doesn't join the Ministry, he can't go back in time and stop her from going for a jog. A paradox. Does this mean her death is inevitable? I don't know.

On the other hand, some events apparently unfold the way they do because of future interference. Such as the receipt for the Picasso painting. Or El Cid's life events.
posted by zarq at 12:22 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think one of the things I like about this series is how often the characters come up against the futility of their job. They often remark about things like working so hard to save a historical figure whose only going to die a short time later anyway. Why bother if he/she is only going to die? Why save them this time and not that time? Would things be better if Lorca had lived longer, for example?

I think the answer the Ministry uses is kind of a better a devil you know situation. Like mmmmmaaayyyyybeeee it's better if Lorca lives (I mean I assume Lorca would certainly think so), but maybe not. Maybe he would end up destroying his legacy. We don't know what the outcome of prolonging his life would be, but we DO know what the outcome of his life is if it's maintained as it was. And so the Ministry's goal is to preserve history as it happens ensuring people don't die too soon, but NOT allowing them to live longer than history dictates.
posted by miss-lapin at 4:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


"What if they made some stupid TV show about the Ministry? That would be awful!"
posted by Mogur at 8:53 AM on August 18, 2018


After watching those two agents completely screw up the filming of El Cid at the beginning, I am beginning to think that this show is the Orville of time travel: what happens when regular people get their hands on time travel?
posted by Mogur at 8:54 AM on August 18, 2018


« Older Book: Emperor Mage...   |  Book: The Overstory... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments