I’m just glad ‘Dirty Linen’ is done with the Feliz arc; Leona arc is up next

Weeks 3 and 4 of “Dirty Linen” got a little bit dragging once they started with Feliz Pavia’s (Angel Aquino) arc. Week 2 was okay with her husband Ador’s (Epy Quizon) story, but for some reason, I did not find anything interesting with Feliz. Her overcoming-the-monster arc was something we’ve seen in other stories already. It’s the same thing I disliked about the film “Retirada” during last year’s Cinemalaya.

Feliz’ monster is her addiction to gambling. The only good thing her arc did to the whole plot is it introduced us to Hector Tantoco (Ping Medina), the impotent owner of her favorite underground casino. She ends up owing Hector P50 million, something that her brother Carlos (John Arcilla) is ready to pay, but even more ready to steal back. Typical Mar—I mean—Carlos.

But despite this boring arc involving Feliz and her gambling, we learned two important things about the story here: One, we now understand why Ador started his pornographic exploits; and two, we now see that Leona (Janice de belen) has layers to her unlike her sister-in-law.

Ador got sexy in front of cameras to sustain his wife’s addiction to gambling. But upon knowing what Ador has been up to, Feliz became even more addicted. It’s a fucking cycle.

If you stopped watching when the promo for next week’s episodes started to play, then you missed some juicy previews. It looks like they will focus on Leona’s character in the episodes to come. They’ve been gradually giving us a little bit of taste about her character in the previous episodes. We know that she’s smart and she knows how to make the Fieros look good. She told Doña Cielo (Tessie Tomas) that donations are not enough for the women’s shelter and that they need “to give them the chance to take control of their own lives again,” something you’ll hear from a progressive mind. This is something dynastic politicians have been very good at. People think that they are given jobs solely through the charity of a politician, but in truth, the whole thing is not all about them. It’s all about keeping an image.

I gotta be honest, I think I need to rewatch the past few episodes because it has been hard to read Leona. She said she paid Feliz’ debt so that it’ll all be over and so that the kids won’t be involved in this mess, but I am not convinced that she meant that. The last shot in episode 20 means that she’s plotting something (maybe to get back at Carlos for physically abusing her).

Lemuel Onore

JC Santos is finally in the show as the police officer Lemuel Onore. His brother was killed on duty as a uniformed personnel and his mother, played by Susan Africa, is starting to lose it. At first, Lemuel believes that the Fieros are not hiding any filth, but after getting Jackie Chan confused about the Stella murder, dude starts investigating things on his own.

If you don’t remember what happened because you were too focused on Feliz, let me remind you:

1. Ador killed Stella (Rans Rifol).
2. But before that, Stella was able to call Alexa (Janine Gutierrez), so she wen’t after her.
3. A CCTV near the crime scene captured Alexa, but it was Bigfoot levels blurry.
4. The police were able to get a hold of the CCTV footage, so now Lemuel thinks that the suspect is a woman. Fucking stupid police didn’t even see her kill Stella, but immediately concluded that she’s the suspect. *another Jackie Chan face*
5. Atty. Olga Arguelles (Andrea del Rosario) talked to Stella’s former boyfriend and paid her to make a false confession in exchange for money that he killed Stella. The jobless former lover agreed.
6. The case was closed. Lemuel, who previously saw his superior end a closed door meeting with the Fieros started suspecting that the Fieros’ hands are all over this shit.

What are the other characters up to?

The most annoying subplot in the show so far is the cartoonish Gen Z shit with Nico Sinag (Seth Fedelin), Chiara Fiero (Francine Diaz), Tonet Pavia (Xyriel Manabat), and Clint Pavia (Raven Rigor). At first, Chiara doesn’t care about Nico, and then when Tonet starts flirting with him, she either becomes jealous or just, you know, poorly written. I don’t know. I just don’t care about teenage shit.

Alexa, Abe Sinag (Joel Torre), Lala (Jennica Garcia), and Max (Christian Bables), meanwhile, have been busy evading detection, but so far, only Precious (Rubi Rubi) is getting hints that Alexa isn’t who she’s claiming to be. The four were successful at getting P20 million for Stella’s mom and getting Hector’s trust. Alexa is using her charms once again to get Aidan (Zanjoe Marudo) to trust him. The Thunder the Chicken scenes were hilarious. Cheesy. But hilarious. Raise your hand if you, too, didn’t know what you were supposed to feel while watching that scene.

Doña Cielo, who will outlive all of us, is in the hospital recuperating from stress after realizing every day that everyone around her is stupid af.

Overall, the latest two weeks of the show did not really capture my interest. Angel Aquino performed well in the second week of the show, but I did not like what the writers did with her character when they finally focused on her. I think the best performance from the last two weeks were from Janice de Belen and Tessie Tomas, despite the fact that the latter didn’t really have a lot of screen time. The second best performance was by Thunder. Dude survived all the cringe.

I’m dying to know what Lioness Den is all about.