A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| The House of Flowers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Spanish | La Casa de las Flores |
| Genre | Millennial telenovela Black comedy |
| Created by | Manolo Caro |
| Written by |
|
| Directed by |
|
| Starring | |
| Narrated by | Claudette Maillé |
| Theme music composer | Yamil Rezc |
| Opening theme | La Casa de las Flores |
| Country of origin | Mexico |
| Original language | Spanish |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 34 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Producer | Carlos Taibo |
| Production locations | |
| Cinematography | Pedro Gómez Millán |
| Editor | Yibran Asuad |
| Running time | 27–37 minutes |
| Production company | Noc Noc Cinema |
| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Release | August 10, 2018 – April 23, 2020 |
| Related | |
| The House of Flowers Presents: The Funeral (2019) The House of Flowers: The Movie (2021) | |
The House of Flowers (Spanish: La Casa de las Flores) is a Mexican black comedy-drama television series created by Manolo Caro for Netflix. It depicts a dysfunctional upper-class Mexican family that owns a prestigious floristry shop and a struggling cabaret, both called 'The House of Flowers'. The series, almost entirely written and directed by its creator, stars Verónica Castro, Cecilia Suárez, Aislinn Derbez, Darío Yazbek Bernal, Arturo Ríos, Paco León, Juan Pablo Medina, Luis de la Rosa, María León, and Isela Vega.
The 13-episode first season was released on August 10, 2018. A second and third season of the series were announced in October 2018; Verónica Castro had left the cast before the show was renewed and does not appear in later seasons. Season 2 premiered on October 18, 2019, and the final season was released on April 23, 2020. A short film special called The House of Flowers Presents: The Funeral premiered on November 1, 2019, and a YouTube TV special was released on April 20, 2020. The first season is exclusively set in Mexico, while the second and third seasons also feature scenes in Madrid, and the funeral special has a scene set at the Texas-Mexico border.
It contains several LGBT+ main characters, with plots that look at homophobia and transphobia. Seen as satirizing the telenovela genre that it maintains elements of, it also subverts stereotypical presentations of race, class, sexuality, and morality in Mexico. Its genre has been described as a new creation, the "millennial telenovela",[Refs 1] a label supported by Caro and Suárez.
The show was generally critically well-received, also winning several accolades. Cecilia Suárez and her character, Paulina de la Mora, have been particularly praised; described as a Mexican pop icon,[6][7] the character's voice has been the subject of popularity and discussion, leading into its use for the show's marketing. Aspects of the show have been compared to the work of Pedro Almodóvar, and it has been analyzed by various scholars, including Paul Julian Smith and Ramon Lobato.
A feature length film continuation, The House of Flowers: The Movie, premiered on Netflix on 23 June 2021.
Synopsis
Season 1
At the start of season 1, Ernesto de la Mora's mistress Roberta hangs herself; shortly afterwards, Ernesto is sent to prison because of fraud she committed in his name. The eldest de la Mora child, control freak Paulina, takes over their cabaret, butting heads with Roberta's son Claudio. The rest of the family had been kept in the dark for years, with matriarch Virginia shocked to find out about the cabaret, which bears the same name, 'La Casa de las Flores' ('The House of Flowers'), as her successful florists. Though keeping Ernesto's arrest a secret, the family's accounts are frozen and reputation damaged when youngest child, son Julián, chooses to come out as bisexual; all the while, middle daughter Elena has been awkwardly keeping her African-American fiancé Dominique away from the mess. Virginia caves and asks Paulina to call her lawyer ex-husband María José, who had been banished from the family for coming out as transgender.
Jealousy and anger cause Julián's boyfriend, family accountant Diego, to break up with him; Elena, scared of settling down, begins a relationship with Claudio and breaks up with Dominique just after their impromptu wedding. Paulina is told that Dr. Cohen, her childhood therapist, is her biological father, and starts visiting him and his sockpuppet assistant Chuy again. She also starts to fall for María José again. Meanwhile, Virginia has started selling homegrown marijuana, and Julián proposes introducing strippers to the cabaret, to raise money. Having finally raised enough money at the end of the season, it goes missing and it appears that Diego stole it. However, Ernesto is freed in time for the party. Virginia reveals she sold the florists to their rivals, the Chiquis, and tells Paulina to go after María José, before mysteriously leaving.
Season 2
Eight months before the outset of season 2, shortly after the events of season 1, Virginia dies. After her funeral, the children part ways. Ernesto, overcome by grief, has joined a Scientology-esque scam cult, and a challenge to Virginia's long-awaited will brings the family back together, Paulina returning from Spain to take care of business. She wants to honor her mother, support her siblings, and get revenge on Diego; to do all three, she has to re-purchase the florists from the Chiquis. Diego reappears and buys the cabaret to earn her trust, also paying for the bills associated with the birth of Julián's child with ex Lucía. Paulina makes a sketchy deal with Julián's escort agency for the cabaret, pinning the deal to Diego. She also meets a mysterious Catalan man called Alejo, who says he was a friend to her mother while both were receiving cancer treatment, and gets close to him.
Julián reignites his relationship with Diego, and works a rentboy hustle in secret. Ernesto rises the ranks in his cult, and Micaéla enters the TV competition Talento México, taking Bruno as her guardian; Bruno has set his eyes on Rosita, a pretty teenage contestant. Elena is trying to manage her position as a senior architect while being increasingly distracted by men, and realizes she has a relationship addiction. María José finds happiness supporting the trans women and drag queens at the cabaret, though her relationship with Paulina fractures and she returns to Spain, being hounded by her overbearing sister Purificación. Paulina eventually accepts Diego's innocence and loyalty to her family, handing herself in to the police for the soliciting at the cabaret.
Season 3
Paulina is threatened by different gangs in prison, including one led by the mysterious Chiva, and though Purificación has been sent as her attorney to work with local lawyer Kim, she wants to keep Paulina in prison. Elena is pregnant with Diego's child as a surrogate, and in a coma after her car wreck. Their grandmother, Victoria Aguirre, arrives to take over. Micaéla loses the final of Talento México to Rosita, but is invited to be part of a lip-sync group with her and Bruno. Alejo senses something wrong with Puri and calls María José, who comes to Mexico and has Paulina freed. Ernesto gives the cabaret to the drag queens. Diego is persuaded by his family to attend gay conversion therapy, to fulfill his dream of being a parent – when Julián realizes he wants children, he gets him out of therapy. When Elena wakes from her coma, Victoria tries to push the siblings apart, but they resist; Elena starts a relationship with former colleague Pablo. María José starts a relationship with Kim, while helping Paulina find out about Chiva.
In 1979, Virginia runs away to celebrate her birthday in Acapulco, taking LSD with Ernesto, Salomón, and gay best friend Pato. Salomón fails to perform when Virginia wants to lose her virginity, and she turns to Pato. At a drag bar, new neighbor Carmelita gets close to Ernesto, and Pato becomes a drag queen called Paulina. Virginia realizes she is pregnant and confides in Chiva, the nurse for her mysteriously ill father, who Victoria soon kills. She has Chiva sent to prison for a fake theft: Chiva told Pato about the murder. Pato and Virginia grow distant as he acts out, due to a secret relationship with the closeted Agustín, whom Victoria wants Virginia to marry. At the engagement party Agustín and his friends gay bash Pato, killing him. Virginia is distraught; Ernesto, not wanting his friend to be trapped with Agustín, breaks up with Carmelita and proposes to Virginia.
In 2019, Puri gets committed after becoming completely delusional, while Paulina and María José get close again as they interrogate the good and bad in their past relationships; Alejo leaves when he see them kiss. Ernesto tells Paulina that her real father was Pato, and the women learn about Pato before telling Chiva and being able to free her. She warns them to get Victoria away from the family. Victoria's rudeness makes Delia turn antagonistic through the season, resulting in a confrontation where Victoria falls and dies just after Chiva's warning. Julián, Diego, Elena, and Pablo decide to share the new baby, whom they name Pato. Paulina proposes to María José; with Puri seeming to improve, they tell her about the wedding, but she breaks out of hospital to kill Paulina. However, the spirit of Virginia stops her just in time.
Cast
Several cast lists have been published by both Netflix and media outlets; cast lists are also found in the credits of each episode.[Refs 2]
The show revolves around the de la Mora family. Matriarch Virginia de la Mora, the face of the shop, is played by Verónica Castro in season 1 and by Isabel Burr in season 3. Cecilia Suárez plays Paulina de la Mora, Virginia's eldest daughter, a neurotic type with a distinctive speech pattern who becomes the main character after season 1, and Paco León plays her partner María José Riquelme, a passionate Spanish trans woman who is also the family lawyer. The other children are Aislinn Derbez as Elena de la Mora, the middle child who returns home from New York at the start of the show and gets wrapped back up in the family mess, and Darío Yazbek Bernal as Julián de la Mora, the beloved but dependent youngest child, who is bisexual and dating family accountant Diego, played by Juan Pablo Medina.[Refs 2]
Arturo Ríos plays their quiet father, Ernesto de la Mora (also portrayed by Tiago Correa in season 3), who has been keeping a semi-secret second family with lover Roberta, played by Claudette Maillé. Roberta has an adult son from a previous relationship, the simple Claudio, played by Lucas Velázquez. The next generation of the family includes Roberta and Ernesto's young daughter, Micaéla, played by Alexa de Landa, and Paulina and María José's teenage son Bruno, played by Luis de la Rosa. Crazy aunt Purificación Riquelme is played by María León. The family psychiatrist, and Virginia's ex, Salomón Cohen, is played by David Ostrosky and Javier Jattin, and Paulina's gay drag queen father Patricio is played by Christian Chávez. Family maid and confidante Delia is played by Norma Angélica and Maya Mazariegos, while their nosy but kind-hearted neighbor Carmelita is played by Verónica Langer and Ximena Sariñana. Virginia's own manipulative and murderous mother, Victoria Aguirre, is played by Isela Vega and Rebecca Jones.[Refs 2]