The Protest
Episode 9 of Gentefied begins with Erik pushing a book cart around the street to give to children while advertising for the upcoming food tour. Back in the taco shop, Casimiro gets ready for his date with Lupita. Outside, Poncho tries to convince Erik to make Lidia stay and not take the job in Stanford as he wants to be able to see his grandchild. Erik tells him that it is her dream and that they have to support her while Yessika confronts Chris about Mama Fina being part of the food tour. She tells him this is a bad idea and believes it will make things worse for the community. She heads to see Ana next but the latter tries to convince her that Chris is doing this tour with good intentions. During their date, Lupita and Casimiro speak about the future as he wishes the boys would take the shop over to allow him to slow down a little. Ironically, he suddenly gets a call from them as they need him in the restaurant. In Mama Fina, both boys relay what happened with Yessika to their grandfather as they worry she might start a protest during the food tour. They discuss what to do next and Erik comes up with the idea to make the gentrifiers believe that the protest will be part of the tour. They decide to film a satirical video inviting people to eat at Mama Fina and explains that they will be part of a live protest too. This doesn’t impress Yessika and her friends so Ana tries to convince her girlfriend not to go while trying to defend her cousins. Back in Mama Fina, Chris carries on making changes by giving them new uniforms while Yessika and her friends arrive with their signs, ready to protest. We see that Chris’ video has worked as people arrive in droves to the shop. The day ends up being a success but Chris feels bad so he sends Casimiro and Nayeli to give the protesters drinks as a peace offering. Casimiro tries speaking to Yessika but she stands her ground, believing this will be bad for the community in the long run. Unfortunately, this causes friction between her and Ana as the latter begs her to stop. Later on, Casimiro sits with Chris and suggests he become a full time permanent partner as this could be his new dream. Chris remains quiet and emotional while Ana confronts Yessika about standing up to her pop. Yessika feels that she was never really accepted by her family but also that Ana always puts them first. She mentions the influence Tim had on her and believes that he has caused more people to become homeless, which in turn makes her part of the problem because she works for him. This argument unfortunately leads to them breaking up. In the evening, Lidia visits Erik and asks him to come with her to Stanford. The episode then ends as she realizes that her water has broke. The family have been facing quite the dilemma in the last few episodes. Deciding to participate in the food tour seems like the solution to bring more customers but does it mean selling out and encouraging the gentrification? This definitely is what Yessika thinks, leading to the two women clashing and breaking up. This was quite the interesting episode too as both sides have good reasons to stand for what they believe. Gentefied has been quite the decent and refreshing drama to follow so far and with the finale up next, we’re left to wonder if the series will wrap things up nicely or whether it will end with the usual cliffhanger ready for a second season. In the meantime though, Gentefied remains quite the consistent and easy to binge family drama with plenty of intriguing and current themes.
