Of all the occasions in which El Ministerio del Tiempo has told us about a historical event of Spanish history (which is every episode), the second part of ‘Tiempo de Valientes’ is probably the most thorough and intense.

You see, about fifteen years ago, the creators of the show, Javier and the late Pablo Olivares, started a project with Rodolfo Sancho’s late father Sancho Gracia and my fellow citizen Arturo Pérez-Reverte about the Last of the Philippines, and of course this was a special topic to use for the show.

On the second part of the story, we see Julián after a few weeks locked up inside the church in Baler (the siege lasted almost a year). Luckily for him, Alonso has travelled through time and continents to find him and rescue him. Problem is, Julián is super nice, as we all know, so he refuses to leave these men by themselves.

That is, until he realises that he can’t save the ones that are destined to die (Alonso has brought with him information about the siege and the casualties among the men), so in the end, he realises that there is no other thing to do but escape. The day of their escape, however, they are caught by Lt. Martín Cerezo, and Julián and Alonso are locked up with another two soldiers, the four of them being sentenced to death.

Don’t be surprised when I tell you that, when the time to escape comes, Julián becomes frustrated because he has to leave the other two behind, as their names are also on the casualty list. These two men were executed the day before the siege ended –by the way, the siege finally ends because Martín Cerezo, who at first believes the newspaper he’s being brought is a fake, reads an article about a friend of his who has been posted to Málaga, something Cerezo knew was his friend’s dream from when they were younger, so he realises the newspaper is real.

In the meantime, in the present day, Ernesto finally discovers that the mother of his child is dead, but he does have a 20-year-old son! And Pacino is leaving us (but he said he’ll be back! He said it!) because his father is going back to having suicidal thoughts after his recent divorce, so Pacino is returning to 1981. BUT! Before he leaves, his chemistry with Amelia is out in the open and they finally do it! And this is such a turning point that her grave gets erased, ala Back to the Future Part III, and now she is not dying –and probably not getting married nor having a child. Her future’s changed! I hope this means the romantic involvement they were trying to sell us between her and Julián is gone, because even their reunion seemed more of what you’d see between friends than anything else. And I like her with Pacino more, it makes more sense, and there is more chemistry. And their love scene was beautifully made. So well done, show.

Thoughts

-They didn’t even give us an episode with Julián and Pacino together! Even though the hashtag (I hate social media terms) of the week was #JuliánYPacino.

-Bad news: MdT is taking a break, so it will be a few weeks until we meet the team again. Good news: the next episode will feature Velázquez (it will be about the fire of 1734 at the Royal Alcázar of Madrid, in which lots of paintings were lost, including some of Velázquez’s).

-“I’m still in love with my wife.” “But your wife is from the 16th century! You’re not going back there!”

-“What is an intertemporal interdisciplinary?” “Sounds serious, right? I just made it up.”

-“You’re carrying a crib sheet.” “You poor thing, you must be very hungry. This is not a pork chop, this is a piece of paper where I’ve written down the things that will happen, names of survivors, casualties… so that nothing changes.” The joke here is that the word in Spanish for both crib sheet and pork chop is ‘chuleta’

-When meeting to discuss their escaping plan, Julián and Alonso whistle the theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai.

-“We’ll escape through the hole in the wall. I volunteered to fix it and put the rocks without mortar.” “Excellent, and after we’ve escaped, what do we do?” “God will provide.” “The second part of the plan seems a bit too green.”

-If you are wondering about the first woman Ernesto visits on his son-searching adventure, she is supposed to be the muse of painter Julio Romero de Torres.

-Here are the ministry’s files, for more information about the Siege of Baler.

-By the way, the full episodes can be watched here. Not sure if there are country restrictions.