Carlos Cifuentes

Ricardo Cifuentes (father) Doña Carmen (mother)

Francisco Gómez  (brother-in-law and rival)

**Carlos Cifuentes** is a main character in Netflix's Spanish original series, *Cable Girls*. He is portrayed by Martiño Rivas.

Carlos is the son of the National Telephone Company's founder and director Ricardo Cifuentes Navarro. He has a younger sister, Elisa, who was married to Francisco Gómez. The Cifuentes are an incredibly influential family in Madrid.

## Throughout the Series

### Season 1

Season 1 starts off with Carlos being a playboy who gets a lot of women due to his good looks. His father doesn’t take him serious and suspects him of just wanting to spend the company‘s money. The two often argue and his father is only impressed by him once when Carlos yells at him and stands by his ideas, acting, as his father says, “like a real man”.

Carlos is initially attracted to Lidia when he meets her and tries to ask her out several times. He seems to be interested in her as she isn’t as easy to get as other girls and quite witty. When she finally agrees and they start a relationship, Carlos seems to really care for her and even introduces her to his family. His mother Carmen doesn‘t like Lidia and at first his sister, Elisa, is jealous of her as Carolina had told her Lidia was in fact Alba, Francisco’s childhood sweetheart, but later believes Francisco when he tells her it was a lie. Carlos trusts Lidia completely, angering Francesco whom he has known for a much longer time and who doesn’t trust Lidia at first. Lidia decides to tell Carlos the truth about her identity but he interrupts her with a marriage proposal which she accepts.

When Carlos learns about the Rotary 7, an invention by Miguel that would make phone calls much easier by automatically switching boards, he is intrigued. He presents the idea to his father who is reluctant to use it as this would prevent his company from spying on his customers which has helped the family to become as rich as they are now. However Carlos secretly continues working on the invention with the help of Alba, who wants to steal it to pay Beltràn. When his father finds out about this, he takes Carlos out of his testament but dies soon after an argument with his son, presumably of a heart attack. Carlos, who had told his father he hated him a few minutes before, is visibly upset and blames himself for his father’s death. Instead of going to the funeral he gets drunk and is brought home by Lidia. Carmen later convinces the company‘s legal advisor not to respect the late changes in Ricardo’s testament so that Carlos will inherit the company and not - as wished by his father prior to his death - Francisco.

When the switchboard operators learn about the Rotary 7, Alba tries to convince Carlos to set up his pilot project in a smaller city and not Madrid to save her friends‘ jobs but he tells her he has already arranged everything to get a patent for the invention and present it to the public. A desperate Alba steals the plans and sells them to another family. When an angry Francisco confronts her about it he calls her Alba, causing Carlos to find out they betrayed him and lied to him about her identity.

### Season 2

Season 2 starts off with Carlos being extremely angry at Alba for stealing the Rotary 7, and giving it to another man, as this caused the company to be bought by another family, Uribe. Alba tries to explain everything and tells him she loves him but he tells her he hates her. Then one night Carlos pretends to accept her apology and sleeps with her, only to steal her idea of phone boxes and present it to their boss, Uribe. When Lidia claims the idea is hers, Uribe tells them to both work on it to prove whose idea it really was. Francisco offers Carlos his help but Carlos is still angry at him for lying to him. He still accepts Francisco's help to destroy Lidia.

In ((Chapter 10: The Pact) Carlos was at first angry at Francisco as he was still hurt because his best friend hadn’t told him the truth about Alba. Francisco explained he had only done this because he had known how much Carlos loved Lidia and he hadn’t wanted to reveal the woman Carlos was in love with was also the woman he, Francisco, loved. He said he now wanted to make up for his past mistakes. Carlos then accepted Francisco’s offer to help him take Lidia down, but only under his terms.

They went for a drink and Francisco proposed to help Carlos create a better project but Carlos knew Uribe believed in the phone box project and wanted to use this last opportunity to really get involved in the company’s work again. Francisco then asked to see Elisa in exchange for his help, to tell her the whole truth about Alba. He learned his ex-wife had been brought into a Sanatorium because she had had a breakdown after the truth about Alba had come out and Francisco had had to leave the house. Carlos told him they’d get Elisa out of the hospital in a few days and agreed to arrange a meeting if Elisa wanted to see Francisco.

A few days later Carlos picked up Elisa at the sanatorium who was not happy to see Francisco. She slapped him and told him she was to annul their marriage. Carlos later told his mother about that which lead to Carmen planning to declare Elisa mentally incapable. Elisa overheard this conversation and was angry at her mother for always treating her worse than her brother.

Sometime later, Uribe’s sister Alexandra (Alex) arrived from New York and was introduced to Carlos and Carmen. Carmen proposed Carlos could help her get used to life in Madrid which both Carlos and Alex seem to think to be a good idea. Then Elisa rushed in and told Uribe about her plans for working in the company. She also openly told him about her plans to annul her marriage, although Carlos and Carmen tried to keep her from doing so.

After Carlos learns that Lidia is pregnant with his child, he decides that he wants to be with her.

## Personality

Carlos is a really nice gentleman but can be very bitter. Even though he may have a playboy past, he has shown that he can be a compassionate and caring person, as he becomes devoted to Lidia. He is show to be very jealous however, especially about Lidia’s relationship with Francisco.

## Relationships

* **Francisco Gòmez:** Best friend, work partner, brother-in-law
* **Doña Carmen Cifuentes:** Mother
* **Elisa Cifuentes**: Sister
* **Don Ricardo Cifuentes Navarro**: Father
* **Alba Romero / Lidia Aguilar:** Mother of his daughter, Fiance

* **Eva Cifuentes Aguilar:** Daughter