Elena of Avalor S1 E9

## Plot

Everyone in Avalor is getting ready to celebrate Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It's a Mexican holiday that's a bit like Halloween. Everyone dresses up, and they eat delicious treats like sugar skulls and pan dulce, also known as sweet bread. However, unlike Halloween, the real Day of the Dead lasts from October 31st to November 2nd. It also has more religious connections and is, as the name implies, a time to celebrate deceased family and friends. Elena loves the holiday and pours her heart into the celebrations. It's especially important to her this year, because she's lost her parents. However, she explains through a song that she's not feeling sad, rather, she's feeling joy, because the Day of the Dead keeps their memories alive. They're all ready to go, except for Isabel. She claims that her costume ripped while she was putting it on. Elena says that a seamstress can mend it, but Isabel wants to do it herself. Elena offers to wait for her, but Isabel tells her that they can go on ahead, and she'll meet them at the graveyard later. We'll come back to this. At the cemetery, the others are setting up the altar for Raul and Lucia. However, Francisco eats the sweet bread, and claims that he thought it was a snack. Elena decides to go pick up some more, since pan dulce was Lucia's favorite treat. Before she can leave though, she discovers that she can see ghosts, and decides to talk to Zuzo. On the way to the coach, she runs into the ghost of an elderly woman, who seems interested in the fact that Elena can see her. Yay, we get to see Zuzo again! He says that Elena can see ghosts because of the magic she got from being in the amulet so long, but only for today. This is because the Day of the Dead is the one day of the year when normal spirits can visit the world of the living. Once Zuzo leaves, the other ghost comes in. She needs Elena's help, because she's the only living person who can see her. Her name is Doña Angelica. Her grandchildren are planning on selling the family restaurant, Café Angelica, that very day. She wants Elena to stop them from selling it. This episode is really funny, what with all the antics that arise from only Elena being able to see ghosts, so you can imagine how normal people react. Or Angelica assuming that the man who wants to own the restaurant, Señor Estrada, is vile and greedy just because he wants to open a bank. Or how she guilt trips Elena into stopping by the restaurant. Carmen is the cook of the restaurant, and her brother Julio is… the manager, I guess? Anyways, they're packing and getting ready to leave. At least, Julio is. Carmen is cooking. They're honored to meet Princess Elena. Carmen tries to serve her food, but it doesn't look very appetizing, and it probably tastes even worse. Elena suggests that she try cooking her grandmother's food, since she heard it was popular. They would, but their grandmother never gave them her recipes. She had a secret cookbook with all of them written down, but they could never find it. Doña Angelica forgot to tell them where she hid it. She'd tell Elena where it was, but she can't remember. Carmen and Julio wonder who she's talking to. She explains that she's talking to their grandmother and can see ghosts. Carmen believes her, but Julio doesn't believe in ghosts. On a side note, Doña Angelica is voiced by Ivonne Coll, a talented Latina actress who was on *Switched at Birth*, *Jane the Virgin*, and *One Day at a Time*. Julio is voiced by Jamie Camil, who was also on *Jane the Virgin*. Isabel is voiced by the amazingly talented national treasure and instantly iconic Jenna Ortega, who played Harley Diaz, another talented Latina inventor, on the Disney Channel live action series *Stuck in the Middle*. She also voiced Brooklynn on *Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous*, and even played the Wednesday Addams on *Wednesday*, both on Netflix. She also played young Jane on *Jane the Virgin*. Yes, lots of *Jane the Virgin* actors appear in this episode, and I love it! Anyways, Doña Angelica thinks that she left her cookbook in a box in the basement, but they can't find it. While looking through the other boxes, Carmen finds her and Julio's old dolls from their childhood. Carmen remembers that Julio would pretend to be the bravest knight in the kingdom, and tried to get the customers to joust with him. Julio remembers playing hide and seek with her during the dinner rush. Whenever they fought, Angelica would feed them. They'd be too happy eating to stay mad at each other. Carmen never could find Julio, and asks him where his hiding place was. He hid in a nook in the back of the pantry. Doña Angelica realizes that's where she hid her cookbook. They look there, and they do indeed find it. So in *five years*, they never once looked behind the sacks? Carmen is ecstatic, since this means that they don't have to sell the restaurant anymore. However, Julio still wants to sell the restaurant, and now he wants to sell the cookbook to make even more money. Even with their grandmother's recipes, he doesn't think Carmen is a good enough cook. They fight over the book, and end up destroying it when it lands in the oven. Now they're both mad at each other, and never want to see each other ever again. Angelica thanks Elena for trying anyways. All she wanted to do was save her restaurant, but instead, she lost her family. Elena sees the dolls and gets an idea. They can still save the restaurant, prove to Julio that Carmen is a good cook, and fix things between the siblings. Doña Angelica can tell Elena the recipes, and she can tell Carmen. She writes down all the recipes and serves the food to Julio. It's just like how Angelica used to make it, which convinces him that she's really here. He apologizes to Carmen for their fight earlier, and he says that she *is* a great cook. The buyer, Señor Estrada, finally arrives. Julio tells him that the restaurant is no longer for sale. They invite him to eat with them. With her work finally done, Elena heads back to the cemetery, but gets some pan dulce from Carmen first. It's so late that Luisa and Francisco are about to eat dinner. They ask her where Isabel is. She hasn't come yet. Elena was taking so long that they thought she went to get her. Elena heads back to the palace to talk to her little sister. Before she comes in her room, Isabel hides her costume under her pillows. She claims that she couldn't fix it, so she decided to stay home. She and Elena try some of the pan dulce. Isabel mentions that it's almost as good as their mother's. They talk about some fond memories of their parents, and end up playing and laughing together on the bed. Elena discovers a beautiful sketch of their parents in Isabel's journal, and suggests that they put it on their altar. Isabel mentions her costume, but Elena says that she can sew it and asks where it is. Isabel looks at her pillows. Elena finds it and sees that it's not ripped at all. Isabel was lying. Elena asks her what's going on. She admits that she doesn't want to go to the graveyard. She misses their parents, and is afraid that if she goes, it'll hurt too much. Elena tells her that she misses them too, but explains that Día de los Muertos is about talking about all the good times they had together. If they keep those memories alive, it's like their parents are always with them. And that doesn't make her sad. It makes her happy. Isabel never thought about it like that and asks if they can still go. They arrive at the cemetery, and Isabel puts her sketch and the pan dulce on the altar. She tells her sister that she feels like their parents are there with them. Elena knows they are. She sees the ghosts of Raul and Lucia by the altar. They give her this look that says "We're so proud of you." The episode ends with the entire family, both alive and dead, together.

## Review

I absolutely loved this episode. I cried the first few times I saw it. You see, just a few weeks before this episode originally aired, I lost my grandfather to cancer. He was 68 years old, and had just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, my grandmother, not long before that. I was 17 years old. It was the first time I had lost someone who was really close to me. I spent a lot of time crying. At school, in the bathroom, the closet, at night in bed. I had been looking forward to this episode before, because I knew that it wouldn't be a glorified Halloween special, but after that happened, I was determined to watch it. Don't get me wrong, I used to love Halloween like certain people love Christmas, but it'd be nice to learn more about a different holiday. Plus, I still love Easter. I could spend hours painting eggs. I had a theory that the episode would end with Elena seeing her parents, and I'm so glad that I was right. Anyways, my grandpa was a really generous man. He was a Vietnam veteran, and he partially lost his hearing in the war. He knew that it was a divisive war, and that a lot of his friends died for nothing. But despite that, he still had faith in democracy and in his country. He was a real patriot. He quit school before he was drafted, and he had to take night classes. He told me to never do that, because it's important to get the best education you can. He always called me and my siblings Jitterbug. As a kid, I preferred the nickname Angel, because I wore a lot of white and was so well behaved. Everyone said so. There's a lot that I never got to tell him, and a lot of things that he'll never see me do, but that's just how life is. Sometimes, I wish I was Latina so I could celebrate those cultural holidays, you know? It'd be nice to have had a quince or celebrate Día de los Muertos. But even if I can't do that, I do plan to rewatch this episode every year during the Day of the Dead, in honor of my grandfather, Frank William Gauntt. I love you, Grandpa. And it must say a lot about how good this episode is, and how much I've seen it, since I wrote the whole thing from memory. I'm so proud of myself! I hope he's proud of me too. Also, Doña Angelica's goal was to save her restaurant, which she did. But in the process of doing so, she almost tore her family apart. Carmen and Julio almost became estranged because of her, although their relationship wasn't in the best shape to begin with. And according to one of Julio's comments, it's been like this for *five years*. Whoa. But Angelica's legacy wasn't just her restaurant. It was her family. And family will always be more important than your own ambitions. *Coco* had a similar message too. I loved that film, which was also heavily inspired by Mexican culture. Also, Montse Hernandez voiced Miguel's cousin Rosa, Jamie Camil voiced Miguel's father Enrique, and Sofía Espinosa played Miguel's mother Luisa, in both English and Spanish. However, she's not related to Eden Espinosa, who we'll be hearing in the next episode.