‘Vida’ Panel Takes On Gentrification – TCA

“What is Lyn looking for,” a TV critic at TCA wondered of Melissa Barrera’s character in Starz’s Vida Season 2

“You get to see her trying hard to be useful and have a purpose now that the sisters have decided to stay and get this bar back up from the ashes and running,” Barrera said. “She is trying hard to make herself useful to her sister, to show her she can contribute in a significant way.”

“We get to see her outside of her relationship had with Johnny that ended end of Season 1,” the actress continued. “She doesn’t know how to be by herself, but trying to put her energies into the bar…It’s going to be a beautiful thing outside the adultery and selfishness of Season 1.”

The seeming inevitability of gentrification is another through line in the second season of the series about Mexican-American sisters Emma and Lyn (Mishel Prada, Melissa Barrera) from the Eastside of Los Angeles who return to their old neighborhood,

“This show attempts to chronicles a moment in time by fictionalizing it,” staying true to what is happening in this neighborhood, creator Tanya Saracho acknowledged Tuesday at TCA.

That said, Vida is “not an issue-based show. It’s a lived experience show. We stay true to that,” Saracho said.

“A show like this can bring positive or negative attention to an area like the Eastside [of LA]. So there is responsibility to that,” she added.

“But It’s hard to make a TV series responsible for something so big” as gentrification, Barrera weighed in. “We stay true to the moment that is happening.”

Just days after its Season 1 finale in June, Starz ordered a second season of its Latinx drama series, extending Saracho’s relationship with Starz, where she signed a three-year overall deal in February.