Abhiroop Das
Helmed by María Togores and Marina Pérez, Netflix’s ‘All the Truth in My Lies,’ also known as ‘Toda La Verdad de Mis Mentiras,’ follows roommates and best friends, Maria “Coco” and Carlos “Marin,” who have all the affection possible for each other. While they maintain a rather strict no-relationship rule, their dynamic can still be hard to label as either platonic or romantic. Sure enough, the duo has secret feelings for each other, and that’s just one of the many buried truths that lie in their friend circle, which includes Blanca, Aroa, and Leron. Based on Elisabet Benavent’s eponymous novel, the Spanish romance series kicks off with the preparations for Blanca’s marriage. Soon, the group decides to go on a caravan trip for the bachelorette party, unaware that the many tiny knots in their network of relationships are about to come apart, for better or for worse. SPOILERS AHEAD.
All the Truth in My Lies Plot Recap
‘All the Truth in My Lies’ tells the story of two roommates, Coco and Marin, who also happen to be best friends. From the moment that Coco decided to move in, the duo has adhered to not getting into a relationship, but apart from that, their lives seem fairly meshed together. This is seen best in their mutual core group of friends, comprising Leron, Blanca, and Aroa, the latter of whom was also in a relationship with Marin at one point. Coco also briefly got together with a poet named Gus, and while the relationship didn’t go anywhere, the two have remained friends. With Blanca getting married soon, Coco and Aroa plan an elaborate bacherolette trip and party, with only the three of them and Leron, but something still feels amiss. After renting a camper van and heading to the middle of nowhere, Aroa decides to invite Marin and Gus as well.
While Aroa is particularly happy about a chance to get back together with Marin, what she doesn’t know is that Coco has secretly been in love with him this entire time as well. Thus, much of the trip is spent with Coco longingly looking at Marin and Aroa hanging out, desperate to confess her feelings, but also fearful of what might follow. At night, the group draws lots to decide on the pairs sharing a bunk bed, and as fate would have it, Marin and Coco end up together. The following morning, though, Coco half wakes up to find Marin, seemingly asleep and locked in an intimate position with her. As their hands appear to move on their own and things get steamy, Marin moves away in his sleep, only for us to see that he was awake as well.
The next few days of the trip end up being more awkward than anything, as Marin and Coco try to look for private moments to talk things out, but keep getting interrupted. Aroa, suspecting that something is up between the roommates, tries her best to reignite her relationship with Marin as quickly as possible, but is unsuccessful. When Marin and Coco eventually come clean and discuss their anxieties about getting into a relationship, they never manage to reach a conclusion, until one night, an exasperated Aroa confronts her friend, revealing that Marin has been planning to ask Coco to move out, so that his sister can stay in. That’s not all, Blanca has also been cheating on her fiancée with Gus, and as things get messy, Blanca breaks things off with the latter. Meanwhile, Marin decides that he needs some time by himself to make up his mind, and soon enough, Coco leaves the home by herself, putting the future of their relationship on hold.
All the Truth in My Lies Ending: Do Marin and Coco End Up Together?
‘All the Truth in My Lies’ brings its will-they-won’t-they storyline to an end with Marin and Coco confessing their love and ending up together. Though the two just about refuse to talk for weeks, if not months, it is this time spent away that brings full clarity about how much they need each other. After being motivated to take the leap and ask her out, he does just that, in the middle of an art auction. The setting here actually turns out to be relevant, as the piece that Coco has been curating this entire time is about a home, and whether that word can only define a place, or perhaps a person and an emotion. In Coco’s case, it’s all three, and they end up becoming synonymous with Marin, and it is no surprise that she says yes when he asks her to return, not just as a roommate, but as his partner.
Marin and Coco’s hesitation to act on their feelings almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, effectively ruining their friendship before they even commit to a relationship. This, of course, is because of fears and anxieties that take root entirely in their heads and are contextualized by their respective pasts. Marin, who grew up with a traumatic childhood, is naturally hesitant to come into relationships, as he fears that he, too, will end up repeating the cycle. In Coco’s case, it has more to do with ruining the precious bonds she has forged over the years, not just with Marin, but also with the rest of her friends. In the end, it is this very fear of losing their loved ones that derails Coco and Marin’s love story until they realize that the most honest thing to do is to trust their relationships and go with the flow.
In a quick montage spanning the months and years following Marin and Coco’s confession, we see them move in together, get married, and even have children. All this time, the duo has been supported by Blanca and Loren, which just goes to show that their fears were largely unwarranted. Ultimately, the transition from being roommates to lovers cannot be minimized either. Both Coco and Marin realize that it’s one thing to know each other inside and out as best friends, and another as lovers, since they now share a degree of responsibility for each other. Fittingly, the couple decides to officiate this as a new phase by deciding to call each other by their real names, preserving Coco and Marin’s friendship while leading into Maria and Carlos’ relationship.
Does Blanca Get Married? Do She and Gus Get Back Together?
While Coco and Marin’s love story is at the heart of ‘All the Truth in My Lies,’ there is also the main event, Blanca’s wedding, that needs to be seen through. After all, the title of the series is also referring to Blanca and her grand secret, which ultimately ends up changing the course of her story as well. By the end of the show, Blanca decides not to go through with the wedding, realizing that her heart’s not in the relationship with her partner. On a symbolic level, this also underscores that we never even see or hear Blanca’s fiancée, though this may be a bachelorette party; the larger point is how absent Blanca’s fiancée is from her mind and emotions. Instead, the person who takes over her heart is none other than Gus the poet, and it seems like their love never really fades away.
After calling off the wedding, Blanca takes Coco and Loren to the very church where the ceremony was supposed to take place. Instead of her, it’s a couple meant to marry a year from now that decides to tie the knot, and there is likely no one celebrating that move more than our trio of friends. While Blanca doesn’t seem too motivated to resume a relationship with Gus either, she does let Coco know that her feelings for him are very much alive. To begin with, they never really break up because of any individual differences, but mostly because of Blanca acting in solidarity with her friends. After the messy network of relationships starts to get tidied up, it makes sense for Blanca’s feelings to take over once again, and the same is true for Gus as well.
As all of his poems reveal, Gus is the type to deeply fall in love and never quite move on, which is why it makes sense for him to return in Blanca’s life more than a year later. When Coco and Marin sit together with Blanca and Loren for a dine-out, Gus spots them and approaches, and it is very obvious that the spark between him and Blanca is still burning. This scene is intentionally framed just like how Gus and Blanca reconnected years ago, after he broke up with Coco. While we don’t know what’s next for these characters, it is very likely that Gus and Blanca end up together, perhaps getting inspired by Coco and Marin’s love story. Without any need to lie to the world, they are likely to mature a lot more, not just as partners, but also as individuals.
What Happens to Aroa?
After Aora breaks away from the rest of the friend group, her arc takes on an entirely different shape, and we see it culminate in the final montage. As Coco and Marin watch TV, they see Aora winning the Best New Actress award, which serves as a good reminder that her real goal this entire time was to become a star. If her skills weren’t convincing enough in the acting class scene at the start of the series, they surely are now. With this, the show makes a conscious effort to show that all the characters end up on a positive path, leading better lives than before, ever since their secrets came out. While it’s not unusual for friends and partners to keep secrets from each other, it also has the potential to destroy relationships, and most of the characters in the show fix their mistakes before it’s too late.
From the very start, Aroa doesn’t seem to fit cleanly into the larger friend group, and that’s not necessarily for any one reason. Instead, it is the natural fissures in the friend circle that cause this separation, with Aroa’s envy of Coco and Marin’s relationship only accelerating it. Where Aroa’s narrative function truly shines is in the scene where she reveals all the secrets the friends have been hiding from each other, and while it marks her exit from the group, for everyone else, it offers an opportunity to reflect on their mistakes and make amends.
One easy-to-miss detail in Aroa’s final appearance is that her name now has an extra surname. This suggests that she likely got married after moving on from Marin and is happy with this new chapter in her life. While she does play the role of a foil for much of the show, it’s important to note that Marin is the one who emotionally cheated on her for essentially the entirety of their relationship. ‘All the Truth in My Lies’ revels in exploring these gray spaces between character interactions, both on a micro and macro level, which makes Aroa among the more interesting characters in the group. By the end, she seems to have found her groove and made the most of it, and the same holds true for all the others as well.
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