Aahana Swrup
The Spanish show ‘Time Flies’ charts an engaging narrative of the lives of two women who are faced with a dangerous proposition that is hard to ignore. Ines and Manca came into each other’s lives while serving time in prison for their respective crimes. Now, out in the world, the duo has started up a business together as pest control fumigators. However, an unexpected medical emergency puts the two friends in a quandary. As a result, when Ines gets a lucrative offer from one of the clients, Susana Bonar, she has no choice but to consider it. All that the wealthy woman seems to be looking for is a high-grade poison that is rather difficult to come by. Even though it’s obvious that the woman is planning on murdering someone, the ex-convict tries to convince herself that she can have a clean conscience as long as she has plausible deniability. Nonetheless, this dubious line of reasoning begins to fall apart once Manca discovers a fishy connection between Bonar and Ines’ past, pre-prison life. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Time Flies Recap
Ines used to be a traditional housewife married to a wealthy man named Ernesto. However, despite the optics, her marriage was dreadfully unhappy. Even though the family maintained a happy image on the outside, secretly, everyone had their hunch about Ernesto’s extramarital affair. Eventually, as his indiscretions piled up, and the wife caught him with his mistress, she recklessly put the pedal to the metal and ended up earning herself a criminal offense. Fifteen years later, she’s out on parole, crashing with her best friend, Manca, who is also her business partner at their joint pest control endeavor. Their gigs are usually more trouble than they’re worth, and their customers are stingy with on-time payments. As a result, both women are broke enough that Ines can’t look for her own place and Manca can’t afford to have a doctor check out the concerning lump in her breasts.
One day, one of their clients, Susana Bonar, ends up calling back for another fumigation shortly after the first session. Even though Manca is unable to make the appointment, the wealthy woman is more than happy to have only Ines stop by. As it turns out, there’s a reason Bonar is eager to make contact with the ex-convict. After some subtle questioning about their pest control chemicals, the client finally reveals that she’s in need of some strong toxins herself. Soon enough, she comes out with her request, sharing the name of the deadly poison she’s in the market for but can’t procure herself. Therefore, she’s willing to pay good money for Ines to help her get her hands on the product. Off-the-bat, Manca is against the whole thing when she learns about it. Nonetheless, it does little to stop her friend, who is worried about the other’s health above all else.
Eventually, Ines relents and pays Bonar another visit, wherein she learns that the latter knows all about her own past, where Ernesto’s affair drove her to commit homicide. Therefore, she appeals to her sense of empathy in an effort to convince her to find the poison for her. The hefty advance she hands out for the job is plenty of incentive. When this money helps Ines finally take Manca to a specialist for a biopsy, she begins looking for the poison around the town. Eventually, she finds a shady location that seems willing to sell it to her, given that she has the proper license for it. Meanwhile, Manca, who remains suspicious of Bonar, shadows her housekeeper, Trini, and gets close to her in order to learn everything about the wealthy woman. Thus, she discovers that Bonar had lied about why she needed the poison since her husband is already long-dead. However, by then, her friend loses the ability to decline the deal since the client seems to have incriminating video of her accepting the bribe, which makes it seem like theft.
This compels Manca to look deeper into Bonar’s real motives, especially once she finds out that she got their business contact from a woman named Lilliana Villanueva. The latter is the sister of Charo, Ernesto’s husband, and the woman whom Ines murdered in her manic haze all those years ago. However, much to her surprise, Lilliana is already dead, thus eliminating revenge as the possible driving force. While her snooping continues, she also has to simultaneously help her friend procure the poison and deliver it to Bonar, who weilds the incriminating video with an iron fist. Around the same time, Ines’ past pops up in the form of her estranged daughter, Lali, who seems to be connected to the wealthy woman in some way. Ultimately, it all leads to one eerie party, where Lali and her daughter Guille are the only attendees, and Bonar is the host, armed with one possibly lethal jar of smoothie.
Time Flies Ending: Why Does Bonar Want the Poison? Who Does She Want to Kill?
Bonar’s motives throughout the story become a point of major intrigue. Initially, she tries to make her case by telling a sob story similar to Ines’ of a cheating husband to earn the other woman’s sympathy and help. Nonetheless, this story quickly falls apart once Manca learns of her husband and her suspicious connection to the Villanuevas. She suspects that the wealthy woman must be in cahoots with Lilliana Villanueva as a part of some overarching vengeful plot. Yet, the latter’s death erases even that theory from the running. In the end, an unexpected truth emerges. As it turns out, Bonar is indeed pursuing a revenge plan, but not against Ines and not in response to Charo’s death. Instead, a more personal backstory is at play.
From the get-go, Bonar showcases many eccentric and troubling behaviors toward her daughter, Tamara. She keeps the latter’s bedroom as a perfect shrine for her and pretends to receive mail from her, despite sealing the packages and the letters herself. These are all symptoms of a deeper history of denial. Bonar used to have a kid, Tamara, who went on to come out as a transgender boy, Timo. Nevertheless, the mother refused to accept her son for who he truly was. Instead, she continued trying to force him into reversing his transition, pushing overtly feminine things, like dresses and a loud pink bedroom, on him. Fortunately, the kid had some good friends and a high school counselor who made him feel accepted and understood. However, tragedy struck one day when a house party resulted in Timo’s death after he got in a fight with an older man harassing one of his female friends.
Bonar heard the news from Lali, the counselor and the mother of Timo’s friend, Guille. Afterward, she was called in to identify her kid’s body at the morgue. However, in her grief and bigoted hatred for his son’s transition, the mother refused to accept the dead body as her kid, insisting it wasn’t Timo. As such, since that day, she has continued to live in denial about the death of her son, while simultaneously blaming Lali for everything that happened. More than the death itself, she’s distraught about Timo’s gender transition, treating that as the jumping point that led her to “lose her daughter.” For the same reason, Bonar wants to take revenge on Lali by putting her through the same grief as herself: the loss of a child.
Does Guille Die? Does Ines End Up Back in Prison?
After Ines and Manca deliver the poison to Bonar, the former tries to step away from the entire thing. She shifts her focus to her friend’s cancer operation, which happens to fall on the same day as the wealthy woman’s party, one she is holding in honor of her “daughter.” Fortunately, Manca had convinced her cousin, Rodie, to continue looking into her background, particularly the school that connected her to Lali. Therefore, he’s able to uncover the entire story about Timo and his death, alerting Ines about it along the way. As he continues tailing Lali and her daughter, he eventually realizes that they’re visiting Bonar. Consequently, the pieces fall into place, and the ex-convict realizes that the lives of her estranged daughter and her granddaughter are at risk.
While Ines tries to reach Bonar’s house, the host brings out her special smoothie recipe, serving it to her two guests. Soon enough, Guille begins to feel the effects of the poison in her drink. By the time her mother realizes what is happening, it’s already too late. In turn, Bonar revels in the success of her unhinged plan. She blames Lali and her acceptance of Timo’s transition and wants to take the other mother’s daughter away from her in retribution. However, before the poison can take hold, Ines manages to arrive at the location, breaking into the house. Her overriding of the security around the house alerts local authorities, allowing them to arrive in the nick of time to take Guille to the hospital. In the end, the teenager manages to survive the incident after the doctors conduct detoxifying procedures on her.
Although Ines manages to save her granddaughter, she eventually faces the consequences of her actions. Despite everything, the woman is to blame for letting monetary incentives sway her morality into actually considering helping Bonar in carrying out a murder. If she had declined the offer and alerted the authorities, none of this would have had to happen. Additionally, she also fakes documents and later robs a business to get her hands on the poison for Bonar, which is ultimately used for an attempted murder. Therefore, even though Lali and Guille agree to speak in her favor, and one of her other clients, Ricardo, represents her in court, Ines can’t evade the conviction and prison sentence for her crime. Six months later, she once again gets out of prison on parole.
How Does Manca’s Operation Go?
Manaca’s cancer remains at the center of the narrative. Even though Ines and her have been at the brink of financial ruin for some time now, it’s her deteriorating health condition that pushes her friend to consider illegal means of moneymaking. Thus, even though her dealings with Bonar end up landing her in trouble, it also leaves something good behind in her life. The advance payment and the aspiring murderer’s supplies pay for Manca’s fast-paced treatment. As a result, by the time Ines finds herself in handcuffs, her friend has already undergone the operation, removing the cancer from her body.
Still, the operation’s success doesn’t necessarily confirm a safe future for Manca. Both she and Ines are aware of the same reality. Perhaps for the same reason, once the latter is out of prison on parole, the two friends decide to once again risk their freedom for a chance at happiness. They end up using their pest control services as a cover to create a diversion at the hospital and steal back the cash payment they had made for Manca’s treatment. Thus, the ending finds the two ex-convicts enjoying a vacation at the beach. Despite the various complications in their lives, including Ines’ complex relationship with her estranged biological family, at least the two have each other in their lives.
