Verdades Secretas II

Verdades Secretas II is the second and last season of the Brazilian telenovela Verdades Secretas, originally aired on the streaming service Globoplay from October 20 to December 17, 2021 in 50 chapters produced by Estúdios Globo. Written by Walcyr Carrasco, in collaboration with Nelson Nadotti, Vinícius Vianna and Márcio Haiduck, directed by Isabella Gabaglia, Bruno Safadi, Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa, Augusto Lana and Gabriela Amaral and general and artistic direction by Amora Mautner.

Why This Season Is Not A Secret Truth

 * 1) To start with, this season was not necessary, since the first season ended very well and there was no need to do a second season, it was just made to continue the lead focus on Angel (this season would have been necessary, if not continued the main focus on Angel), who returns to be a model in this season, because her son is sick and is in debt (despite the reason why she is in debt, because she killed her husband Guilherme).
 * 2) This season feels more like a porn parody, unlike the first season, which felt more like a prime-time series about the dark side of fashion in a well-done way and got it all right unlike this second season.
 * 3) Some characters have been flanderized:
 * 4) * Angel was turned into in a sociopath murderer and also that exploits people who pass in her way. As already mentioned, she killed her husband Guilherme, just because he got high and ended up destroying the money he inherited from his parents and the Angel's money she had inherited from Alex, but also killed Alex (despite in the last chapter, it was revealed that he didn't die in the plane scene, although it's impossible since he died in the first season and this season doesn't handle it very well with his murder unlike the first season, trying to thwart Alex's murder from the previous season).
 * 5) * Giovanna in this season who wants to frame Angel for the murder of her father Alex, for some reason has a meaningless crush on Angel, which shows the strange obsession she has with Angel in this season.
 * 6) This season uses sex scenes excessively unlike the first season, and to get the cat out of the bag, there are 67 sex scenes(!) in this season, compared to the number of chapters which are 50, which already makes this season disgusting to watch.
 * 7) The song "Two Weeks" by FKA Twigs was a poor choice replacement of "Angel" by Massive Attack as the opening theme of this season, mainly it doesn't match the theme of the telenovela.
 * 8) Characters like Anthony Mariano do not appear in this season, due of Walcyr Carrasco cutting Reynaldo Gianecchini's character and the other existent characters of this season. Some of the new characters like Christiane Torloni's new character that would be a new madam in place of Marieta Severo's character, Fanny Richard (replacing Severo, due to her refusal to act in Um Lugar ao Sol instead) were also unfortunately cut, since would be interesting what the new madam would look like if it had been played by Torloni.
 * 9) * Speaking of Anthony, his mom do not appear neither in this season, can be justified due to the actress who played his mom Fábia, Eva Wilma unfortunately passed away on May 15, 2021, due to ovarian cancer. They could have given a reason for Anthony's mother not appearing in the second season out of respect for the memory of the actress.
 * 10) Just like A Dona do Pedaço, that was also written by Walcyr Carrasco, also underestimates viewers' intelligence by reviving Alex, as mentioned before, he was murdered in season one.
 * 11) To add insult to the injury, due to a disagreement between the Angel actress, Camila Queiroz and Globo about changing the plot and securing her for a possible third season, which was denied by the channel, which resulted in her being fired, further tarnishing the season's reputation.
 * 12) Non-sensical two endings, where they show Alex is still alive, although it's impossible as mentioned before, showing that this season didn't handle Alex's murder from the first season very well.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) As usual, it has great acting from returning actors like Agatha Moreira (Giovanna) and Rainer Cadete (Visky).
 * 2) Despite the bad choice to replace the theme song in this season, the soundtrack used for this season is very cool.

Reception
The second season received negative reception from fans of the soap opera and critics alike.

In the newspaper O Globo, Patrícia Kogut scored zero and criticized "the recurrent didacticism in the dialogues": "The public is not that stupid, no." In her column at UOL, Marcelle Carvalho said that Verdades Secretas 2 is the "typical case of the continuation that shouldn't exist". On Notícias da TV, Gabriel Vaquer said that it is "chaos in the form of a soap opera, Verdades Secretas 2 had no reason to exist". Also on Notícias da TV, Guilherme Machado called the telenovela "very idiotic" and wondered if it would not be a new Cinderela Baiana (one of the worst films made in Brazil). In Metrópoles, Carla Bittencourt rated it as a "soft porn from start to finish". In the Observatório da TV, Fabio Augusto highlighted that, in addition to all the problems of the soap opera, the author Walcyr Carrasco underestimated the public's intelligence by resurrecting Alex.

Despite this, the telenovela was the most watched telenovela on Globoplay's streaming platform in 2021.

A fan on Twitter freaked out because of the end of Angel and Giovanna in the second season and offended Walcyr Carrasco as an old bastard, which made the author criticize him and demanded respect from the fan's attitude for the offenses, saying that he can criticize, but what the fan did crossed the line, what he recanted saying that he "was in a moment of breakdown."

Trivia

 * In July 2021, actor João Gana was fired from the recordings after a video in which the actor verbally and physically abused his then-girlfriend reached Globo. Bruno Montaleone assumed the role of the character Matheus after the controversy.
 * Its airing on TV Globo was going originally to premiere on the second semester of 2023, was later changed to August 30, 2022, but it was delayed to its final date October 4, 2022, due to many sex scenes of the season that had to be removed to its airing on TV Globo.