RPM Miami: Street Racing Telenovela Takes Latino Culture to New Heights

After watching RPM Miami last night we're not sure quite what to think. We know that the show is Mun2's testosterone-fueled sausage fest, which promotes women as immoral, materialistic whores, but...it's still fun to watch.The show -- think the Fast and the Furious shot telenovela-style -- revolves around a group...

By Ily Goyanes

May 16, 2011

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After watching RPM Miami last night we're not sure quite what to think. We know that the show is Mun2's testosterone-fueled sausage fest, which promotes women as immoral, materialistic whores, but...it's still fun to watch.

The show -- think the Fast and the Furious shot telenovela-style -- revolves around a group of 305-ers who are involved in street racing - some inadvertently.

The melodramatic hi-jinks begin when Alejandro, played by

Salvadorian actor Adrian Bellani, an Army Ranger who has returned from

Iraq, returns to Miami from the war only to find his father missing, his

mother distraught, and his little sister whoring it up. Of course no

proper Latino male would put up with this so Alejandro sets out to

discover the truth, set things right, avenge his father, oh -- you know

the rest.

The show is completely bilingual and

unlike most productions shot in Miami, the locations are easily

recognizable to locals. In last night's episode, we recognized Churchill's

Pub in Little Haiti and Fritanga Moralimpia in Sweetwater.

Last

night was only the third episode, but Latino writers are no slackers,

and in true telenovela fashion, kicked the drama into high gear:

Alejandro, still searching for his father, meets with Emilio, one of his dad's co-workers. Emilio is acting like a paranoid meth addict, talking in a weird code and saying stuff like, "the roses are wilting." Right before Emilio gets murdered, he passes on this piece of William Burroughs-esque information during a phone conversation with Alejandro. From that single and nonsensical phrase, Alejandro deduces that something is buried beneath a rose bush on the grounds of the guy's apartment complex.

After Alejandro goes to the apartment complex and does indeed retrieve a secret notebook from under a rose bush, a mysterious lady police detective sees Alejandro surreptitiously leaving the grounds and immediately suspects him of Emilio's murder and has him arrested.

Like all true telenovelas, in spite of all the murders, theft, wrongful arrests, and evil twins, the main concern is love. And this week the romantic tension between Alejandro and Luisa (the widow of Alejandro's best friend who died in Iraq) grew to new levels. Some people might think it's dirty to get busy with your dead buddy's pal, but hey - all's fair in love and war, right?

Meanwhile, the lady detective gets shadier by the minute. It's possible she could be in cahoots with El Guajo, the guy who owns "the south side." El Guajo has been the main villain in the series so far, but we think that is about to change. There were plenty of allusions in this episode to make us think that El Guajo is a relatively nice guy compared to some of the other scumbags going around.

Speaking of scumbags, RPM has plenty. First there's the creepy bald guy who disguised himself as a cop (complete with cop car) in the last episode and as a mailman in this episode and murdered two people (that we know of so far). Then there's Luisa's friend Gina's boss, who secretly videotaped his and Gina's sex session, only for the video to mysteriously appear on the office interweb.

Being the typical chick she is, Luisa tells Alejandro that they need a break from each other - even though their main interaction comes from the wet dreams Luisa keeps having. Spurned, Alejandro hooks up with the detective - yes, the same one that had him arrested. The creepy one. The one who seems to be up to no good.

Alejandro better keep his shit in check -- you can just tell that detective is gonna be trouble.

Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami.

Ily Goyanes

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