Envious

The Art of Wanting Too Much

I’ve spent the last three days thinking about Vicky. Not the character—well, not just the character—but the way Griselda Siciliani plays her: a woman who wants so much, so loudly, that it becomes impossible to look away, even when you want to. Envious (or Envidiosa, in its original Spanish) is a show about the messiness of desire, the kind that doesn’t tidy itself up into neat arcs of self-improvement.

It’s about the way envy curdles into self-sabotage, and how friendship can both hold you together and accidentally feed the worst parts of you. And it’s about the particular agony of being almost 40, when the gap between what you thought your life would be and what it actually is starts to feel like a chasm.

The first time we meet Vicky, she’s in the middle of a breakup so brutal it feels like a death. Her boyfriend of seven years has just left her for a younger woman, and she’s standing in her apartment, surrounded by the detritus of a life she thought was permanent: half-unpacked boxes, a wilting plant, a framed photo of the two of them that she hasn’t yet turned facedown. Siciliani plays this moment with a kind of exhausted precision.

She’s not crying—not yet—but her face is slack with the shock of someone who’s just realized she’s been sleepwalking through her own life. The camera lingers on her as she picks up the photo, studies it for a beat too long, and then—without any grand gesture—drops it into the trash. It’s a small moment, but it’s the kind that defines the show: Vicky’s pain is quiet, but it’s also active.

She’s not just suffering; she’s doing something about it. Even if that something is just throwing away a picture.

What follows is a four-season odyssey of bad dates, therapy sessions, friendship dramas, and increasingly desperate attempts to fill the void left by her ex. Vicky is the kind of protagonist who’s equal parts relatable and infuriating. She’s funny, sharp, and deeply human in her flaws—she’s also selfish, self-destructive, and occasionally insufferable.

The show doesn’t shy away from this duality. In one scene, she’s hilariously dissecting the absurdity of modern dating with her friends; in the next, she’s spiraling into a text-message meltdown because the guy she’s seeing hasn’t responded in three hours. Siciliani makes these shifts feel organic, never letting Vicky become a caricature of female neurosis.

There’s a moment in the second season where she’s on a date with a man who’s clearly wrong for her, and you can see the exact second she realizes it. Her smile tightens, her posture stiffens, and for a brief, excruciating moment, she looks like she might cry. But then she laughs—too loud, too bright—and orders another drink.