Explota Explota

Synopsis

In 1973, after leaving her boyfriend Massimiliano at the altar in Rome, María decides to make a new start taking a return flight to Spain. An orphan without family, money, or resources, at her arrival to the Aiport of Barajas in the City of Madrid, María meets Amparo, a funny, loudmouthed, vivacious, free-spirited woman who works as a flight attendant. Three months later María is living with Amparo, also working as a flight attendant in Barajas, when she meets again Pablo, now looking for a lost suitcase. After he gives her his work address, the suitcase is found and María takes it to return to Pablo, surprised to learn that he works in TVE (Televisión Española, a Spanish TV channel back then). There she meets Chimo, a womanizing producer determined to turn María into a star as one of the dancers in the famous late show "Las Noches de Rosa." Returning to her work at the airport, at the last moment she meets Pablo and gives him his suitcase and her phone number, which leads to a double date with Amparo and Lucas. When Chimo locates María, he convinces her to participate in the show. However, troubles appear by three: Rosa mistrusts María and places her as a possible substitute in case one of the other dancers is absent, and Pablo's father Celedonio is TVE's censor, an old-fashioned man stuck in the early days of Franco's dictatorship, who rejects any kind of modernity and freedom in TV and who wants to fire Chimo. Unfamiliar with the Francoist Regime and its repressive laws, María tries to adjust to it, although she thinks it's outdated. Then Massimiliano appears in Madrid looking for María, trying to win her back. While Amparo's relationship with Lucas sours, María's dream of making her first appearance on TV is shattered after seeing she's been considerably censored. Taking revenge on Pablo after knowing about his relationship with María, Chimo shows her the censor's office, where she discovers that Pablo is Celedonio's son and will be the new censor when his father retires-but it was Pablo himself who actually censored her, on his father's advice. With their relationship in danger, Massimiliano finds and reunites with María, who feels confused about her feelings for Pablo. At the same time, Celedonio forces TVE's staff to choose his son as new censor, betraying Pablo when Celedonio imposes the condition to continue working as a counselor for his son. With the incoming New Year's Eve Special, which will also be the first Special to be broadcast live, María and Pablo are trapped at crossroads: he's between following his father's way or his own; she weighs going back to Rome with Massimiliano against following her dreams of dance and freedom.