Eva Longoria returns to television this week in her role on Land of Women on Apple TV+.

Longoria plays Gala, a well-to-do New York housewife whose world is turned upside down when her husband vanishes after getting their family tangled in his financial wrongdoings.

Learning that some gun-wielding hitmen are looking for her due to her husband’s unpaid debts, Gala flees the city with her mother, Julia (Carmen Maura), and teenage daughter, Kate (Victoria Bazúa). The trio escapes to La Muga, a small wine town in northern Spain that Gala’s mother left 50 years before, attempting to escape her own secrets.

Although the initial plan for the journey was to hide in plain sight, the three begin to find their true selves as time unravels.

At first glance, Gala may cause viewers to have a flashback of Longoria’s infamous Desperate Housewives character, Gabrielle Solis. While the characters share an affinity for sky-high stilettos, designer fashions and husbands who have questionable actions, Longoria said the similarities end there. “I feel like they’re complete opposites,” she told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in a recent interview.

She pointed out that while Gabrielle was so confident and used her intelligence, looks and sexuality to get what she wanted, that wasn’t the case for Gala. “I feel like Gala is very insecure. She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s just been this trophy wife in the shadow of her husband,” Longoria said. “She doesn’t have a good relationship with her daughter or mother. And so that’s what attracted me to play Gala, the arc that she was going to be on. She is not the same person in Episode 1 as in Episode 6.” Completing her analysis of Gala, Longoria said, “She’s not a survivor.”

Santiago Cabrera

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