"This story is about me, but it is also about a place that changed everything."
"Now it's time for another chapter of my triumphant, heartwarming, wonderfully inclusive, mostly true, rags-to-riches life story."
— Maximo
Acapulco is an American Spanish/English comedy series on Apple TV+. It is loosely inspired by the film How to Be a Latin Lover.
In the present day, Malibu-based mogul Maximo Gallardo Ramos (Eugenio Derbez) tells his teenage nephew Hugo (Raphael Alejandro) how he accrued his massive wealth. Maximo's story begins when he was a young man in 1980s Acapulco (Enrique Arrizon) who lands a job at the swanky resort Las Colinas to help support his mother Nora (Vanessa Bouche) and sister Sara (Regina Reynoso). Helping him along are his best friend Memo (Fernando Carsa), the pretty receptionist Julia (Camila Perez) and his "mentor" of sorts, Don Pablo (Damián Alcázar). The cast is rounded out by Jessica Collins as the hotel's starlet owner Diane Davies and Chord Overstreet as her son Chad.
The show premiered in October 2021, with a second season following the next year. It has been renewed for a third.
Tropes:
- California Doubling: In-Universe, a Hawaii-set film is filmed in Acapulco, Mexico.Maximo: If the movie is set in Hawaii, why did they shoot it here?
Diane: For the same reason anyone shoots in Mexico.
Beto: Our natural scenery?
Diane: It's cheaper. - Celebrity Lie: Played for laughs with the chatty bartender, Beto, who is introduced as a guy who has thousands of anecdotes about celebrities...some of which are true.Beto: My friend Marlon Brando makes the same joke about me.
- Childhood Friend Romance: The couple Maximo helps get engaged in the second episode have known each other since childhood and got together in high school. This sweet backstory makes him feel bad about upselling them with the fake proposal package, and he decides to call back to their first meeting as kids with the tire swing for the proposal instead.
- Classical Music Is Boring: In the third episode of season 2, an investor tries to get the pool singers fired because he doesn't like that they only sing Spanish versions of English songs. He tries to have them replaced with classical musicians, but Diane points out that it's bad for business as it just puts the guests to sleep instead of making them buy drinks.
- Connected All Along: The eighth episode reveals that Don Pablo is a former family friend of Maximo's mother Nora who had fallen out with her after his wife (Nora's friend) left him. His interest in mentoring Maximo was partly because of this.
- A Day in the Limelight: The sixth episode of season 2 explores Diane's past and how she got to where she is at the time of the show, discussing her past a small-town girl whose shot at movie stardom was derailed by getting pregnant out of wedlock and becoming a single mother.
- A Death in the Limelight: A variation. The eighth episode explores the past of Don Pablo from the 50s to the 80s. The end of the episode reveals that Don Pablo has died by the time Maximo is telling the story.
- El Spanish "-o": When asking Maximo for help proposing to Julia in Spanish; Chad says that he had always thought Spanish was mostly sticking "o"s to the end of words.
- Familiar Soundtrack, Foreign Lyrics: The pool singers, Augusto and Adriana, are frequently singing Spanish-language covers of popular songs. Justified, as they're entertaining wealthy English-speaking tourists.
- Fake-Hair Drama: In the second episode of season two, Maximo waits on a famous tennis player with luscious hair. After he gives Maximo a paltry tip, Maximo, having figured out that this hair is a wig, leaks this information to a gossipy TV personality for big bucks.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Sara (rebellious and surly) and her older brother Maximo (hardworking and nice).
- Framing Device: The bulk of the story is in flashbacks told by the present-day Maximo to his teenage nephew.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: In the seventh episode, Maximo comes up with the perfect birthday gift for his crush Julia: a dress made from one of her designs. But he decides to trade it to her clueless boyfriend Chad in exchange for the opportunity for his mother to meet an eye doctor, putting his family first even though the decision weighs on him. Julia loves the dress and it manages to patch up her relationship with Chad, though she eventually learns that Maximo was behind it.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Invoked. When discussing Julia's bachelorette party, Maximo claims to his teenage nephew Hugo that Hugo's mom Sara was pounding orange juice. Hugo is unconvinced, saying that they were obviously drinking alcohol, but Maximo insists that it was orange juice because he's the one telling the story.
- Gilligan Cut: In the third episode, Memo has to choose between a Rubik's cube, which he's always wanted, and getting Maximo's beloved scapular back. He huffs that he has to do the right thing...cut to him playing with the Rubik's cube. He gets a second shot, choosing between a handheld game and the scapular...cut to him playing the game.
- Identically Named Group: In the third episiode of season 2, Maximo tries to recall the names of Chad's college fraternity friends, who are all (like Chad) tall, white, and blond bros, so he just calls them all Chad.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode is named after a song.
- The Jeeves: Even though he lives in Malibu, Maximo has an impeccable and full-suited British butler. He even lampshades that his butler is pure white to his nephew.
- Learnt English from Watching Television: It's the 1980s in Acapulco, but the Mexican employees at Las Colinas are required to speak English. Maximo tells Julia that he learned English from Star Wars and Indiana Jones. She tells him she learned it from authors like Jane Austen and the Brontës.
- Mole in Charge: In the seventh episode of season 2 the boss Diane orders her "personal assistant" Maximo to find out who leaked information about a starlet guest's age, not knowing that it was Maximo.
- The Missus and the Ex: Chad's ex-girlfriend Kelli gets herself invited to his fiancee Julia's bachelorette party, to the latter's dismay.
- Mister Muffykins: Multimillionaire Maximo owns a little chihuahua, naturally named Minimo.
- New Year Has Come: The season finale is set at the 1984-1985 New Year's Eve party at Las Colinas and accordingly involves several major changes to the status quo.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- After the first season finale reveal that Hector is Sleeping with the Boss, several prior scenes are replayed but with emphasis on the two in the background.
- Played for laughs in the second episode of season 2. As Maximo figures out that the tennis player's hair is a wig, previous scenes focusing on his hair are repeated, some even in slow motion.
- Parodied when Las Colinas throws a wrap party and Hector tricks Memo into watching the film's dog actor. Hector says that "Bud McKinley is a party animal". After Memo learns Bud is a dog, he flashes back to Hector emphasizing party animal, and then telling him to remember this later because it will be important.
- Operation: Jealousy: Maximo runs into his crush Julia while acting as The Beard for his sister's girlfriend Roberta. Memo (who doesn't know that Roberta is gay) advises Maximo to lean into it and let Julia see what she's missing by not dating him.
- Portmanteau: Chad coins "hermigo" from the Spanish words hermano and amigo to refer to him and Maximo.
- Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Working-class Maximo has a crush on his colleague Julia, who is dating but not 100% happy with their wealthy boss Chad. When she considers this love triangle late in the first season, she thinks that Chad might not truly get her like Maximo does, but he is sweet and rich and that counts for something.
- Sleeping with the Boss: Hector is hooking up with the resort owner Diane, which lands him a promotion to pool manager.
- Spexico: Hector, the lead pool boy at the Acapulco resort, tells Maximo that he is actually Spanish, but the gringos don't care.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Different actors play Maximo and his peers in the present day and in the 80s. The eighth episode gives Don Pablo, Nora, and Lupe younger actors to show them in the 50s/60s.
- Token White: Chad and his mother Diane, tall white blond Americans who don't speak a lick of Spanish, are both visually and culturally distinct from the rest of the main cast, who are dark-haired and Hispanic.
- Training Montage: Don Pablo gives Maximo a crash course in waiting fine dining set to a Spanish cover of "Eye of the Tiger".
- Uptown Girl: Julia (working-class receptionist) is dating Chad (the rich resort's owner's son). Diane isn't above exploiting her son's relationship with a member of the staff to rich patrons and investors as proof of how they've "embraced the Latin American community".
- Uncanny Family Resemblance:
Actors are often recycled to show extreme family resemblance.- Carolina Moreno plays both Lorena and the younger self of Lorena's aunt Lupe.
- Fernando Carsa plays both Memo in the 80s and Memo's present-day son "Memito".
- Wedding Finale: The flashbacks in the last episode of season 2 end with the wedding of Nora and Esteban. The Las Colinas crew handle the afterparty, and there is a lot of romance and sentimentality at the event.
