#armando would never admit it but freddy IS his best friend. he's the only person who understands what he's going through

[ladysophiebeckett]

aside fm the fact freddy is indeed armando's best and only friend, we learn a lot of stuff about b x a and mila.

freddy would be sent to buy her diapers, meaning they were bringing that baby to work with them. hugo even makes a brief mention of mila as a child running around his workshop. she was heavily part time raised there. (probably explains why her only friend is that robot mannequin, aida).

we learn that armando took betty dancing for their first year wedding anniversary. mila would have been at least 3 months old. so there was a time when they could, well, make time for themselves. their relationship was not always like what we see in present day.

then we learn that mila's favorite book as a child was 'Alice in Wonderland' that she would make her parents read it to her every night. mila loved the book so much that she imagines her mother as 'Alice', so far as mila nicknaming her mother after the protagonist. no doubt, fm a child's point of view she saw ecomoda as a 'wonderland' and betty as 'Alice' navigating a huge world of mannequins and strange clothes and of course, those checkered floors.

but as mila got older, as she later confesses to betty, she grew to hate ecomoda bc it would take her mother away from her. at some point mila stopped romanticizing ecomoda and saw it only as the thing came between her and her parents. but now that she has a passion for design, she stresses that she wants to 'contribute' to what she believes is the family business. while betty wants to teach her that family, sans ecomoda, is what really matters to her.

mila saying 'you, armandaddy and the rabbit running after the clock' is what's happening in present day. it's no coincidence that armando was looking at video footage of them celebrating mila's 5th birthday. it's no coincidence that the pictures both betty and armando have in their office are of individual pictures they have with mila, again at her 5th birthday party. coincidentally this birthday party is with betty's side of the family. the mendoza's are nowhere to be seen.

both of them yearn to go back to a time when things were easier, when their marriage was not on the brink of divorce, where their individual relationships with their daughter (who they love very much) was not strained or complicated by ecomoda. it's up to them to get to mila and form a united front but neither of them know how to do that, especially now because ecomoda is again in a crisis.

tldr; ecomoda is the crux of the problem in the mendoza-pinzon family and we must kill it.