There’s nothing like an evil stepsister to get you all worked up. Surely, she’ll raise hell for her favorite person to bully, and she can even become so exciting to watch when portrayed by a good actress like Maris Racal, whose natural feistiness takes the level of entertainment up a notch.
Viewers love to hate Maris in the Kapamilya series Can’t Buy Me Love where she plays Irene, the deliciously appalling half-sister to Belle Mariano’s Caroline. Watch her unleash her kontrabida prowess via this Kapamilya Toplist of scenes.
We open this video montage with that trending confrontation where Irene bumped into Caroline at their sister Bettina (Kaila Estrada)’s engagement party, causing her to spill champagne on her own dress. Pissed, she made Caroline feel the brunt of her ire by mocking her and telling her to also kill herself like her mom allegedly did since she was wearing black to commemorate her mother’s death anniversary that day.
One thing she enjoys, apart from non-stop partying, is making Caroline’s life a living nightmare. Her involvement in her sister’s kidnapping might be a blur for now, but one thing’s for sure, she was so happy when Caroline was gone. She rummaged through Caroline’s stuff and stole all the latter’s branded bags and shoes and handed them to Felix (Alex Medina) as payment for a certain loan. Felix accepted the items, but only as collateral. The two’s connection is quite intriguing in that Felix keeps pestering Irene for money, which she always fails to provide on the agreed time.
When confronted by Caroline during their family meeting about the abduction, Irene said she’s innocent, but refused to explain herself when interrogated by her own mother, who seemed convinced of her capability to engage in such a crime.
As Caroline said in a separate conversation with Bingo (Donny Pangilinan), it isn’t the first time Irene pushed her into trouble, recalling that incident where Irene used her identity and credit cards to scam people. The flashback scenes further revealed how Irene ruthlessly destroyed one of Caroline’s most treasured stuff – a bracelet that she got from her mother.
Irene also showed satisfaction when she met with Stephen (Darren Espanto), whom she obviously has a crush on but likes Caroline instead, and told him that Caroline is gone for good. Even Stephen had an inkling about her possible involvement in Caroline’s disappearance then, certain that she could savagely hurt other people for her own evil intentions.
Irene is so good at bullying that she has many times humiliated Jersey (Chie Filomeno), Caroline’s best friend, for the whole world to see. One time, she announced that Jersey gate-crashed her party. But taking advantage of her love of partying and flirting with boys, Caroline and Jersey used Bingo to gather evidence of Irene’s possible crime of abduction. The act required Bingo to get Irene’s attention. From there, the scenes turned nothing but deliciously entertaining as Maris immaculately played her bad girl character. She had successfully depicted the moves and twang and facial expressions of a prima donna who feels like she can get anything or anyone she wants. She got into a fun drinking session with Bingo and then brought him home. She then moves on to bringing him to her room but only to realize that he isn’t interested.
The next morning, she woke up to a severe hangover and casually reacted to their missing billions of money. While she is mean to the bone when dealing with Caroline, Irene is noticeably a playful ‘bunso’ when it comes to Bettina, keeping her selfish-brat villainous character so interesting to watch.
Don’t miss an episode of Can’t Buy Me Love, weeknights, on Kapamilya Channel, Kapamilya Online Live, TV5, and A2Z.