In the annals of things I could not have seen coming, none has been more unexpected than “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads,” a queer Spanish-language stop-motion comedy melodrama, set in the aesthetic world of a 1980s Pedro Almodóvar film. (It arrived Sunday on Adult Swim, the home of things one doesn’t see coming, and premiered the next day on HBO Max.)

Though it takes place in Ecuador, its central character, Marioneta Negocios (Pepa Pallarés), is Spanish, and it’s easy enough to imagine Almodóvar muse Carmen Maura in the role — though it is also impossible to imagine the story told as well, or at all, in any other way. When I call this series perfect, notwithstanding the happy imperfections of its puppets and sets, it’s not because everything works as it’s meant to, but because there’s nothi

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