Caray, Caray!

Hi friends,

I'm leaving for Paris on Saturday - I'll be gone for three weeks, home for one week, then gone for two more weeks. So it won't be till mid-August that I'll be back for good and ready to resume Monday recapping. I hope you can get "Heridas" off to a good start without me - I'll be relying on your blogging to get me up to speed when I return!

So here's my last episode of Barrera, for real. I'm way too tired of this show to be funny today, sorry!

We start with the dispirited theme song, and then Manola and her dad in the dark, discussing their plan, which is to pretend Gustavo has gone off to the clinic while actually keeping him locked up in the house, with a new nurse who doesn't know what's been going on. Why don't they just kill him and stop talking about it? (Remember that Austin Powers scene with Seth Green?) Gustavo's thought bubble: "Uh, I'm a Goner."

The Maldonado brothers gaze upon their mother's portrait, recently completed by their sister, she of the lizard-facelift. The portrait features the famous diamond necklace; this causes Maite's father to fulminate about his great love for Eloisa-who-deserted-him and his wish to see the necklace again. As we know, Maite (his daughter) has it.

Federico catches Valeria and Andres kissing in the dark, but says he's on their side. "Leave it to me, I know how to manage Doña Jacinta." He points out Jacinta could have Andres put in jail since Valeria is a minor - so, reluctantly, the lovers agree, though Andres has been seeking an opportunity to tell the old harpy his intentions are honorable. Federico goes right off and snitches to Jacinta, and they hatch a plan. She disparages the lovers as having a relationship "de tajo," anybody?

To add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, Manola and her dad go to the airport to call home and say "We're on our way to the clinic!" They don't know what to do if Rodrigo insists on seeing his father...

I forget who calls Federico a "lambiscon" (bootlicker), maybe Juanita, who thinks the lovers were idiots to trust Federico, and that they better look out for Rodrigo as well.

In the first of Unibrow's two scenes in this episode, he is 1/8" tall, on a horse with Nutria way across a field. She is doubtful she will survive her treatments. He tells her he's glad she's been so nice to his kids. Way to go. In the second scene, he says she'll be cured and she, acting, yells that her cancer is not curable. He just stands there.

Veronica tells Maite and Victor: "My therapist is good, we talk about my "real" mother and I cry." They say crying is good. Then Jacaranda tells her psychiatrist buddy Carlos (who figured out Veronica has multiple personalities): "I really want to know what's going on in that crazy little head." They discuss his going to Aguascalientes to observe Veronica. It turns out Carlos knows Jacinta already - because he was hired (by Rafael) to help her - he in fact gave her the poison powders and was paid well. Jacaranda says, well then none of this is a coincidence, because it was Rafael who called you in on that day when Magdalena (Veronica's mother), unfortunately, died. "Yes, Rafael has called me over the years when he had little jobs..."

Jacinta goes to church, receives the obsequious thanks of the padre, and asks him to celebrate a birthday mass for Valeria, who has fallen under bad influences. She tries to blame Remedios and then finishes, "We must banish the demons of the flesh," as she fingers her throat. Her look of alarm is a bit overdone, perhaps she swallowed a frog.

Of all our subplots, perhaps the dullest is Federico's sulking about his mother marrying Octavio. They run across each other and come to blows, he shouts he'd rather be an orphan than have her for a mother.

Jacinta is in a dark cellar gloating over her leftover packets of powder. "I wonder if they're still effective after all these years?" She mixes one into a milk drink, almost tries it herself, and then takes it off to Valeria, who doesn't really want it. "DRINK THE DAMN MILK." "Later," Jacinta thought-bubbles, "you'll understand everything I've done is in your best interests."

Remedios tells Octavio she did not accept Pedro's offer (to leave Jacinta and marry her) because Pedro's father begged her not to.

In a bar, Sergio speculates with the sulking Federico that his father may have been Pedro Valladolid. Federico barges into his mother's apartment yelling, TELL ME WHO ... blah blah and Octavio surprisingly stands up and says, "I. I am your father." This completely dumbfounds Federico who goes off, drinks some more, and is disgusted that his father was a mediocre nobody. If his father isn't Pedro Vallodolid, then Federico doesn't care who he is. Octavio tells Remedios - who is very displeased with his interference - that he thought this might bring them all closer together.

Unaware that Valeria is tossing and turning in a drugged dream, Andres sneaks across the grass to visit her and is attacked by a crazed dog. Luckily for him, Baldo is in the neighborhood and immediately scares the dog off with gunshot and takes Andres home to get patched up. Juanita figures this was Federico and Jacinta's doing, but does not believe Jacinta would harm her own grand-daughter Valeria. Andres goes out to try again.

Veronica, snuggled into Maite's arms, says Valeria may seem to have everything but she doesn't have a mother's love. "Valeria's mother must have been a really rotten woman to abandon her like that." Maite objects.

Clotilde is about to take some food up to Valeria but Jacinta forbids it, barking "Leave her alone." Sergio slouches in, and when Clotilde explains about the tray, and that Jacinta often used to punish Valeria by denying her meals, Sergio says he'll take the tray up. He enters Valeria's bedroom to find Andres hunched worriedly over his drugged, sweating, sweetie.

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And that's all folks! See you on the other side. Have a great six weeks!

Labels: barrera