Caray, Caray!

I thought since Promiscuous Reader will be blogging Heridas tonight, I'd drop in on Barrera de Amor, which is in its final episodes. Its death throes, you might say.

A fax is extruded from Unibrow's machine. It's actually from Federico! A notice of Andres' bull-fight, which is this very afternoon. Federico and Jacinta are trying to foment disaster.

Unibrow commences shouting and does not stop all night. "Everybody knew, everybody betrayed me, you all went behind my back and helped Andres do this thing which I had forbidden!"

Daniel and a miscellaneous henchman (named Severino, wearing a hot pink shirt) rush off to the plaza to warn Andres that he has another raging bull after him.

Valeria spends the entire night sequestered in a nunnery somewhere, praying ardently for Andres' safety. Evidently they're on the outs - though she still loves him - no doubt Jacinta has successfully engineered some piece of business to separate them.

Veronica was completely unseen. She is in fact in a mental institution and Maite and Victor are only allowed to see her once a week. They pray for her, then go to the bullfight.

Jacinta and Federico go to the bullfight too, to see the results of their mischievous intervention.

Somehow, Manolo and her dad have lost Gustavo! It seems he recently almost managed to strangle Manolo to death, so I guess he's been recovering. But even though he was still helplessly confined to bed, now he's disappeared. It seems he somehow got onto a truck, and then somehow tumbled out of the truck into the road, which wasn't so good for him. Now he's in a hospital and nobody knows who he is (I saw from the previews, though, that tomorrow night Victor will arrive and recognize him). The doctor is puzzled as to how a guy who is confined to bed could throw himself out of a car. "How his family must be worrying about him." Tee-hee: yes, Manolo and her dad are desperate to find their near-corpse before he rats them out.

After preening thoughtfully in the mirror for a long long time, Andres prays, invoking Nuria's name (I gather she's dead). He is driven to the plaza; people crowd around to get his autograph and there are tv reporters and cameras. He looks pretty spiffy in his suit of lights, which Maite bought for him after selling her famous necklace. He thought-bubbles: "I hope that after today I never have to lie to my father again."

There is a trick horse in the bullfighting ring, it can dance the Charleston. This is the best sight in the episode. I want to see more of that horse. The guy on the horse is pretty spiffy too.

Andres puts on his stupid bullfighting hat to the sound of emotional, soaring ... synthesizer riffs. And, here comes the bull! And, here comes Severino! and bringing up the rear, here comes Daniel! He is puffing, sweating, gasping, and staggering. "Oh, are you OK?" Severino, you moron, it would be clear to anybody that Daniel is definitely not ok.

Andres does well in the ring. The bull loses his ear (don't worry, we don't see how it happens).

And here comes the other bull: Unibrow, huffing and puffing as he jogs ponderously down the tunnel looking fierce. He emerges, becomes ashen when he sees his son in the ring, and Maite sees him and then she becomes ashen, and Jacinta sees him and is pleased because her mischief is working well. Unibrow shouts at everybody in sight: "If anything happens to Andres, it's YOUR FAULT!" That's mature, Unibrow.

Andres comes backstage after the first round and everybody is clustered in the dust and there's lots more shouting and then Daniel faints and, as they call the medics, he tells Andres to be a great bullfighter and then dies. Unibrow and company take Daniel to a hospital, where attempts to revive the poor boy are futile, and now Unibrow shouts more, and blames Maite, and also blames Andres. Then Andres says: "I'm leaving forever, you lost two sons tonight..."

... and then goes back into the ring for round two! And succeeds some more. Pardon my lack of bullfighting terminology to describe his little waves and feints and whatnot. Anyway, at the end, he brandishes completely clean and tidy and bloodless bull body-parts at the crowd. In fact not a drop of blood has been seen today, it's the cleanest bullfight you could imagine. He dedicates his victory to his brother.

Labels: barrera