Caray, Caray!

• We must start with Veronica, aka V3. Alter-ego #2, the timid but sweet Violeta, newly sprung from the mirror wherein she was trapped when Alter-ego #1 Vera escaped and crushed the glass, has now crushed the glass trapping Vera. (If you haven't been watching this show, there's no way you're going to understand this.) Violeta wraps the mirror in a cloth and scuttles out of the room, determined to act like Vera so Jacinta will suspect nothing - Violeta wants to stay at the hacienda to help her half-sister Valeria! Who, ironically, is only staying at the hacienda to help V3!
  
  Violeta picks up the invite to last night's fiasco at Las Barricas and then runs into Rodrigo, who says, "I want to be frank, it's not that I didn't enjoy macking with you, but I'm starting to have feelings for another." "That's fine. What is this invitation? What happened at that party?" I guess Rodrigo tells her - next thing we know the chauffeur has driven her to Shrek's estate and she is tearfully reunited with Victor and Maite.
  
  And reveals that she is the third piece of V3, whom nobody's met before. Violeta explains: she and Vera each know everything that's going on, while poor Veronica is always in the dark. "When Vera was crazy, I stopped her! When Vera was about to marry Federico, the police showed up and she was afraid, so she just disappeared and left poor confused Veronica to face the music!" Violeta says she is the only one who can "unmask" Jacinta; she will have to bring Jacinta down and also help Valeria.
  
  Violeta is just getting around to talking about the Guillermo problem when Jacinta arrives with the police. Violeta instantly pretends to be Vera: "I was just telling these rotten people I never wanted to see them again." She leaves with Jacinta. Doctor Monica, who is mostly just useless (avoid blond bimbo psychiatrists), does manage this sage observation: "The fact that Violeta is pretending to be Vera and is trying to solve problems means she's getting stronger."
  
  We do see Violeta holding her own with Jacinta, even trying to snarl. She says she's tired, goes up to bed, and starts gasping as soon as she's out of earshot. "I can't keep up this farce, my nerves are shot, but I have to be strong for Valeria!"
  
  
• Violeta apologizes to Valeria sweetly and they make up, promising to be united, like sisters, forever. Violeta tells Valeria that she knows at least one of Jacinta's "proofs" against Maite is false. "I remember, because I was born at that House of Ill Repute and lived there with my mother. It was my birthday, Maite was cook at Victor's restaurant - she brought me a cake - then the police came! And the photographers!
  
  Further: "Valeria, you know how I found out that Mom loved you? I discovered her photo album - she had pictures of you at all your birthdays, all the way back, and of you at our graduation." Val cries.
  
  
• Andres sends the Bonbon away. The Bonbon is sad, and is single, for about 14 seconds. Then that suave matador shows up (the one that usually wears a chartreuse shirt) and hits on her and off they go. So there's one sub-plot out of the way, thank goodness.
  
  
• Guillermo's sister Betina, who lives in Italy and has missed all the family machinations, shows up at Guillermo's apartment, where Mommy is living alone, and vows to join the team trying to find Guillermo.
  
  Victor is still sadly certain it was his sweetie who pilfered the Magdalena letter. Who else?
  
  
• Well, it was Rafael, as you know. It's not worth going into the Rafael and Doc Pardo thing tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
  
  
• Federico, who is cold and mean and will hopefully come to a bad end, is maybe the sexiest guy in this novela. Anyway, he's got things set up now so he can suck funds out of Jacinta's trove at will. He reports this to Luis Antonio and puts out his hand to shake, but Shrek does not take his hand.
  
  As he receives a fax (it has a bar graph on it), Federico thought-bubbles: "Neither Valeria nor Veronica will get a cent of the Valladolid money."
  
  
• Rodrigo calls Bruno and asks if he knows how to have a gun analyzed - he thinks his gun was used to kill Omar. Manola overhears this. She yells at her dad Nicolas for arousing Rodrigo's suspicions and as her dad sits on the bed muttering over and over: "Gustavo called me," she says, "I have to do something drastic here." Pretty soon the police come and arrest Rodrigo for Omar's murder.
  
  Rodrigo tells his secretary to call Federico and Federico shows up at jail.
  
  He knows who to blame. He bursts roaring into Manola's house and shakes her - "You two did this!" Nicolas: "Manola made me do it!" Later Manola and her dad have words: "Manola, how could you put your own son in jail?" "It's your fault because you can't keep our secret. I had to gain time." "It's WE should be in jail." "Be calm, they don't have enough proof, they'll let him go. Calm down or I'll have you committed."
  
  Federico next goes to Bruno and Luis Antonio and asks help for Rodrigo, and it is granted. Then he thinks, "Why use my own money to get Rodrigo freed when I can use Jacinta's?" He goes to her and reveals that Rodrigo is his son and, hence, yet another illegitimate Vallodolid. Jacinta is impactada.
  
  Also visiting Rodrigo in jail: Valeria and Andres. Rodrigo admits that Jacinta and Manola engineered the "misunderstanding" which parted the lovebirds, and that he himself participated. Valeria and Andres are impactados.
  
  
• In front of her little shrine, Jacinta tells Violeta: "My son Adolfo was not an exemplary soul. He was weak, seduced by demons of lechery - his great error was to fall prey to easy women, first your mother and then Maite. Lechery corrupted his soul, as it now corrupts Valeria and as it corrupted my husband Pedro. That night, I saved Pedro - I couldn't let him sin - God guided my hand to open that corral and let out the bull!" Whoah! Part of this speech took place while Jacinta was praying in a sort of trance. When she awakens she remembers none of it, which is good because she might otherwise say: "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
  
  
• Sergio and the Las Barricas team are coming to the same suspicion: that Jacinta somehow engineered Pedro's death. They are also trying to drag in the darn bracelet which I have been avoiding in my recaps. Remedios has this bracelet, but it appears on Jacinta in an early photograph. It is connected in some way with Jacinta's culpability in Pedro's death. If somebody wants to tackle this, leave me a comment.

Labels: barrera

Permalink posted by melinama @ 10:54 PM