Caray, Caray!

Ralph and Ed panic

(Ralph and Ed, from the Honeymooners, are the male equivalent of Lucy and Ethel. Just in case that wasn't obvious.)

On the phone in the plane, Omar tells Fern that if anyone else finds that bag, it will be the end of the world as they know it. He yells, "look for it! Find it!" The people on the plane give him dirty looks and a flight attendant asks him to keep his voice down, yet Marcia stays asleep.

In her office, Lety hears Fern on the phone with Omar, saying he hasn't seen any red bag.

Fern asks Sara about the red bag. Sara plays dumb but still asks him what was in the bag. To discourage snooping, he says they were lab specimens. (Lola listens.) He whispers so that Sara has to move in close. He pantomimes holding a jar. He twists off the lid and blows in Sara's face with a little sound effect. Sara recoils in shock and holds her nose.

Fern tells Sara and onlookers Lola, Juana, and Martha not to talk about this, just let him know if they find the bag. He does the invisible jar thing again and Sara recoils again. He waves it at Lola, who holds her nose. He shoves it at Juana and Martha, who make faces and fan the air around themselves.

He asks Lety, who is getting ready to leave, if she has seen a red bag. She says no, and asks if it's important. He says yes, it's a matter of life or death. She asks what's in it. He stalls, then says it's very personal, very delicate/sensitive/embarrassing. He has some trouble with this word (puduroso) and says "powerful" (poderoso) instead. She giggles.

He offers her a ride home or to take her out, but she says no. (She's thinking about his parents' request to go house-hunting.)

It's late and the feas want to go home. Martha says she's hungry. Alicia shows up and says nobody can leave until Fern leaves. They say now, actually, you're his secretary and we're not, so we can leave and you can't, ha-ha.

Lety passes through on her way out. Sara and Lety discuss the bag again. Sara tells her about the lab samples and shows her the invisible jar. She opens it, but the trick doesn't work on Lety. Confused, Sara takes a whiff and is grossed out. :-) They giggle that it's strange to put such things in a red gift bag. Lety leaves.

Fern and Omar talk some more. Fern tells him about his clever explanation of what was in the bag. Omar is not amused that the ladies of Conceptos are now thinking about a jar of his poo. He yells, "this is not funny - you have to find it!" Marcia stirs momentarily, but Omar assures her that all is okay and she goes back to sleep.

Fern leaves his office to look in Omar's office again. Alicia nabs him and asks for some money. He says no and tells her to go home. He tosses Omar's office and finally gives up.

As he is passing through the executive lobby back to his desk, the lights go out. Unaware of each other's presence, he and Celso each sneak through the darkness, looking for the noisy intruder. Predictably, they circle around backwards until they collide. The (minimal) excitement is punched up unsuccessfully with that silly kazoo music.

The lights go back on and they decide there was probably a power outage. Fern asks Celso if he has seen a red bag. Celso flashes back to the one and only "red bag" he remembers - a certain lady in red - Fern dressed in a red showgirl outfit as a result of losing a bet with Luigi a few months ago. Fern says no, a red paper bag. Celso says no, he hasn't seen it - was it important? Fern replies sarcastically, everyone keeps asking him if it's important, he's searched everywhere and asked everyone about it, but no, it's not important.

Sheesh! What a grouch!

Tomas & Lety look for a house

RoboPop and Tomas are waiting impatiently for Lety to get home so they can eat. Lety arrives and announces that she's not hungry. She confides to Mom that she's stressed out from work stuff. She and Mom exchange mushy words and Lety also tells mom that the mysterious bag she called about earlier has disappeared.

She calls Tomas up to her room for a talk. Lety explains to him that Fern's parents have asked her to go look at a house tonight and she is not looking forward to it. Tomas thinks it's funny that she has to house-hunt for Fern and his fiancee. Lety disagrees. He agrees to accompany her to the house. They go downstairs and tell Lety's parents where they're going, and RoboPop insists on driving them. Mom wants to go along for the ride.

They get to the house, which is spacious and expensive-looking. Mom and Pop wait in the car. Lety goes to the kitchen, where she finds a woman in a cocktail dress. Woops, no, she's the real estate agent. When Tomas finally notices her, he goes crazy trying to in impress her, bragging about Filmo-Imagen's great facilities and strutting around like a bigshot. It works - she thinks he's rich and starts flirting with him. He complains that the lighting is bad and he'd like to come back during the day to get better pictures. (He's using a camcorder, and from what we can see of the viewfinder, it looks like the lighting is perfectly fine. It also looks as though he barely knows how to handle a camera - odd for someone who claims to be a film tycoon!) They agree to meet again at 10 the next morning. Lety wonders how she's going to pull that off without explaining to Fern.

Some type of button falls off of Lety's purse as they say goodbye. Even though it clatters noisily to the floor, no one notices. After they leave, the agent calls someone and says she just met a couple of awesome clients. There are dollar signs in her eyes.

Mom and Pop have been listening to the radio in the car and speaking of romantically of old times. By the time Lety and Tomas get back, the windows are all fogged up. :-)

Another red bag

Alicia (all dressed in red perhaps hoping an agitated bull will put her out of her misery) gets home in a grumpy mood. The valet at her very swanky apartment building says how much he loves her Mercedes. (I get the feeling they have this conversation every day.) He hands her a special message that was left for her: Her car is about to be repossessed.

Marcia calls her from the plane. (Omar is now asleep, snuggled up against his seatmate, a male stranger.) Marcia only wants to know about Fernando, and doesn't let Alicia tell her about her latest personal tragedy. Alicia calls her a bad friend but tells her that Fern was still there in the office when she left. She suspects that he's waiting to meet with someone. (Marcia's laptop is open on the seat next to her. She has a photo of Fern as her wallpaper.)

Alicia calls her father and begs him for help. She says she would rather die than take the bus with thousands of nacos or sharing a taxi with the feas of the cuartel. She is momentarily excited when he says he has an idea, but is horrified when his "idea" is to hock her jewels (he's suggested this before and it makes me wonder if he hated his wife or something since she's the one who gave them to Alicia). She doesn't like this idea, but she also doesn't like his advice to cut up her credit cards or give up her designer clothes or 27 pairs of expensive shoes because, as she tells her father, nothing's more important than her "image."

Alicia tearfully concludes that the only thing left is indeed to pawn the gorgeous jewels (they really are very nice, antiques with lots of stones and serious gold) that were left to her by her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother. She cries and cries, but since her father won't give her any money, she doesn't see any alternative. (Welcome to adulthood, Alicia.)

She lays them all out on the bed to look at them. Then she prepares to pack them all into a red bag which, coincidentally, looks exactly like the one Omar left for Fern...

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Corrections:

• I haven't seen the "real" talk show host Cristina in a long while and only remembered that she was blond. When "Cristina Rivapalacios" showed up on La Fea I assumed she was the same woman (having undergone waaaaay too many cosmetic "improvements" since I had last seen her). No, Rivapalacios is a fictitious celebrity. And thank goodness. I would hate to think that the real Cristina would pay someone to do that to her lips. Sorry if I misled anyone on this.

• I was under the mistaken impression that the Cannes film festival was going to be around the same time as the wedding and cause a conflict. In fact, the wedding and the Big Meeting are slated for September (remember the show in Mexico is about 14 weeks ahead of us) while the Cannes film festival was in August. So, there's no conflict. I don't know why I thought there was. (The real-life Cannes film festival happens in May, but I guess they changed it for plot convenience.)

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