Caray, Caray!

Ooh, this is the 100th tagged La Fea post. (There were some earlier ones I never got around to tagging.)

There was a very pretty speech in the middle of this episode and I'm sure you'd all like to see it word for word. I'm too tired tonight but if I have time tomorrow I will add the sweet words.

Lety's father worries about the three of them being unemployed - Lety says she'll figure something out when she gets back from her trip, maybe start another business.

Tomas has sadly surrendered his trophies of luxury. "Returning to poverty is so hard." "We'll start again, it's not the end of the world! Now, clean that car impeccably before we return it to Don Fernando..."

Alicia is calling and calling, Tomas is not answering and not answering. "Answer, you rotten serpent!" hisses Alicia. Mocked for being at work so early, Alicia says she's awaiting a very important call. She's fretting about Ariel, too.

Today Alicia is wearing a Victoria's Secret style "Naughty Little Maid" outfit and her necklace has fallen into the narrow gorge between her extremely uplifted breasts and her chin.

Meanwhile, Lety is sad for Tomas that he fell in love - and is a little startled to find out he scored a home run with Alicia. "I was like fire in bed!"

"Forget her, the way I have to forget Don Fernando - they're beautiful, with their little caresses and kisses, but they're not for us. They don't deserve us!" This cheers Tomas a bit. Lety continues: "We're ugly and poor and we'll have to start from zero, but we can do it with calm hearts and clear consciences."

Ariel sends Olarte out to find out whether the rumor about Conceptos is true, and, as we know, it is. Conceptos is in hock to the tune of 45 million dollars - to Lety's business, Filmo Imagen. Ariel, who loathes Lety, throws things around his office, kicks stuff and snarls. I never do that when I'm in a bad mood, never. Well, maybe I snarl a little.

At Conceptos, Marcia shows up muy hungover, in sunglasses, and snarls at everybody, just like her brother. She shouts at Alicia because the waiters with the food and coffee have not yet arrived. Alicia is still on the phone calling Tomas.

And as Lety emerges from the elevator, why, the cellphone in her bag is ringing. The cuartel ask why she never told them she has a cellphone, and why doesn't she answer it? "It's my BOYFRIEND'S PHONE, it's some HUSBAND STEALER calling." (Alicia hangs up.)

Marcia yells at Alicia to get the waiters and food and coffee and yells at Lety to get the binders ready. Luigi arrives, also hungover, also in sunglasses. His head is tender, his neurons still swimming in booze. He tells Marcia to stop yelling.

Fern meanwhile has snuck into Lety's office one more time, to give her a few hugs and ask, "Are you VERY SURE you aren't going to mix up the real balance sheet with the fake one?" "No, Don Fernando, I have the real one hidden away, I've made copies of the fake one." "Today is a very important day for us, I'm going to cancel my wedding, I feel great." He leaves and she sighs.

Now for a subplot nobody is interested in - Irmita's wretched old dud of an ex-husband evidently wheedled himself a space on her couch last night. This morning, he says he's dreamed for years of getting to wake up in this apartment. "OK, fine, you did. Now get out." "No, not until you hear me out." She refuses, says she'll call the police, he calls her bluff, she leaves for work and says "be gone before I get home." He asks the door as it closes behind her: "Irmita, what will you think when I reveal I've come home to die with you?" Will she care as little as we do?

Fern's parents arrive early. Humberto asks Alicia for coffee. The waiters are not around. She comes back with water. Everybody is stalking about in a rotten mood. Marcia tells Alicia she thinks Fern is going to cancel the wedding, and if he does that, she will do whatever she can to help her brother Ariel in his anti-Fern campaign. Teresita hauls Marcia off and hears the sad story. I would not want to see that look on MY mother's face. Uh-oh.

In another uninteresting subplot, Lopez has written memos complaining about Paula Maria and Simon and starts complaining to Marcia, who is in no mood to hear it. "But she would not stay and finish her work." "What was so important about that work? Because I tell you, if it wasn't really important, I'm gonna bring this up at the meeting and get YOU fired." Lopez backs down and the cuartel is triumphant.

Alicia staggers in from time to time and complains that there is no coffee.

Omar, engineer of evil moments, hauls Fern off to discuss "things." Marcia stalks by without speaking to either of them and Omar rhapsodizes sarcastically: "Oh, that's romantic, you're as united as ever, that will look good at the wedding."

"Omar, there isn't going to be a wedding."

I'm sure most of you are wishing Lety were overhearing the subsequent conversation in which Fern protests that he doesn't love Marcia and doesn't want to sacrifice his life to her. He's going to wait till everybody leaves, tell Marcia, and then be free. Omar is very opposed to this plan and lays the heavy party line out over and over again. Fern will ruin the business and everybody who works there, he will disappoint and disgrace his parents and Marcia... Ariel will want his money back ... (uninteresting discussion re: why have asked Lety to spend all that time massaging the balance sheet if Ariel is immediately going to ask for his money and discover he can't have it?)

Fern says he shouldn't be forced into a loveless marriage, Omar says the business IS his life and he should just proceed as planned.

Finally Fern comes out and shouts at Omar: "I LOVE LETY. I AM COMPLETELY BESOTTED WITH HER. She makes me happy." [Insert very sweet speech here.]

Omar is muy impactado and starts in with the mockery and Fern tries, unsuccessfully as usual, to shut him up. Why couldn't Lety be listening to THIS part of the conversation? Omar suggests that Fern can marry Marcia, divorce her later when Conceptos is out of debt, and then take up with Lety. "Do you know any woman who would tolerate that?" "Well, Marcia wouldn't, and most women wouldn't, but Lety...? "

Lety happens by, of course, as Omar continues with this lovely scheme: "Let's send her far away for a few months." Fern should Marcia as planned and go on his honeymoon -- and Lety will be far away, unable to spoil it. "Africa, Antarctica, somewhere so far away she can't spoil things. She's delirious for you, she'd parachute in and ruin the wedding if she could. The most important thing is the balance sheet, it will leave us free. Get through this and then give her kisses. Or get a hotel room ..." Outside the door Lety collapses, arms full of folders with the fake balance sheet. "I can't take any more! I've been so ingenuous yet again! Fernando is a pig." She reads the dread letter from Omar again. "He was never intending to cancel his wedding..."

Is it possible that they will stretch the seven minutes between this scene and the meeting into yet one more episode? Perhaps they will take us to see the waiters pack up the coffee urns and drive them, very slowly, up the street?

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