Caray, Caray!

Have we yet discussed why Gaviota is wearing celery stalks (ok, agave leaves) on her head in the intro?

[Also I gotta say, these actors with agave machetes are not believable. Are you guys remembering to hold them with the sharp side down? You look like you're dabbing at those plants, not hacking at them. Well, maybe the props guy said "Be careful, don't wreck them, they have to last all week, agaves don't grow on trees you know."]

We open with Gaviota singing a good song and Rod gazing at her with intimations of impending turgidity. "What I feel for Gaviota is LOVE!" he explains to himself. Heh heh. Where was he when he was 16 years old?

[I LIKE this galan! He's cute in that caveman way, he looks guapo on a horse, and he's the first good kisser since Colunga.]

James is very drunk and inveigles Roman into taking him off to a bigger town to see more pretty girls.

When the hypnotic spell of LOVE wears off a bit Rodrigo notices James is gone and asks Gav to go with him to search for James in all the other cantinas. When the expedition (unsuccessful) is over Rod takes Gav home, asks for a kiss and gets one. There is excellent music in the rhythm of a huapango and he tells her he loves her.

Her mother is cross. "A a boy from the Big House isn't going to be allowed to love a humble girl. You've never had a boyfriend before, you should listen to the voice of experience: 'Only in the telenovelas.' " [This refrain, which they've used several times already, is a bit too self-referential for me...]

Next morning James staggers in with Roman; he's still wearing the ridiculous argyle sweater vest. He tells Sofia he loves the dance, the tequila, the music ... she tells him to take a bath. Later he tells her he loves "the light, the colors, the traditions! Marry me! I'll buy a home here." "What about my career?" "You can study in Guadalajara." "I can't be entombed here, I'm going back to London, you'll have to decide."

Nice sister Daniela says: "Maybe this is his essence." "I lived with him a year, I know, it isn't. I want the old James back, not this absurd one." Meanwhile James is agog at the gorgeous scenery and so am I.

The family gossips about Rodrigo - why is he in such a good mood? James tells them: "because he's in love with a beautiful jimadora." The grandma is critically impactada and says that's a lousy joke. Sister Daniela (because she's the Good Sister) says: "I just want to see my brother happy."

Gav and her ma have gone off to the village market where Gav gets grabbed by a sort of sleazy magazine seller-photographer who burbles on about international models etc. I see a plot point in the making here.

We hear honking - it's Clark Kent - with his super vision he has spotted Gav among all these people and is honking! They go off together to enjoy his last day. They smooch in the cantina, he gives her his huge Rolex. They smooch more. He tells her she's the first girl he's loved, and he'll be back from London in a year to marry her. "The 21st of March, don't forget, we'll go to the nearest church and get hitched."

James returns to the Big House and tells Sofia: "I love you, but I can't leave here just yet, I have to stay a while." She emotes briefly and dumps him.

Rod wheedles Gav (OK she didn't need much wheedling) to watch the sunset with him from the agave field on the hill. "It's the happiest day of my life." He says: "You set my blood on fire." Heh.

Night fell during the commercials and so did Gaviota. There, amid the agaves and the super-scratchy stubble ... "Now I'm totally yours."

Grandma, with her Phyllis Diller-type plastic surgery, monologues to her recently deceased husband's photo: "You always wanted to keep the family together but your crappy will is gonna sow discord between Aaron and Rodrigo." James enters, thanks her for her hospitality, says Sofia dumped him and he's decided to move to the pueblo. (I don't know if this is a pueblo named Pueblo or just a pueblo because the closed captions are all capital letters.)

Rod tells James he's gotten engaged to the lovely jimadora! He must have told him other stuff too because James, who is happy for him, responds: "Ah, I'm glad you're finally a complete man." "Don't tell the family, I don't want things to be difficult for her while I'm away."

On his last morning in town, Rod visits the new organic agave fields ("They're so modern, the tequila they make will be a sensation!" says the dad. "Unless they get torched by the villains," says this jaded recapper).

Gav and her mom are cleaning up, ready to move on. The ma goes to do errands. Gaviota prays to the Virgin, "please let Rod come to me cause I can't go to the Big House..."

There's a knock on the door! Guess who! They embrace and say goodbye and smooch and etc. They won't be able to write each other because she has no address and things have to be hidden from people in the big house. She says she has his watch to remember him by and will never take it off; she bounces off and digs up a cassette of "Carmela the Argentine" to give him in return.

Then she asks (probably for the 20th time): "I'm the only woman in your life? You've never been with another?" "You're my first, and you'll also be the last - in fact, I can't love any other woman." "Why not?" "Dunno, but it doesn't matter now. Anyway, remember - the 21st of March - I'll be back for you." "I'll be waiting!"

The ma, who watched all this, prophesizes: "You'll suffer - just like in the telenovelas."

[We already know from the advances that, due to this one roll in the agave fields, Gav is going to get pregnant. So she - and Rod - get pregnant their first time out, at the same time they lose their virginity. I predict Rod is not going to have sex with any other woman ever, he'll be the Hippolita of the show.

And we also know that after these couple episodes of happiness Rodrigo and Gaviota are going to suffer like crazy for months. so I hope you got an eyeful of those happy smooches.]

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