Caray, Caray!

WARNING: This is a Gaspar—Luba—Tonki free episode. If you only watch the show for these guys, save some time and skip this one.


Knock Knock Knock! “Alina, open up!” It’s Emilio and he’s mighty impatient to see Alina, for his brother Angel’s sake of course. BAM, he kicks the door open and is impactado to find Orlando in bed with Alina. “What does this mean?” asks Emilio tersely, Thelma comes in behind him yelling “Emilio, calm down!” Orlando (who appears to be wearing pants still) hisses that Emilio had no right to barge in. He puts on his shirt, which Emilio promptly uses to hold him by the collar and drag him out of the room. “What have you were you doing with Alina!” he snarls. Thelma follows them outside, continuing with her “Emilio, please stop!” whining. Orlando suddenly finds his voice and snarls back: “It’s perfectly obvious what happened. I made Alina mine. She gave herself to me.” Emilio punches him in the jaw, shouting “Liar!” Emilio shouts to Thelma to leave them alone. Thelma rushes off. Orlando says, rubbing his jaw, “OK, now we can be alone and talk like two civilized men.”


Over at La Rinconada, Don Loco and Alfonsina are finishing their conversation about what Alfonsina saw out the window when Adela locked her in her room and DL was out getting the doctor for Mariana. Alfonsina had played this all wrong, making her offer of information sound like blackmail and DL was too angered by that to care much about what information Alfonsina had. (He quotes a saying that got mangled by the satellite transmission “When the dog….” Can someone fill in the blanks?) “How quickly you learned how to cash in. Imagine you, trying to blackmail me!” He slaps her hard and she flops on the bed. “Now you are going to tell me what you know.” Alfonsina pleads for him not to hit her. “But first, you are going to tell me what you wanted in return.”

Back to Orlando and Emilio and their screaming match back in the corridor outside Alina’s room at La Rinconada—Orlando: “That’s the way it was, and by the way, you have no right to ask me!” Emilio: “Of course I have a right. I asked you to take care of her and you failed!” Orlando: “Who gave you rights over Alina?” Emilio is impactado, because this is true but also perhaps due to the vehemence of Orlando’s self defense. Orlando has always been under Emilio’s thumb, Emilio outranks him, but now the worm has turned (literally) and Emilio is shocked! Shocked! to find this deep pool of resentment where Orlando is standing.

Back to whimpering Alfonsina, under the thumb of DL . She confesses that she wants a little bit of land that can be hers when DL tires of her. She tells him that she now realizes that he only brought her to SE to make his wife jealous and that he doesn’t really care about her. “That hurt me a lot” she sniffs. She continues on that she thought that he’d get tired of Soledad, divorce her and that she would be the lady of the house. She would no longer be poor! “Now I realize that that will never happen.” Sniff Sniff. DL grabs her roughly. “What, did you think I would sign over the hacienda to you?” Alfonsina changes the subject. “I can tell you for sure that your Senora is cheating on you.”

Back to Orlando vs. Emilio. Orlando yells at Emilio again about what right does he have over Alina? Emilio is married, Alina is nothing to him, so what if Orlando wants to sleep with her? “We’re both adults, so what if we love eachother?” Emilio grabs him by the collar again. Emilio points out that his brother wanted to marry Alina. He told him this before he left. “You failed me, Orlando!” Just then, Vera rushes in to say that Angel is having another attack. Emilio rushes out with her. Orlando smiles, straightens his shirt and then laughs: “Finally, I’ve beaten you, Emilio!”

Alfonsina is now cowering next to a piece of furniture with DL glowering at her. She coughs up the bit about seeing a man leave Soledad’s room from her window. Don Loco grabs her by the neck and squeezes threatening her that if she’s lying…Alfonsina, crying, swears she’s telling the truth.

Back to Alina’s room at la Rinconada. Alina is still sleeping through all this. Orlando goes back in. He thanks her sleeping form that in spite of the fact that he didn’t get what he wanted, he still got back at Emilio for getting all the chicks all these years.

In Angel’s room, Emilio is hovering over Angel, with Vera nearby. Angel is drinking a glass of water. Emilio sends Vera for the doctor, over Angel’s protests. Angel quizzes Emilio about what Thelma and Vera had said, that Alina is in love with Orlando. Emilio looks uneasy.

Meanwhile, Orlando, fully clothed, has jumped back in bed with Alina. Alina wakes up and realizes that she’s naked in bed with Orlando. Orlando tries to make her think that he did have sex with her. Alina is horrified and tells him he’s lying. Orlando gets up and laughs saying, “If you don’t believe me, ask Thelma and Emilio! They came in and found us in bed!” Alina repeats,”Emilio!” He has returned! Orlando taunts her that Emilio was surprised to see her in such a “compromising situation.” Alina yells at him to shut up and starts crying. She then starts yelling about how she now knows that Thelma and he trapped her and that she’s going to tell Emilio everything . Orlando leaves, laughing. [Sorry, Alina, I’m with Orlando on this one, Emilio is NOT going to believe you, at least not for at least a week of episodes…]

Emilio finally responds to Angel’s questions. He blows off the assertion that Alina is in love with Orlando. He says that in a small town, everybody gossips and invents stuff. He lies and says he spoke with Orlando and that Orlando would have told him. Angel then asked why Alina hadn’t shown up yet. “Because she’s asleep and I didn’t want to wake her” Emilio lies some more. Angel accepts this pack of lies.

Back over to Alina, who has just taken a shower and is wrapped up in a robe and a towel. She is no longer hysterical but quite calm. Maybe she’s figured out that she hasn’t been raped after all. She laments that Emilio saw her in bed with Orlando. “What must he be thinking of me?”Next, Dr. Vazquez has arrived. [Why don’t they just build the poor guy a house next door?] The doc is perplexed to see Angel look so badly after his treatment with the specialist in Puebla. Angel kicks Emilio out of the room and tells the doc not to bother, he knows what’s wrong.

Back to Don Loco and Alfonsina’s tiff. DL is totally in his own world now, pouring himself a drink and mumbling to himself that Soledad is STILL cheating on him, even after all this time. Alfonsina goes into suck up mode, “Oh Patron, how terrible for you! As good as you are!” DL wants to know what happened in that room. Alfonsina elaborates that the man she saw hurried away so as not to run into him, not even by accident. DL then demands she describe the man she saw.

Outside Angel’s room, Emilio encounters Thelma. Thelma asks how Angel is and Emilio says, he’s better. Then she asks how he is. Emilio responds “OK” curtly. Thelma says she feels sorry for him that he had to see Alina in such an embarrassing situation. She says she “didn’t like it” but she tried to “understand it” and she thinks that Emilio should try to “understand it” too. Emilio is puzzled. Thelma explains that Alina was desperate to find a man to protect her. “And since Angel left…” Emilio cuts her off but Thelma keeps going. She runs Alina down some more, calling her a dead mosquito, etc. She points out that Orlando and Alina are lovers so that’s that. Emilio gets disgusted and leaves. Thelma says to nobody in particular, “Why is he mad?”


Back to Alfonsina who is finishing a description of the mystery man to DL. Alfonsina says that’s all she saw from the window. DL says “OK, now go.” Alfonsina reaches to touch him and DL gets furious and stands up shouting at her to leave him alone. She hustles out. DL is sure from the description that it’s Elias.

Over at la Rinconada, Braulio, Carmen and Rosita have formed a posse to speak to Don Max and tell him to give up what he did with Santos. Castulo is apparently the bouncer for the evening. He tosses Braulio on the floor telling them to go away, Don Max is asleep. Rosita runs to her father and says they should go. (She doesn’t like this guy for some reason.) Carmen is insistent. Castulo tells her to come back in the morning. They all skulk off. Castulo scratches his beard and announces to the air “If she only knew that her son was already a rotten corpse.”

Of course we know that’s not true. Santos was rescued by the defrocked psychiatrist hermit. Santos has amnesia and the doctor is trying to help him regain his memory through hypnosis. He gets Santos to remember the fight but then he wakes in a lather. He says the fight made him feel angry, like he wanted to kill someone. He doesn’t want to remember.


Over to Emilio at La Rinconada who is also trying to forget the image of Alina in bed with Orlando. At that point, Alina walks in and tries to defend herself with a skeptical and hostile Emilio. She tells him that she was drugged with tea, given to her by Thelma. Vera happens by and Alina asks her about what happened to the remaining tea in the teapot. Vera says she put it to wash but she hadn’t gotten to it yet. Emilio orders her to go get it.

Angel is talking to Doc Vasquez. He explains that he isn’t telling Emilio that he’s dying because he wants to marry Alina to protect her. The doctor commends him for being an “Angel” to Alina. He promises not to tell Emilio anything. He still wants to check Angel’s lungs.


Thelma and Orlando are conferring in Thelma’s room. Orlando is pacing the room freaking out that Emilio will believe Alina. Thelma is completely calm because she knows she dispatched the evidence of the drugged tea. [And we know Emilio, he’ll immediately jump to the wrong conclusions immediately.] Orlando is still drunk or out of his mind because he’s slurring his words and acting like a loon. Thelma tells him to lock himself in his room and not to confront Emilio.


Vera has brought the teapot to Alina and Emilio. She says that the teapot still has a little tea. Emilio drinks some of the cold tea to see whether she is telling the truth. [I thought Thelma had replaced the tea with water, but I guess she replaced it with Tea??]


Next we change scenery—We’re in Puebla. It’s Coral’s room in the big mansion and she’s sleeping. The evil nephew of Don Celso comes into her bedroom and after a brief fight knocks her out. He then lights a bunch of roman candles or flares in her room and throws them on the carpet. He runs out. Man, Coral! The first thing I would have done is change the locks!!


Over at Hacienda de Loco, Soledad can’t sleep. Apparently DL has given her a tiny twin bed next to Mariana’s huge double bed, to make sure she gets the hint that she’s a servant to Mariana. Soledad flips on a light and goes to get water. She’s surprised by DL who comes in without knocking, as usual and accuses her of meeting “her lover” Elias while he was out.


Back to Alina and Emilio. Alina asks him if he still feels nothing. Emilio says no, it’s been 20 minutes already. Emilio gets up and says that it’s not drugged and anyway, he has no right to ask her any more questions about what happened anyway. [Yep, he’s convinced she’s lying and everybody else is telling the truth]


Now back to Soledad and Loco—Soledad says that every day Loco is more Loco. She tells him that Elias is not her lover. DL yells at her not to pretend. Alfonsina saw him leave. Soledad starts in on Alfonsina’s credibility: “That woman only wants to alienate you from me.” DL doesn’t buy it. He starts in on the whole “Elias is your lover, you are just trying to protect your lover” crap No, he’s not going to kill Soledad…YET..but he is going to kill Elias. He turns to Mariana then leaves. Soledad bends down to pick up her glass crying saying that she wants "the nightmare to be over." Mariana looks at her with pity.


Alina and Emilio are still discussing Alina’s story. Alina is trying to convince him, Emilio doesn’t want to hear her explanation. Alina insists that she didn’t consent to whatever happened. Emilio throws the letter she sent in her face, that Orlando was being nice to her...etc. Alina says that he made her believe he was her friend and then he sprung the trap. And besides, points out Alina, if he was my lover, why would I be telling you that he drugged me? [and raped me?]


Back in Puebla, Coral has woken up, coughing. She’s found the door to the bedroom locked.


Emilio says only you know why you would lie. He acts all disgusted that she would go to bed with Orlando. [Really, no wonder Orlando hates you so much when you think the idea of him having sex at all is disgusting, some pal you are!] Alina keeps insisting that Orlando entrapped her. Thelma comes in to add her two cents. “Don’t believe her, Emilio! Alina is lying.” Thelma spins the story this way: Alina thought Angel was dying so she switched to Orlando. Now that Angel is better, she’s dumping Orlando for Angel. Emilio plops in a chair, his head in his hands. All the time Alina is trying to deny this. Thelma goes on, Angel is weak and rich, she probably thinks she can do whatever she wants anyway. Alina cries out to Emilio that he can’t believe this…Emilio gets up shouting “Enough!” He kicks both of them out of the room.

Coral is still trying to break open her door. [Doesn’t this room have any windows?] She grabs a heavy statue and bashes the door with it.


Alina goes into her room with the broken door and flops on her bed. “Emilio doesn’t believe me!” She weeps.

Coral has gotten out of her room and is calling the fire department on the phone from her burning house. Next she calls her friends on the phone, from her burning house, complaining that she is choking to death.

DL is smoking a cigar in his office. He has summoned Sergio. He tells him to prepare the horses.

Soledad is desperate. She’s trying to figure out how to warn Elias that DL is coming. Soledad asks Mariana (who is also awake) whether she wants water. Mariana has tears streaking down her face.

Thelma, looking very jiffy-pop today, I might add, is in conversation with the singing Aunt. The SA is asking her whether Emilio believes everything that she’s put into his head about Alina and Orlando. Thelma thinks so, furthermore, Emilio saw Alina in bed with Orlando with his own eyes. She is sure that Emilio will repudiate Alina and kick Orlando out of La Ricondada. “So I killed two birds with one stone.” finishes Thelma. SA is nervous and goes for a drink.


Elsewhere, Castulo is filling Don Max in about the “free Santos” protest that took place earlier. Don Max asks Castulo for the umpteenth time whether Santos is good and dead. Castulo assures him in some detail. Castulo also mentions that Carmen wants to talk to him. Don Max gripes that Carmen is becoming a nuisance (estorbo) for him. Castulo offers to get rid of her too. At this very moment, the SA is coming to bug Don Max, crystal copa in hand with what looks like brandy. She shrinks at the description of Santo’s death and when killing a woman is mentioned she drops the glass on the floor and runs away. Don Max hears the disturbance and rushes out, followed by Castulo. He guesses it was her and that she was spying on them. SA runs back to her room, whimpering about Don Max having ordered somebody’s (some Christian’s) death and now plotting to kill some woman! She dramatically flops on her knees on the floor, arms outstretched to pray to God to free them from evil, to shelter them from harm.


Rosita, Braulio and Carmen are drinking coffee at Braulio and Rosita’s kitchen table. Carmen and Rosita are sure that Don Max did something to Santos. But without proof what can they do? Rosita and Braulio agree that it happened just when everything was arranged. They explain to Carmen that Santos was on his way to San Mateo to tell her that everything was arranged for their wedding. Carmen is now certain that Don Max did it to keep Santos from marrying Rosita.


Over at La Rinconada, Emilio is still up pacing. Doc Vasquez comes into the room to tell him that Angel is now sleeping comfortably. Emilio questions him about Angel’s condition. The Doc says that these new treatments are beyond his level of knowledge---“but if the specialist gave you hope…” [Nice deflection, doc!] He turns his attention to Emilio and says he has noticed that he looks kind of bad too. Emilio says that his problem isn’t physical, it’s his soul that hurts. Vasquez gives him a piece of advice. Emilio’s problem is that his heart is in conflict with his head. Until he decides which one to go with, he’s going to continue to suffer.


Back to Hacienda de Loco—Alfonsina walks into Soledad and Mariana’s room, claiming that she wants to know how her little “sister in law” is doing, that she and Mariana were always “good friends.” Soledad immediately tries to throw her out. Then Alfonsina can’t resist crowing about how he would break out in spots (se pone pintado?) he would be if he knew that Jose’s letter was not for her, but she did end up cheating on him anyway. Soledad is immediately suspicious that Alfonsina knows about the letter. Soledad suddenly gets a spine and demands not to let Alfonsina go until she tells the truth. She slaps her and she lands on the floor, on her bum. This is pretty amazing given that Soledad is shorter than she is. Alfonsina manages to get away despite Soledad’s rage. Mariana looks on, a tear again streaming down her cheeks. [You would think that being an invalid, lying in bed all day she would have given up on the eyebrow makeup, eyeliner and mascara but no, and yes, it is streaking. ] Soledad rushes over to Mariana and tells her that she is sure that Alfonsina knows something about the letter. Mariana probably agrees but we get no thought bubble from her, only rapid eye movements.


Back over to Alina, lying on her bed. She’s thought bubbling Emilio’s words. “I don’t know what to believe. I only know what I saw and cannot erase from my mind, you, lying in bed with Orlando.” Alina adds that that she can’t bear that he think ill of her, because, after all this, she still hasn’t stopped loving him.


Emilio’s gone to the Chapel to pray. He wants a sign from God to tell him who is telling the truth, Orlando and Thelma or Alina. [Gee Whiz, Emilio, you find God and suddenly you are asking him to think for you? Lets see, shrewish wife who trapped you into marriage and hates Alina, your best pal who is gleeful about stabbing you in the back and Alina, who several times has been accused of doing something bad but the accusations always turn out to be false. This is NOT a hard question!]


Soledad is still talking to Mariana about the letter and Alfonsina. She tries to squeak out a word but can’t. Soledad laments if only Mariana could talk….


Elias, opens the door to his cabin and guess who is there, Don Loco, pointing a gun in his face. Don Loco tells him he’s about to send him to hell. Guess what, Dr. Love is there too, and sneaks up behind Don Loco with a gun pointed at Loco’s head. His hand, however, is shaking. DL of course has brought Sergio with his long gun so we have yes, ANOTHER MEXICAN STANDOFF! DL says something sarcastic to Dr. Love about how quickly he changed his profession. Dr. Love says, that he’s never been one for the weapons but he knows how to fire this gun. Sergio gets distracted and Elias manages to take his gun so now we are good guys=2 guns, bad guys =1 gun. Elias points the gun at DL’s front, while Dr. Love is pointing at the side of DL’s head. They tell him to leave. DL vows to come back later. They run DL and Sergio off. Dr. Love collapses into a chair. Elias muses that for Don Loco this is not just personal, this is an obsession. Dr. Love points out , “and for us, is it not also an obsession?” [I am liking this guy more all the time!]



DL comes back to his office with Sergio. Sergio is full of bravado about not letting those guys get away. DL reproaches him for trying to gin up his anger to do something stupid. Sergio apologizes. He got carried away with his anger. DL says he’ll need him later. For now, leave him alone to think about how “to make those beggars squirm.” (retorcer)


The next morning, Soledad, in a pink dress comes into DL’s office to speak to him. DL is surprisingly civil. Soledad tells him about her conversation with Alfonsina. Mainly, that Alfonsina told her that the letter from Jose, the foreman was not meant for her. She begs him to make Alfonsina tell him the truth. “I’m sure she knows who the letter was for.” Apparently, DL has the letter in front of him. [I thought he tore it up a long time ago…] “Of course she knows who the letter is for, like I know, it was for you!” he responds holding up the paper. Soledad becomes more excited. She tells him that she knows that he no longer believes anything she says, but he should look for the truth himself. DL asks her why she doesn’t go confess to the priest what she did. “Because that would be to make a false confession” says Soledad. She’s confident that on Judgement Day, God will judge her innocent, because he knows the truth. She leaves. Don Loco makes a crack like, “too bad your fine words aren’t true.” He goes on to assert, to no one in particular that the letter was meant to claim his paternity over Alina.


Over at la Rinconada, Angel is in his room and Vera is serving him his juice. Angel asks about Alina and Vera almost drops the glass. She tells him that Alina is still in her room. When Vera leaves, Angel announces he’s going to look for her.


Over at the hermit psychiatrist’s house, Santos finds the Doctor painting a landscape on an easel in his living room. Santos is interested in the painting and the Doctor proudly shows him the others. [They look kind of awful actually, like something a kid would do for Art Class.] He shows him one which is a picture of a rose in a vase. Santos is impactado by the rose. He tells the doctor “There was a rose in my life.” [At this rate, it will take two months of episodes for Santos to regain his memory]


And speaking of Rosita, She’s chatting with Carmen who seems to have taken over Santo’s cabin. For what must be the millionth time, they agree that Don Max is responsible for Santos’ disappearance because he was trying to get Rosita away from him. Rosita vows that if Don Max comes after her, she’ll be ready for him. Carmen says no, don’t sully yourself with the blood of that guy. I swear, if I find out that he’s responsible for the disappearance of my son, I will kill him myself.


Coral is chatting with her friend, whose name escapes me, from the Cueva del Diablo, the female one, who is wearing a black dress with a plunging neckline. Coral is dressed more modestly, in black herself. Apparently she has made allegations against the nephew at the local police station. The friend asks Coral what she will do next. Coral is sure that this guy will try to kill her again. As soon as the will is read and she signs the papers, she’s going to go “where he’ll never find me.” [ I think that would probably be Sierra Escondida.]

At La Rinconada, Alina is in her room when Vera brings her food and juice. Alina tells her she’s not hungry. Vera gets all mousy and starts telling her she can see why she did what she did….Orlando can help her and all. Alina is thrown for a loop. Even the servants all believe she went to bed willingly with Orlando.


Back at Hacienda de Loco, Alfonsina is rubbing her cheek after getting the big smackdown from Soledad. She’s getting tired of this game between Soledad and DL and she wants her land. Just then, Don Loco comes in whip in hand and tells her to tell him the truth—this will be her one opportunity to come clean. Was the letter intended for Soledad? Alfonsina looks nervous.


At la Rinconada, Emilio, in his green uniform, cap stuffed in his epaulet, is about to leave for work supervising the highway, he runs into Orlando. Emilio tells him to beat it, he’s not going to the construction. He’s going to explain to him what happened. Orlando says he already told him, he owes him no explanations. Just then, who should come around the corner but Angel. Angel hears the argument and he hides around the corner. Orlando insists that Alina got into bed with him, because she wanted to, by her own free will. Angel is impactado.

Labels: duelo