Caray, Caray!

Montero, Mariangel, Diego/Zorro, and the Queen all make it out of the river, but at separate points. The Queen seems to come out closest to the falls and she prays to God for Zorro’s protection. She is thankful that he helped to rescue her from Monty (not too impressive of a rescue if she’s fishing herself out of the river, IMO). Mangle drags herself ashore and senses that something isn’t quite right—I’d say!! There are creepy looking people hanging in the trees above her. She picks up a large stick for protection. Monty calls out for Mangle, then thinks of Diego, and laughs. He’s sure that Zorro must have died (he’s not been paying attention to this show, has he; nobody seems to be able to die on this show, unless they are a minor character). He finds Zorro’s mask and then he really gets happy—Diego de la Vega is dead!! Not so true, Diego also gets out of the river and realizes he’s not in friendly territory. Not again, he mutters, as he realizes he’s in the land of the Kalakala, aka the cannibals. He’s upset because he’s without weapons and without a mask; they are surely going to recognize him from last time. He is also being watched from the trees, but doesn’t seem all that concerned. He figures out that Monty and Mangle must have also washed ashore in this area (he’s not worried about the Queen because he’s read the script and knows that she came ashore further upstream). Diego takes off to look for M&M and he’s followed by the creepy cannibals (CC).

Meanwhile, back at the hacienda, Esmeralda, Dolores, and Almudena gush over the baby and rehash their mutual love. Esme tells the women that God has been good to her, she’s been through some bad times, but now everything seems to be looking up for her. Dolores asks Esme to forgive her for not taking good care of little Alejandro. Esme says the most important thing is that Tisha/Alejandrito is okay.

Padre Tomás, riding along in a cart, finds the Queen on the riverbank. He is happy that she is alive. She tells him it is all thanks to Zorro and she gives a quick rehash of what happened. She tells PT that Zorro fell over the waterfall and wonders why he’s been called a bandit when all he’s done is fight against injustice. PT is concerned for Zorro/Diego.

Mangle continues onward carrying her stick, while suspenseful music plays. The audience can see the CC up in the trees, but for some reason Mangle does not bother looking upward.

Diego spots Montero and follows him from higher ground. He jumps out to face his nemesis and says, “We meet again.”

Fernando and Sara Kali are meeting face to face for the first time since he tried to kill her. He tells her that he’s a changed man and seen the error of his ways. She tells him she doesn’t believe him and asks what he wants from her. FS tells her all he would like is forgiveness because he truly regrets what he’s done---hurting her and her people. SK isn’t buying this and she gives a mini rehash of all the terrible things Fernando’s done to her---most specifically separating her from her daughter. Fernando says she’s right, and she’s the only person who should be able to take his life. FS hands her his knife and asks her to end it. SK says she’s dreamed of this moment but that he doesn’t deserve her hate. She stabs the knife into the ground and tells him that she won’t hurt him, but neither will she forgive him. Sara Kali says that she won’t be Fernando’s judge, only God will do that. Therefore, he needs to ask God for forgiveness because she wants nothing more to do with him (Fernando, not God, just to be clear on that).

Renzo stops Ana Camila (NAC) from leaving. He tells his wife that Esme was just a fantasy/ an illusion. NAC is his reality and he’s willing to fight for her. NAC says he doesn’t have to, “you already had me at hello.” They make some cooing sounds at each other and they kiss. Right at this moment, Camba calls out and bursts through the trees. What good fortune!!! He happens to find them in that spot at just that time; it is almost as if things are wrapping up quite nicely---as we push all logic aside.

Cifuentes comes to see SAM. He tells the sergeant that the men are willing to follow him and that he’s heard the Queen has been rescued (news travels fast). Esme walks up on the two men talking and asks Cifuentes if he’s heard anything about Mangle and Monty. Cifuentes rehashes about the whole Zorro and Monty over the falls story. Esme looks concerned and SAM tells her that he’s seen Zorro get out of worse jams than this, so he’s sure he’ll be okay (does SAM know that Zorro is Diego? I don’t think so, but then wouldn’t he wonder why Esme is so concerned about the bandit and also wonder why Diego isn’t around---but that’s been a problem the whole time with the secret identity thing---why ask now, so near the end. Heck if no one figured out that Clark Kent was Superman only using glasses as a disguise, I guess them not figuring Diego as Zorro with a mask is just as plausible).

Esme asks Dena to look after Tisha. She’s got to go find Diego. Dena offers to come along, but Esme tells her that Bernardo will join her, so don’t worry. She heads to the Fox Cave and has Bernardo gather the weapons. Bernie wants to come look for Diego, and Esme says it will be dangerous. Bernie is insistent and Esme agrees to let him come along.

Diego tells Monty that he’s going to make him come back to LA with him and that they are in CC land and Monty doesn’t believe him. Monty thinks it is a trick on Diego’s part. Diego tells him that they are being watched. Monty pulls out a knife from his boot and lunges for Diego, who is able to disarm the man. The men start to fight and Diego gets the upper hand and tells Monty that he’ll make him go back to LA to face the consequences for his actions. Diego says Monty should cooperate or otherwise Diego’s face will be the last thing he sees before he dies.

A wounded Pizarro is riding through town on Tobias’s horse, trying to rally the troops. He tells the men that the time has come to kill Montero, to stop him from abusing the town further. Tobias, Catalina, and Agapito come out into the town square and see Piza. Tobi calls him a thief for stealing his horse and Agapito comments that Piza’s wound is so severe, surely he’ll be dead soon. Just then, someone comes running into the plaza and announces that the Queen is free and Montero is dead. The townspeople get excited and in their frenzy knock Piza off the horse. They start to beat him. Tobi comments that Piza is getting what he deserved, he always wanted to be like Monty and would have been equally as cruel to the people of LA if given the chance.

PT and TQ come across Alejandro, who is glad to see that la reina is alive. They rehash some about Zorro saving her (again, not that impressive of a rescue if you ask me). The Queen comments about how in America the bandits fight for justice and the military are really bandits. Alej says that he’s always admired Zorro and he asks the Queen’s permission to go search for him. PT says that he’s also sent some natives to find Zorro (PT’s been a busy man---but I wonder is this the help that the cloaked men said they’d send? Because I have to say, this also isn’t that impressive, or perhaps their idea of help was to send PT out in a cart looking for the Queen).

Monty picks up a stick and hits Diego with it. He taunts him, telling him about how he tortured a pregnant Esme and calls Diego weak without a mask. Monty grabs the knife that Diego knocked out of his hand and instead of taking care of Diego right then and there, Monty runs off into the jungle.

Esme and Bernie are on Zorro’s trail and they find his whip. Just a note here, Esme made a big deal of Bernie getting the weapons ready, but it appears that all she brought along was her crossbow. Not quite the arsenal expected by the audience, I’m sure.

The Queen returns to LA with Padre Tomás. The people rejoice and throw flowers. It looks like the prisons are emptied (or at least there are some people walking around with shackles on their wrists, maybe the prisoners are happy, too).

Monty comes across a few CCs and he kills them (they are minor characters, therefore they can die). One of them he throws into the river and apparently there is a colony of piranhas, another unknown fact about early 1800s Los Angeles. Just when it appears that Monty might be what’s on the menu, Diego shows up and saves the day. Monty, in a fighting mood, takes on Diego and says that there is no way he’ll allow Diego to turn him into the authorities. They struggle and Diego ends up stabbing Monty in the gut with the knife, saying, “I told you my face would be the last thing you see before you die.” Diego, just for a good finish, throws Monty into the river where he is devoured by the piranhas (he’s not quite dead as this is happening, so our villain seems to be getting his just desserts--surely he's dead by the end of their feeding frenzy, but then again, this is Zorro where no one dies).

Meanwhile, Mangle is surrounded by the cannibals and she screams. Diego hears this and it appears he’s going to rescue her (it can’t be any better of a rescue attempt than his one for the Queen, I mean he doesn’t even like Mangle so why even put his neck out there).

Maria Pia tells Dena that she’s leaving the hacienda to go be with Fernando. She’s afraid that Diego and Alej will not forgive the man she loves, so she’s going to banish herself from the house. Dena tells her to give Alej and Diego a chance to forgive Fernando.

NAC and Renzo dine with Camba. Camba demonstrates that he’s picked up little Spanish. He calls NAC by name and calls her amiga. Somehow, NAC is able to figure out that Camba’s gestures indicate that he’s going to look for his people in the hills (isn’t he a slave from Africa? Wouldn’t that mean he’d have to go back there to find them? Oh well, when has geography gotten in the way of telling this story). Camba gives NAC a handmade cross and he jumps into the river and swims away (wait, be careful Camba, there are piranhas in that water!! Or maybe it is just one of the many bodies of water around LA, this one could be piranha free). He swims and finds the Amazon women. He’s quite happy, and snogs with two of them.

NAC and Renzo decide they’ll leave the gypsy camp and go it on their own. Renzo is sure that Jonas, Suzi, and Sara Kali will understand because love changes the rules.

Diego, in his search for Mangle, is surrounded by a group of CC. One throws a spear at him and impressively, Diego catches the spear and uses it in his defense. He’s doing a fairly good job of keeping the CCs away, because they only seem to attack one at a time. Just when it looks like our hero might succumb to being outnumbered, Esme and her crossbow arrive in the nick of time. This is just the break that Diego needed!!! Good thing he can hold them off again by himself because Esme and Bernie just give each other a look---which I read to say, “look at him, just out here doing his crazy Zorro stuff, oh well, boys will be boys.” Another thing to note here, Diego was tossing some of the CC into the water, and low and behold no piranhas. It appears just that small little section of water was piranha infested. ***Please see the end of this recap for some truths about piranhas.

The Queen (all decked out in her queenly garb) goes to see el Duco (DJ) in chains. She tells him that she trusted him and he betrayed that trust. DJ smugly tells her that he kept her in power and she asks, at what price? TQ says that she suspects he had something to do with the king’s death and DJ admits he did it. He goes on to say that the king was weak and his dying words were her name. TQ asks about her cousins, the Mayorgas. DJ calls them disgusting people who would have brought about the ruin of Spain. They wanted to give power to the people, and the nobility wouldn’t stand for it. The Queen is incensed and she tells DJ that she will not order his execution. Instead, she tells him that he will spend the remainder of his years imprisoned wearing an iron mask just like he made her cousin, Sara Kali, wear for so many years. DJ’s not so smug now.

Laisha somehow is brought to Jonas (another one of those loose ends that needs tying up, but seems to come out of no where). He asks her if she betrayed the gitanos, her own people. Laisha tries to explain what happened and blames SK, an outsider, for Miguel’s death. Jonas tells her that Miguel willingly gave his life for SK because she has given all she has to the gitanos. Jonas tells Laisha her name will be erased from the tribe and that she must go out and find her own way to survive. He tells her that her punishment will be “to become what you hate, an outsider to her own people."

Mangle is surrounded and captured. The CCs start to sniff their evening meal as they tie her down.

Bernie, Esme, and Diego successfully chase off the CC. They discuss Diego’s wounds and how the two arrived in the nick of time. Just then, Alejandro arrives and is surprised to see that Diego, his son, is Zorro. END OF EPISODE

Link to website telling how the piranha myth was created (same story I read at the St. Louis Zoo when I was a child): http://www.angelfire.com/biz/piranha038/mythpira.html

Are there piranhas in the US? Quote from Wikipedia:

“Piranhas are found only in the Amazon basin, in the Orinoco, in rivers of the Guyanas, in the Paraguay-Paraná, and in the São Francisco River systems; some species of piranha have extremely broad geographic ranges, occurring in more than one of the major basins mentioned above, whereas others appear to have much more limited distributions.[2] However, piranha (inevitably former aquarium-dwellers) have been introduced into parts of the United States, even being occasionally found in the Potomac River, but they typically do not survive the cold winters of that region.[3] Recently a piranha was caught by a fisherman in the Catawba River in North Carolina. [4] This is the first known case in North Carolina and possibly in the region.”

So the answer is yes, but it is a modern introduction.

Labels: Zorro