Caray, Caray!

I don't care how much scary music is played or how many cymbal crashes are cued, none of us care whether the witches attend the party at CRT.

Minerva, Isa and Fedra, however, are very pleased with themselves, imagining how their absence will be of such great importance to everyone at the Don Amador memorial bash...

Rod doesn't trust his father-in-law who's barely paying interest on his huge debt. Videgaray reminds Rod: Don Amador's will does not allow the hacienda to be mortgaged. Rod muses: maybe I can leverage factory earnings somehow to avoid the worst consequences of my own stupidity in signing for Ricky Sr. Videgaray reminds us: tomorrow is the opening of the special codicil of Don Amador's will. Rod tells him (again): prepare the divorce papers.

Isa asks the new doorman (or manager) of the condo: Why was my sister-in-law asking about the other guy? (The one she got fired cause he knew too much about her dalliances.) "I dunno, but I gave her his contact info." Isa is furious.

At the hacienda, James is sitting alone, impactado because the telephone bills Sofia has been waiting for arrive. Looking at them crosseyed he muses portentously, "Sofia's matrimony hinges on these bills." To cut to the chase, he opens one and finds many calls from Frankie to Isa's apartment. He calls Sofia and tells her, but says he can't possibly open Frankie's cellphone bill. She says she'll open it herself when she gets back to the hacienda. Frankie was sneaking up behind during this conversation and asked what was up, Sofia says James was just asking if he could prepare a welcome feast for the harvesters.

SanJuana flounces around the hacienda, as irritating as ever. Ofelia wants to throttle her, as we all do. "Ofelia, I know you don't think this baby is Hilario's, but there are ways of proving that it is." Hil, in his apartment, brooding over her pregnancy, also does not believe her - "It's a vile lie," he thoughtbubbles.

We now come up to the most hilarious and preposterous product placement I have yet seen on television in my entire life. Nancy is in tears again, she's just so so upset that the Montalvo wives are not coming to the homage and are going to write a complaining letter to Avellaneda (see, I can spell it if I try). I was thinking "dang, that girl needs tranquilizers." But, instead, she says she has a stomach ache and Dr. Blondie leans over her desk, reaches into his suit's inner pocket, and whips out a huge box of antacid. The camera zooms in for a loving closeup and he says it's a very effective remedy against gastritis. Needless to say, Gaviota and Nancy are both astonished by its wondrous powers.

Oh, we just can't go through this again, can we? Gaviota wants to quit again. Blondie tells her to hold her ground. The witches toast their own cleverness with malevolent glee. Pilar arrives and reams them out. "If you care more about humiliating Gaviota than you care about honoring Amador, you are not part of this family. If you're not at this homage tonight, you will not be welcome at my house tomorrow for the reading of the long-awaited codicil to Amador's will."

[When I paused my tape, Fedra's mouth was extremely wide open in indignation/astonishment at Pilar's pronouncement. As I have bragged before, Fedra's dentist in real life moved from Mexico City to Chapel Hill and now sings in the chorale I direct. Nice work on those teeth, Becky!]

[I detect little or no motion on the witches' faces. Was it Botox day on the set?]

We are given a new opportunity to hate Rodrigo when Dani asks if he's nervous about seeing Gaviota and he replies cheerfully: "Oh, I'm coming to the homage for Gramps, not for Gaviota, and anyway I'm seeing Erika later." He chuckles to himself at the very idea that Gaviota's presence could possibly have mattered to him. Don't you want to just smack that complacent puss of his?

Minerva gets off the phone with Aaron and whines: he's glad she isn't coming - he's probably gonna be with one of his so-and-so's. Fedra says she's not sure "their" plan is working... so maybe - better they should go to the party and provoke a fight with Gaviota's inner jimadora. Let her get wild (ooh, catfight!), they might get beaten up a bit, but having her lose control in front of everybody will be worth it.

Everybody dresses for the party. The witches have a little beauty fest. The party starts. Blondie and Gaviota greet all the arriving guests, and a TV crew, and Pammie's daddy (who pulls Avellaneda aside to tell him he has disquieting documents from Eastern Europe and they should meet soon to discuss them)...

And kudos to Susanlynn for reminding me that there was a brief shot of Pammie in a bed somewhere (I couldn't tell if she was wearing a bikini) looking like hell with her worried motehr holding her hand...

... and Patricio and his fiance, and Aaron. (Patricio tells Aaron he'll be happy to assist him should his business ever be legitimate, but count him out of future adulterated shipments of tequila. Aaron says he made so much money on the stock market he's set for life. He brushes off Patricio's complaint that he risked corporation money as well as his own.)

... and Pilar and the granddaughters, who speculate over whether Blondie and Gaviota are an item. Pilar is very gracious to Gaviota and tells her the behavior of the Montalvo girls is not her fault. She reminds her grand-daughters: "Gaviota told me her love for Rodrigo is eternal."

The ceremony is about to start. Rodrigo strides in late. Gav gives him tearful puppy dog eyes, but he's sort of chipper and businesslike with her as with everyone. He gets lots of congratulations for the success of "Ardiente Pasión." He apologizes halfheartedly for his crass rejection of CRT's help but says he still doesn't want it - "I'm into being independent." He takes a look at Sofia, says she looks sad, and says, "Oh I get it, you must be pregnant!" Way to go, boob.

Dani pulls him aside to ask how he feels about seeing Gaviota. "She's more beautiful than ever," he says.

At another location, Erika is setting up a big party; Rod will arrive later. Or wait, is that the sound of an anvil whistling towards her apartment? She and her friend remind each other that Erika is in love with Rod, but Rod is in love with another woman.

Back to CRT. Frankie is telling a little circle of uninterested people: "I have an English assistant, but basically the whole weight of the hacienda falls on my own shoulders, and though my POLO CLUB FRIENDS tell me the work is below me, I do it for the sake of the family." Rod overhears some of this and says, "Gee, you must be tired, working so hard."

Rod gets a moment to tell Gaviota she looks beautiful, and then the witches stride in like Charlie's Angels, though instead of wearing spandex they sport frumpy, fussy frocks. They are already a bit boozed up and immediately commence drinking more. Gaviota, seeing them, immediately throws back a shot of tequila herself against Dr. Blondie's advice that "tension aggravates the effect of alcohol."

Tomorrow: Isa is telling Frankie, in a corner somewhere: "Someone will discover us," when somebody does - Sofia. Gaviota chokes Minerva in a bathroom, asking how many executives she's been with. Then she asks Dani if Rod is in love with Erika. Stay tuned for the answer to these and other gripping mysteries.

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