Caray, Caray!

• We start with the noncommital note Bouffy sent Liz, it contains no news about her precious ED card.
  
  Sofia comes and asks, why didn't y'all come by the salon? "Oh, we knew you had visitors." "It was the Archbishop! He received Ricardo with such affection!"
  
  Sofia's hairdo is like unto Marge Simpson's though not as colorful. She (Sofia) asks, can't y'all just try to get along with Camila? No, no, we'll go back to Mariana and see who'll take us in.
  
  Sofia asks if they'd like her to talk to Ricardo for them. "No, no more humiliations, don't tell him!"
  
  
• Ric and the Archbishop (Arch from now on) pop out of a carriage into an admiring throng, the witnesses ready to testify that Gonzalo was drunk and was first to draw a weapon. It appears Mario will have to stay in jail until Jorge is back from his trip with Foreman.
  
  Arch finds out Marcellino is in charge while Jorge is away and goes to see him. He lays it on thick with poor snivelling Marcellino: "Oh, nobody understands bureaucracy better than I do! But we're not in the High Court of Madrid here, much less the Vatican."
  
  The other guy comes in and says the guards are interrogating the throng of witnesses, "there are too many of them."
  
  Marcellino whines that the dead guy was a Personal Friend of Don Jorge. "Ah," says Arch, "but the woman who was offended was practically my goddaughter." Marcellino, impactado, shows a rodent overbite and squeaks in dismay - to whom should he be pandering, so hard to choose!
  
  Arch presses on: "I have a Personal Interest. Gonzalo provoked the situation, let's consider that justice has been done. I have far more important matters to settle, matters of the Crown, I have to be on a boat tomorrow, to go to Madrid and then Rome, and what shall I tell His Majesty? That I missed the boat due to a ridiculous little problem in a podunk called San Fernando? I won't leave until you release Mario. Prepare a document saying he's innocent, he was defending a woman. I give you a half hour before he must be freed."
  
  The other guy comes back and Marcellino does a "Uh? What just happened?" The other guy says Arch was right, Gonzalo was indeed drunk and did indeed draw his sword first. "But what will I tell Don Jorge?" "That the Monsignor made you do it." "You told me you have evidence that Ricardo is not a decent man?" "I can't tell you."
  
  Arch strolls along complacently telling Ric he knows when to use persuasion and when to threaten. His advice: "If you're going to live in this town, keep a cap on your boys and avoid this sort of problem."
  
  Vasco kisses Arch's ring, Arch tells Vasco a miller is performing an important service. After that weighty comment he gets into the coach.
  
  Back at Ric's, his boys are impressed he has such a VIP friend. "Haven't you noticed, he's a gentleman!" "A gentleman is somebody who can read and write and understand maps, and is smarter than you guys."
  
  
• Santiago is feeding the baby. Rita (temporarily not shouting) smiles at him from bed. They dandle the baby together and tentatively name her Ana. She wants Vasco and Ines to be the godparents, Saintly thinks Vasco is unworthy. GRita sneers the names of Camila and Ricardo, Saintly denies he was going to suggest them.
  
  GRita tells him Cami came to visit, and is undoubtedly jealous of the baby. "After all she's had sex with so very many men and has never managed to get pregnant."
  
  "Why do you hate her?" "I don't hate her, I just know her better than the rest of you do." Chilled, he says he has to get back to the forge. "If you weren't so stubborn you wouldn't have to go to work." To his back she calls him stubborn, proud and stupid.
  
  Saintly asks his mother why he wasn't informed that Camila came to call. "I don't want you thinking about her." She tells him Ric and Cami don't want her non-rape by Jorge to be broadcast to the world, and yes, Saintly, that's what Cami wants (not just Ric). "Why revive this misery?"
  
  Saintly CAN'T FORGET. "I can't accept my father after the way he humiliated me." Stomps out.
  
  
• Foreman exposits to Jorge during their excursion: "The Crown is sucking us dry. Now that the war is over, the corsairs are embarrassed by us. England and France forget we filled their coffers when they fought against Spain." "How many times have peace treaties been signed and then it's war again? Centuries!" "Everything has an end, and our good little thing is going to be over soon, so let's take advantage while we can. By the way, is Ursula your only child?" "No, I have a male heir."
  
  Nearby, Uriel and Alberto rehash. They agree Ric is probably a spy - after having plundered for England, he now wants to work for Spain to get his pardon. His involvement means the contraband business is more dangerous. "Yes," says Bouffy, "but he has an Achilles Heel - his wife!"
  
  They head off and, looking fine on horseback, reach the pirate settlement at the beach. Foreman says Juancho is more animal than man but La Paisana, who is older, used to be very pretty. "She was a pirate?" "No, a whore."
  
  The beach pirates ask who the fancy visitors are. Foreman tells Jorge he allows them a lot of liberties (e.g. to be sassy) because they are a Pirate Brotherhood. "If they go too far we just slash their throats." Jorge smiles happily: "That's an excellent remedy."
  
  Foreman commands scantily clad handmaidens to fetch food and drink. "These gentlemen will be fencing our goods, Don Jorge here's a VIP."
  
  Juancho wonders angrily why these guys have been brought in to do what he's always done.
  
  Chino to Juancho: "I've told you a thousand times I'm tired of being called Chino. I'm Japanese. "I don't know what that is and I don't care."
  
  Chino and La Paisana are sick of Juancho and tell Foreman to get rid of him or "we'll bury him." "Bury him," agrees Foreman. "You make quick decisions," marvels Jorge.
  
  Chino's name is really "Josie-Jay" according to the subtitles.
  
  
• Camila is fussing over Jimena's bruises, Jimena is fussing that Mario's in jail, she doesn't want him condemned. "What difference would a few more blows have meant to me?"
  
  
• At the forge, rehashing. Chip says Gonzalo was a no-account and is glad he's gone. Saintly: "don't say that, it's a sin to kill." Vasco reminds Saintly he was no saint the night Cami was taken, then the blood ran. Saintly stomps off and remembers that awful night. Behind him a saying is muttered: "If a lamb lives in a world of wolves, he'll be eaten." "Santiago's no lamb." "No, but he wears that skin."
  
  
• Arch and Ric rehash in the house. "Now that England and France have signed a peace treaty, they want the pirates to disappear, pirates mess with commerce and that's bad for the tax base."
  
  Ric asks: "Who's going to fight us, government employees or hired guns? Because if the goverment is hiring [people to dismantle the pirate empire], I'd take the job in exchange for my pardon." "You would betray your friends?"
  
  I was perplexed by Ric's response. My son and I puzzled over it a bit. If somebody got it better than I did, I'll fix this - I think Ric said no he wouldn't, but the only one he feels loyalty to is Foreman, who is also thinking of "retiring;" any of the others would stab him in the back without giving him time for a last prayer.
  
  He wants, at least, to warn the other pirates they court death if they don't leave the profession. Arch: "You're dreaming. The smart ones have figured this out already and the poor ones won't pay any attention. And as for Foreman, I know him better than you do, he'd put a knife in your back without blinking."
  
  Arch gives a bundle of documents to Ric. They declare him innocent. "Guard them well." [Surely that means they will soon be stolen. --Ed.]
  
  Ricardo shakes a bit taking them in his arms. "For once in my life I really love a woman and want a family, I want to have children and watch them grow, I want to live in peace. I'll do anything I have to if you'll pardon me, I haven't lived the life I would have chosen." No problem, Arch forgives him.
  
  They stroll out with Camila. Arch: "I'm afraid I have to leave for my boat. These [small time bureaucrats] can't get away with it."
  
  Ric says in order to free Mario, if the authorities don't, he'll storm the prison with fire and blood if he has to. Arch says don't be impulsive and leaves.
  
  
• Predictably, Camila tells Ric he shouldn't try to save Mario, it's too dangerous. "But Mario was my family for all those years. We have affection and loyalty for each other, he saved my life many times." "But you'll be risking your own life!" "OK, we'll wait a night - if they don't free him I'll find a way to get him out of jail and send him to La Iguana like Claudio...
  
  "But the most important thing," he continues, "is to save you! I didn't tell you before because I didn't want to upset you - but you have to give all the money back to Lis. I'm pretty sure Alberto has the ED card and will use it to help Liz get the inheritance, maybe they'll marry, maybe this is why Tia and Liz moved to the palace."
  
  She reminds him she'd have to go back to being a servant, and that she's spent a lot of the money already. "I'll make up the shortfall." "How?"
  
  He asks her not to give herself up, if she goes to debtor's prison before he's had time to make back the money he'll go crazy.
  
  "Forget me," she whines, "I'm just a burden, I just cause problems." "I've lived with problems all my life. We're part of each other. Get it in your head, I love you," etc. They will get a lawyer and after everything is set up they'll talk to her family - they'll lose the mill - but Vasco is young and strong and will recoup somehow...
  
  
• Mario strolls up to the mill, Vasco is relieved to see he's been sprung from jail. He begs Mario to stop Cami from giving back all the money, and besides, she's spent a lot of it already. He's still hoping Bernabe ate the ED card before he died. "Wait? Like, until your sister is in jail?"
  
  He goes to Ric's and gets great hugs from Jimena, who is making blessings. "Blessings, yeah, because this is the first time you've hugged me like this." "Fool! I'm just glad you're out of jail, make no other insinuations. but thanks for defending me."
  
  "You're special to me." "Why?" "Haven't you noticed I'm stuck to your skirts?" He again offers her a house and money but declines to wed, so she asks: "Are you married, do you have a wife somewhere?" "I have one in every port, but if you'll say yes I'll dump them all." "You're never serious."
  
  Ric is delighted to see Mario a free man - one problem solved. Cami thanks Mario for saving her brother's life. "Aww, any decent man would have done it - I did it even though I'm not a decent man."
  
  
• I lost the little bit which came next. GRita gets the gossip from Vasco's son and staggers out of bed to ask Santi and Ofelia: "So it's CAMILA's fault Gonzalo is dead?" Everybody is totally teed off with her, Ines is shaking with rage. "We thought you were acting like a lunatic because you were pregnant, but you're not pregnant any more and you're still crazy!" GRita asks, "If you knew your hubby Vasco was still shagging Doña Ursula would you be this calm?" "My son never slept with Camila!" shouts Ofelia. "Oh, that's what YOU think!" shouts GRita and Justo slaps her.

Labels: Pasion

Permalink posted by melinama @ 11:36 PM