Caray, Caray!

We open with Sofia and Juan, still at the altar please button your shirt when you are in church, Juan, he is reaming her out: "You giver of false promises, you promised to be mine forever, so come across!" With Jesus looking down upon them, Juan sounds like an irate Jewish mother: "I used to bless every moment we spent together, but now I curse the moment I met you because I'll have to live without your love." She leaks tears but he goes on and on until she leaves. Then he whispers "actually, I bless every caress we had..."

Oscar and Jimena try to convince Father Bouffy they're really in love: "I want her to be the mother of my children. Marry us right away!" "Jimena, have you thought about your mother's reaction?" "I'm not as noble as Sofia, I won't sacrifice my love. Get us married pronto!"

It turns out Rosario's dresser Ofelia is also her bouncer. She refuses to let Eva in, even when Eva says "I'm her mother." "She doesn't want to see you, get lost." Armando (formerly known as Moustache) watches.

Furd spends a lot of time in this episode tearing through the office, looking for the papers Bernardo has hidden which will prove Furd's guilt and prevent him from being lord of all he surveys. Gab keeps popping in on him and cheerily asking what he's looking for. "You're always working away, night and day, to make things good for us here at the hacienda." "What a mistake Bernardo made, to dump a beautiful gal like you for a floozie like Libia."

Talking to Bernardo's photo (Furd has removed the incriminating letter hidden in the frame) Gab announces: "Furd is right, you didn't deserve me." The next time Gab pops into the office Furd tells her it's his sacred duty to work so hard, then whispers salaciously: "I love your perfume, it's the scent of an exquisite woman, you need a man to love you as you deserve." He leans in very, very close.

Sofia is at her wimpiest in this episode. She staggers around leaking tears. Juan's not much better - when Oscar and Jimena (showing lots of midriff in church) bounce out of Father Bouffy's office they see Juan collapsed in a miserable puddle, he tells them he can't take any more and would rather die than lose Sofia's love. "It will all work out," that's the sage counsel Oscar provides.

After the commercial, Gramps tells Franco they've gotta talk about Franco and his two women. "Ah, Gramps, I'm so confused, I love them both, how I'd love to merge them into one." Gramps, who in general is the most sensible one in the entire show, delivers a demented monologue. "Women are like violets, they are hard to cultivate, they don't give themselves to just anyone, they are jealous, when they flower their beauty is unique, but if you don't take care of them they wither easily and one suffers from guilt. Do you want to watch two women wither for your sake?" (It's hard to imagine Rosario withering.) "Of course not. But I'm very confused." For some reason Eva is shown to be eavesdropping.

Rosario: "Ofelia, that woman [Eva] makes me queasy. What did she want? Did she have something to say to me?" Ofelia lies and says no.

Eva goes to the bakery and tells Gramps it's odd that he has more freedom here than at home; he says old folks, like children, mostly want affection and he's found it here. She tells him it's frustrating that Rosario won't see her and how will she find out if they are truly mother and daughter?

Furd strips, preparing to ravish Rosario, we get another look at the snake tattoo on his back. He calls her Sofia as he rubs himself over her. He later tells Moustache how Gab will do anything to keep him home, and has even suggested he find another woman to service his needs. "I'll find me a low-maintenance woman, one without baggage, and I won't give up Sofia or the hacienda, I'll have it all."

The Uribe boys are astonished, most unfavorably, to find their auntie Raquel has come home. In simultaneous announcements, Gab tells Sarita and Jimena they will be marrying the Uribe boys in a double wedding as soon as possible and Raquel delivers the same news to Tweedle dum and Tweedle dee. It appears the boys will lose their inheritances if they don't appease the oldsters.

Oscar tells Jimena not to worry, she'll marry him, not a Tweedle.

Sarita, though, is overwhelmed by her mother's barrage: "Sarita, I know you won't rebel, you won't be a putrid apple like your sisters, you're my pride, I'll see you happily married before I die - you know how delicate my health is - my heart is weaker every day - your sisters don't care, but they'll pay! You can get Gramps to come home, I'd beg on my knees but Juan won't let me in the bakery!"

Juan's brothers tell him he was awfully hard on Sofia. Sucking in his gut in a state of high emotion, Juan explains he'll never forget her, he's a man of one woman and will love her all his life. He suggests they go together down to the river, where they originally found their sister's corpse, and renew their vows of vengeance. This makes them all very cheerful.

Sofia leaks more tears and tells Eva she wants to die, she pardons Juan all his reproaches, she just wants to sleep forever. Eva goes to the bakery and reports to Juan: "Sofia wants to die after what you said. She will die of love." Then Eva goes off to the Bad Love Bar and, with terrible timing, accosts Rosaria just as she's about to go onstage and asks for a few minutes of her time. No surprise, Rosario brushes past her and goes on to sing a song about rejection, guilt, borrowed kisses, and lies. Eva is impactada, possibly because of the guilt she feels about Rosario or possibly because of the torch she carried for the married Bernardo.

At the bakery Sarita dutifully begs Gramps to come home, because his daughter Gab misses him so terribly. "Nuts, she just needs my signature on the bills, I signed things blindly when Bernardo was around but not any more. She's smart, using you this way, she'd have been a good Napoleon. Tell her I won't come back and I won't sign anything."

When Father Bouffy comes to the bakery to ask Gramps advice about Jimena and Oscar, Gramps is heartily in favor of their union.

Sarita goes home and reports on her failure to fetch Gramps back to the farm. "Is it true you want him for his bank accounts?" Gab denies it hysterically and makes a grand exit. Furd suggests Sarita tell her sisters they are killing their mother.

Sarita goes out riding on her horse and Franco follows her. Or is the other way around, who is stalking whom? They dismount, he grabs her and affixes his moray mouth to hers and there is bone-crushing suck, suck, suck. However, she appears to like it. Jimena watches from behind a bush. When Sarita runs away Jimena asks Franco: "What is this, do you love her or not?" "Of course I love her, but I love Rosario too, I'm confused." "You have to decide, don't mess with my sister." "I'll figure it out."

After a happy few hours excoriating Sofia and her tricks, Furd says he'll take her some tea. "Any other woman would want you for a husband," breathes Gab. Furd finds some ziplock bag of powder left over from Barrera de Amor and stirs it into Sofia's tea. "You'll be mine tonight." He takes it to her and watches closely as she drinks it. Soon she is sound asleep. I thought it was a date-rape drug but I think instead he's planning some sort of necrophilia abuse because Sofia is dead to the world. Then he leaves.

So joke's on Furd, because Juan comes in the window and talks to the completely passed-out Sofia endlessly about his love and strokes her hand and kisses her. [Some men prefer extremely quiet women, did you see that Almodóvar movie with two men madly in love with two women in comas?]

Suddenly Juan hears a horse whinny and shimmies down the drainpipe to escape. Furd, on the verge of ravishing the comatose Sofia, hears a whinny too and summons the hacienda workforce and their guns. Juan whistles, his horse comes running and he jumps on and escapes a la the Lone Ranger while Furd & Co. fire shots at his backside.

If there was a "tomorrow" I missed it, sorry.

Labels: Fuego