Caray, Caray!

Pardon him for daring to mention it, says Franco, but it’s more like Sofia’s mother has been putting ideas into her head. He melodramatically turns his back to her for emphasis as he tells her that her mama’s even been telling lies that his daddy way back when was in love with her. Of course Franco refuses to doubt the love his two parents shared for each other. (Said another way: your mama’s delusional so maybe try puttin’ two and two together and gettin’ 4 for once, you dimwit dame!) This little revelation gets Sofia to stop about two seconds to reflect on something and someone other than herself before she starts in with the same woe is me sing-song. Franco then relents and says he understands her pain. “Ha!” says Sofia. “No! Nobody can understand my pain! I didn’t even get to know my child! I don’t even know what she looks like – and it’s all because Juan has condemned me to it!” (How about the fact that Franco was so young when his parents were murdered that he can’t even remember what they looked like?) Franco watches as Sofia wanders off and he tells himself again that Juan isn’t capable and that it can’t be true.

Meanwhile, as native flutes play mesmerizingly in the background, a skinny dipping Juan dives into the river, and those of us with the benefit of digitized DVR get a glimpse of a titillating, not-so-pixilated, version of the underside of Juan’s backside crack. (Hubby’s with Hombre and me on this one: the view of EY at this angle is a bit more information than we needed.) Juan, in a birthday suit which, for 40-something EY has definitely aged in rather nicely over so many birthdays, is swimming innocently along as luscious lipped and unabashedly nude Leonora also gets into the water. She, apparently of the “if it feels good, do it” school of medical ethics, swims over and tells him that from the first moment in which she laid eyes on him she felt attracted to him. (Dunno about the rest of you, but the close up here of Juan’s still battered and swollen face is anything but a turn-on for me. Maybe Leonora has just been in the wild a bit too long and fell victim to the pheromone phenomenon, ‘cause he looks more like an un-jolly, black and blue-green giant to me at this point.) She says that since they’re all alone there in the jungle there is no reason they can’t get it on together; and to top it off, she promises him (Oh happy day!) sex without commitments.

Luscious Leonora attempts to kiss Juan then and it seems he just might give in to the moment. In the end, though, still subconsciously faithful to Sofia, he rejects her and says that she is simply confused because he saved her life from the minions of the angry, ugly Diapered One. It’s no more than that and so she thinks she loves him. Besides, until he figures out who he is and what he’s doing there, he tells her, he has no business being with her. It’s better that she gets out of the river and he’ll turn around to save what shred of modesty she still has. So (while hubby complains that only Mexico gets to see the un-pixilated version of her and I keep what I know about various racier Youtube versions to myself) she swims off.

Back in Puebla City Fernando goes to the jail to see Alejandro Reyes who demands to know what happened that night. Feo swears to him that he had nothing to do with either Juan’s or the baby girl’s disappearance and gives his bogus version of events. El Jefe grabs Fernando through the bars and says he knows Juan is incapable of doing something like that, but Fernando convinces him that it shouldn’t be so hard to believe that since Juan knew Gabriela wouldn’t allow him to ever see his child that he might do anything to keep his child with him.

Sofia meanwhile has returned to Harpy Haven to complain to Gabi about having sold Eva’s daughter to the Uribes for land and then, to top it off, her having the nerve to tell Franco that his father was in love with her instead of his own wife. Sofia cannot comprehend how Mama could be so insensitive and so inhumane. (Come on, Sofia. After all this time and with all the crap you’ve taken from her?) Gabi dismisses her as Ste. Sofia of Lost Causes and tells Sofia, through her own twisted reasoning, that she actually did the little girl a favor by giving her away since now the girl will be the only heir to the entire Uribe fortune. Sofia disagrees and reminds Mama that she illegally intervened against the most sacred thing in life, the love between a mother and her child. Gabi scoffs at Sofia and says she’s fed up with the subject already. Doesn’t she know anything else to talk about? Everything Sofia discusses revolves around the relationships of mothers and their children. (Well, maybe if Sofia had a healthy relationship with her own mother…..) “Why can’t you just accept that Juan Reyes kidnapped your daughter and that she will never be found?”

Sofia refuses to believe her daughter won’t reappear somehow, but Gabi says it is so and that it’s God’s punishment because she chose to oppose her mother. She is condemned to suffer the same fate as Eva’s. (Now right there a couple of light bulbs should have gone off in Slowfia’s noggin.) Gabi smiles smugly at her. This domineering bitch’s sick, sadistic pleasure at seeing the suffering of both Eva and Sofia at the loss of their children is written all over her face. “Neither of you two will ever get to know your child, do you hear me? Never!” As the music swells and we break for a commercial, the only question is, as impactada as naive Slowfia seems to be, will the realization of what she is seeing and hearing EVER sink in?

Across the way at Hacienda de los Baker Boys, Rosario has come for a visit. She speaks with Franco and he confesses to her that he loves Sarita much more so than he could ever have imagined and then apologizes for hurting her. She bucks up and says that’s ok, he can unload on her anytime he likes. (What a door mat you are, Rosario. Sheesh.)

===========

Night falls. Immature Sarita (with a stringed orchestra playing musical refrains in the background of the theme from Destilando Amor??!!) is back to writing love notes in her diary. She is still emotionally conflicted over her feelings of love and hate for Franco as she cries to the dolly in her lap about fate keeping them separated forever.

Across the hallway, Feo creeps into Gabi’s room as she sleeps. He looks down at her and remembers her confessing to him that since childhood being locked up is her greatest fear because it’s like being buried alive for her. He decides to leave and lock her in for grins, like some sick kid who wants to see what happens when he pulls off the wings of a fly. Gabi wakes up afterwards and begins calling out for him. She tries opening the locked door and begins begging for him or anyone to open it for her. Fernando, smiling demonically to himself, hears but ignores her and plays with the silver snake choker he bought her the day Raquel Uribe confronted them at the sidewalk café in Puebla City. Fernando continues to sit on the dark stairway and listen to her panicked screams until he hears her eventually pass out from the fear and fall to the floor. (Now, seriously, how far away could Sarita’s room be that she can’t hear all the ruckus her mother must be making?)

Away in the jungle, Oscar continues his midnight meanderings in search of Juan. He ends up at the Indian settlement determined to search each of the huts one by one. “Something,” he says to himself, “tells me Juan is nearby.” (Uh, maybe this would be a good time to ask Papa Juanjo to have a little confab with the Big Guy upstairs for a couple of solid clues?) Oscar is so obsessed by now with the need to find Juan (we are led to believe) that he apparently cannot wait until morning to ask around and so he creeps from hut to hut looking for Juan like a freakin’ peeking tom.

Sofia, meantime, is having nightmares about Juan handing her over her newborn daughter only to find the baby miraculously absent from its swaddling. She wakes up and begins talking to the empty baby sweater she keeps next to her in bed, crying to it and mourning for her missing child to be returned to her. (I know, I know. Somebody should have taken those baby clothes away from her by now and packed them away in a trunk somewhere, but that would just make too much sense in this family fun-house.) At the same time Juan is dreaming and he begins to yell in his sleep from the mental flashbacks and the excruciating pain they literally are causing him. He wakes and calls out to the mat below for Leonora. She’s not there and so he leaves the hut to go looking for her.

Juan finds Leonora taking a walk despite the thunder and lightning and intermittent rain. She has been remembering her fiasco with him in the river. He rushes up and tells her excitedly that he has remembered something. She suggests they take a stroll together and they will discuss it. Just then, on the other side of the settlement, Oscar peeks into their tent and sees only a sleeping Silvestre and an empty bed. Frustrated, he asks dead sis Libia to guide him, but apparently she’s gone out for a midnight stroll through the clouds herself and doesn’t get the message.

Juan tells Leonora he remembers something about another storm and lightening and a big tree but… She tells him that perhaps the storm is “stimulating” his memories. (I’m wondering if that isn’t too big a word for Juan to grasp.) He says he doesn’t know whether to stay there or to go off and try to find his home and family. She attempts to convince him to begin a new life, preferably with her. “Where would you go? If you are a man without a past you have no direction and you’d be exposing yourself to all sorts of danger. Whatever you might want, at least here you are protected and this could be your new family. In the clinic you have a home and with me you could start a new life.” She looks up at him with those pouting, sexy, siliconed lips. He looks up at the sky and then back at her and thinks about what she’s suggesting. Thunder continues to rumble and lightning continues to flash. Oscar, on the other side of the settlement with no answer from Little Sis, rides away.

Back at the hacienda freaky Fer opens the door finally and kicks Gabi to stir her awake. She wakes up and starts crying inconsolably. Feo pretends to comfort her. “Oh, oh. Calm yourself. The storm must have caused the door to stick. Get into bed. I’m here to take care of you. I’m here to protect you. It’s alright. Quiet down now.” (Eh, well, it’s not as if she deserves our sympathy over this.) He holds her with a nearly imperceptible smile on his face as she cries about not being able to cope with being locked in and feeling like she is buried alive.

Back over at the Robles-Reyes kitchen Quintina, Franco and Pablito are having a late-night meal. Quintina worries about where they are going to get money to pay the mortgage and Franco tells her he feels inadequate as head of the family. She tells him honestly that he’s not the baker his brother was and so the bread isn’t selling like it used to. So, Franco might as well do what he does best: sing serenades. He agrees with her and they put plan “B” to work.

Sofia comes running over to Augie’s cottage, in tears from the bad dream and desperate to find her daughter. She tells Augie about the nightmare she just had. In a three hankie scene they hug while he comforts her and tells her to cry herself out because she cannot allow herself to become like her mother who sees crying as a sign of weakness. She must cry it all out and face her misfortune with courage. She cannot continue to be one of the living dead from her pain.

Somehow and somewhere at that time of night Franco and the others find their buddy, the accordion player, and they rehearse a little before setting out to find a serenade gig.

Back at the cottage Gramps and Sofia begin to chat. He tells her she has the unconditional love of her family and that she should never allow herself to become like the Reyes who caused everyone’s suffering because of their blinding ridiculous need for vengeance at the death of their sister. She promises to get back to being the “old Sofia” but says she will never stop searching for her daughter.

As Franco and the others play serenades for the locals and the money comes rolling in, Leonora tells Juan about her father not bothering to even come to the bus station to see her off. He tells her as long as she has a father she has no reason to complain. He, on the other hand, has nothing to tell because he can’t remember it.
===============

Morning finally comes to Cd. Serdán. Quintina and Franco have made more than enough to keep things going there at the hacienda for a while longer. She tells him that Rigo gets out of the hospital today and she’s going to look for a cheaper place for them all to live. He says no reason to since there is more than enough room at the hacienda for them. They can all come live there with him and not have to worry themselves about being able to cover the rent. Quintina says they’ll love it and thanks him for the regal ways of the Reyes.

Rigo gets a clean bill of health from his specialist. Eugenia comes to visit him at the clinic and he gives an engagement ring to her and asks her to marry him. (Benito call your office!)

At the same time, back at the Hacienda de las Harpías, Fernando and Mama make a big to do in front of everyone about his formally asking her to marry him and giving her the engagement ring which, like Feo, she also unwittingly bought for herself. She is delighted to accept with a grin even the Cheshire Cat would envy. Augie doesn’t miss the opportunity to comment on what a huge and expensive diamond ring it is. He asks Fer who actually bought it, him or Grabbi. Fernando catches himself and says coolly (as in butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth) that he of course bought it and he will not allow Augie’s impertinence to wreck the moment of this grand occasion. He then, classy guy that he is, offers everyone glasses of champagne to toast Gabi and himself with, but it is painfully obvious that nobody is in the mood. Sarita clears her throat and explains it’s not exactly the proper moment for toasting since Jimena is ill and Sofia’s daughter is still missing.

Crabi looks angrily at her daughters and says if nobody toasts her than it’s like saying it isn’t important to any of them. (Imagine that!) Neither Sofia, nor Sarita nor Augie move a muscle. They all stare at Gabriela as if they’ve just swallowed castor oil straight. So, Gabi toasts herself. She then stares over at Sofia and asks why Sofia won’t toast to her mother’s happiness. (Yes, oh why? Oh why? I can’t imagine. Let's see, her physically abusive, three-timing lech of an ex is marrying her emotionally abusive mother in something akin to a near incestuous relationship. Could that possibly have anything to do with it?) Sofia, her expression flat as day old champagne, then obliges, telling Mama that, God willing, Fernando might actually make her happy. Sofia then tells the others that they will all toast to Mama and Fer’s happiness and hopefully Mama might realize they all are with her rather than against her. Augie won’t even take a glass. He looks at the floor instead. “To your happiness, Mama.”

Fer nibbles at Crabi’s hand and then he and Crabi embrace and begin swallowing each other’s tongues. The others look as if they can still taste that castor oil at the back of their throats. As Fer and Crabi continue sucking face in the “passion” of the moment, the others are sickened and look away in total disgust.