Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Doña Bárbara - Wed., Jan. 7 - Meléndez implements his plan to use Marisela as bait to catch Santos and DB

DB tells Melquíades that Meléndez is taking too long to come back to the room. She feels that something is wrong.

Gonzalo tells Santos to go ahead and hit him again out of jealousy. He says that Santos' jealousy is not that of someone for his distant cousin but the jealousy of a man defending his woman. Santos accuses Gonzalo of being irresponsible in asking Marisela to meet him away from Altamira with all the soldiers around. Gonzalo says that it's water under the bridge now. He asks what they are going to do and Santos tells him they are going to wait for Marisela.

Meléndez tells Marisela that in his life he has made master plays ('jugadas maestras'). These plays have enabled him to become the chief of the political police in the state. He has eliminated those who stood in his way. He says that Marisela is the best play that he has made in his life.
Marisela says that he has to let her go; she hasn't done anything. Meléndez says that she has provoked him with her face, eyes and beautiful body. He tells her that she is his bait (carnada) to catch DB and Santos.

DB comes down to the bar looking for Meléndez but Pernalete says that he hasn't seen him. He compares the consequence of Meléndez' arrival in the Arauca to the seven plagues of Egypt descending on him. Pernalete tells DB about Meléndez' having his lieutenant arrested.

Antonio tells the soldiers patrolling the river that he is out to meet a married woman with whom he is having an affair. They let him go but tell him to stay away from the river or he'll be detained.

Guerrero is trying to convince one of the other soldiers to let him out of jail when all the Altamira and El Miedo vaqueros are locked up in jail for the night. DB asks to see Guerrero.

Waiting for Marisela by the well, Santos decides that it is too late to start his and the rebel's escape that evening. He orders Gonzalo to go back to the cellar but he refuses saying that he is responsible for what happened.

Cecilia and Lorenzo are waiting for news when Antonio comes in looking for Santos. They tell him that Marisela has disappeared. He tells them that escape by the river is impossible. It's too well guarded.

Marisela tries to kick Meléndez and spits on him. He says that she is just like her mother and says that he is going to tell her a story that she will like.

DB asks Guerrero where Meléndez is. He says that he doesn't know but he warns her that Meléndez is a danger to DB and her daughter.

Meléndez tells Marisela about how he and the others raped DB long ago. "Once I have finished Luzardo off and killed your mother," he says, "I will make you experience the same as her and I will take you ('te voy a gozar') and take you and take you."

Guerrero tells DB that the Colonel is crazy. He says that DB's daughter is in great danger. Meléndez is going to use Marisela to lure DB into a trap.

DB gives Melquíades a free hand to kill Meléndez if he can find him. She orders BP to go with Melquíades.

Marisela tries to get her hands untied. She says to herself that she won't let what happened to her poor mother happen to her but she can't loosen the ropes.

There is wringing of hands and angst at Altamira. DB comes in looking for Marisela. Lorenzo accuses her of knowing where Marisela is and mocking them. Santos asks to speak to DB alone. He asks what she is hiding from him. She denies hiding anything. Santos says that he knows that Meléndez is using Marisela to get back at DB and he wants to know everything.

BP warns Melquíades that killing a Colonel in the army isn't the same as killing lowlives like they have done before. If Melquíades kills Meléndez, he will be pursued just the like the rebels. Melquíades tells him to be quiet. They overhear a soldier says that Meléndez is on a secret mission and won't be back until morning. They leave the bar.

Meléndez finishes the bottle of rum. He asks Marisela is he likes the way he smells. He says that once DB and Santos are gone, she will have to get used to it. Then he goes to sleep.

DB says that nothing happened between Meléndez and her. She says that he never believes what she says. DB says that she has nothing more to say to him. She says that she will go to see if Marisela is at El Miedo. She leaves. Santos tells the rest of the Altamira folks that DB doesn't know where Marisela is but she is still hiding something.

Antonio and Cecilia run into each other in the kitchen. Antonio asks if all this fear affects the baby. Cecilia says no. Antonio asks to touch her her belly. They are interrupted by Santos who wants to organize a search for Marisela. Casilda tells them that the vaqueros went to town earlier in the evening and haven't returned.



Guerrero asks Acosta, the goofy guy under Pernalete, to let him out of prison so he can send a telegram denouncing Meléndez. Acosta just laughs. He only does what Pernalete orders him to.

Melquíades and BP return to El Miedo tell DB what they overheard in the bar. DB concludes that Meléndez has Marisela. She asks why Melquíades didn't follow the soldier who was bringing food and rum to Meléndez.

Meléndez gives a note to his Sergeant to give to DB and to bring her back with him unarmed.

Santos sends Antonio to get the vaqueros out of jail and bring them to the llanos. He tells Gonzalo to go and get all the lanterns and flashlights that there are at Altamira. He and Santos will get headstart searching. Santos has a flashback to the times that Meléndez was with Marisela. Santos tells Cecilia that he has concluded that Meléndez has Marisela.

Marisela tells Meléndez that he is wasting his time; her mother will never come for her. Meléndez says that DB may not come right away but her cousin will and intimates that Santos' relationship with Marisela is more than cousinly. Marisela yells at him to leave Santos alone. Meléndez says that Santos is lucky - he has the mother and the daughter. "Que se unta?" says Meléndez. I'm not sure what he means. My dictionaries say that untarse means to 'smear, rub, or bribe'. Meléndez says that he will get rid of all three of them, but not her, not right away because he likes her, like her mother. Meléndez says that in a few hours she will be on her knees begging him.

DB tells BP to get the men to start a search but he reminds her that they are all in jail after the fight in the bar. DB insults BP and he leaves. DB sends Melquíades to get the weapons and ammunition out of the cellar and tell the rebels what is going on. She tells Eustaquia to stop praying. The God of the white men isn't going to do anything for them. Eustaquia isn't so sure. She's hoping for a miracle.

The soldier brings the note from Meléndez to DB. She swears to Eustaquia that she will bring Marisela back. She tells Eustaquia not to let anyone, referring to Santos, follow her.

She puts Juan Primito in charge of the hacienda, tells him to stop crying and take care of Eustaquia, takes off her gun and and goes with the Sergeant.

Melquíades comes out of the cellar and finds DB gone. He loads a shotgun, tells Eustaquia that she is not to tell Santos about DB's past with Meléndez and leaves to find Santos.

DB arrives at where Meléndez is holding Marisela. DB asks if Meléndez has hurt Marisela and she says no and that DB shouldn't have come.

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Comments:
We see now that things have been arranged so that DB and Marisela can be held by Meléndez with Santos and Gonzalo (and Melquíades) in pursuit basically by themselves. This would explain:

Why all the vaqueros are in jail and Antonio has been sent to town to get them out;

Gonzalo's otherwise rather bizarre decision to meet Marisela at the well got her caught by Meléndez and put him and Santos together looking for her;

Why Melquíades and BP didn't follow the guard from the hotel. That was the only logical thing to do, not run to El Miedo.

We are also given a suggestion of how the whole Meléndez thing might be resolved without there having to be a revolution in Venezuela. The rather sudden transformation of Guerrero into a soldier with a conscience suggests that while it was ok with the government for Meléndez to persecute political dissidents and kill them without any judicial process, it's not ok for him to carry out his personal vengeance on women and young girls. A nice distinction.
 

Wow, what an episode! I cannot remember ever feeling such visceral hatred for a fictional character as I feel for Melendez.

Last night was my first Spanish class winter quarter. We had three new students come. What a time we had explaining (in Spanish) to the newbys everything that had taken place in the novel Doña Bárbara up to Part 1!

Yes, I was screaming at Melquiades: follow the guy with the food, follow him. But somehow there needs to be this dramatic scene with Melendez lording it over the two woman.

Melendez' remark to Marisela reminded me somewhat of Islamic fundamentalists remarks about women wearing burqas. The women have to be covered up because they "provoke" the men. Unfortunately there are men like this. It's the woman's fault that jerks like Melendez have obsessive desires for women who aren't interested in them in the least.

I'm sure it won't happen, but Melendez' telling Marisela all about DB's rape indicates to me that he ultimately plans to kill her. He certainly doesn't want that to come to light because DB's threats to get it in the newspapers got Santos and Marisela released before.

After class last night I spoke briefly with our teacher, Graciela. She's also watching the telenovela and she said she threatened her husband with bodily harm if he didn't record Doña Bárbara while she was teaching.
 

Awesome recap Jean and I agree, the impending standoff is the only reason why someone as crafty as Melquiades would run to talk to Barbara instead of following the soldier so he could find Melendez and keep his promise.

On the "untar" question, it does indeed mean to smear or apply something, like creams or cologne. Thus, Melendez was asking what sort of creams or potions Santos was wearing that made him so attractive.
 

Novelera, sounds like your teacher is a woman who knows what she wants ;) I'm assuming her Spanish is fluent. If so, tell her that she can get the episodes from the previous night on the Telemundo website. It's a much smaller screen and there are no close captions and sometimes the signal fades, but it's better than nothing in case hubby forgets!
 

Jean: Regarding the business of Melquiades and BP following the sergeant from the bar, Gail wondered the same thing. To me, that part made sense. First of all, I assumed that the sergeant was driving something, which the later scene of him bringing DB back to the hut where Melendez was showed him doing that. Also, I've never seen anyone at El Miedo driving, especially not Melquiades, so my assumption was that they were on horseback as usual and were not able to keep up with the sergeant.

Interesting about "7 plagues" of Egypt: Pernelete needs to brush up a little bit -- or the writers do! That's 3 too few.

On the whole business of this cat and mouse game, I like the way that the stars have aligned, in that DB had staged the fight in the bar to draw the guards away, and Melendez making his move at the same time puts most of DB's forces in the calabozo when she needs them.

I like it when the adversaries each have intelligence, but one or the other (or both) make mistakes, or coincidence enters in to throw a twist.

I think that this is good writing.

I don't like it when stupidity (especially on the part of the "good guys") is used as a device to advance the plot -- this is so overused as to be cliche. That's what's happening with Santos and Gonzalo. I think that the writers should be trying harder here.

That DB would give herself up shows three things: She refuses to accept Melendez succeeding (perhaps recognizing also the hold that Marisela has over Santos and what the result of that will be), She doesn't want the fate of Marisela to be what happened to her (evidence that she is not a one-dimensional "bad guy"), and that she still has confidence in herself to turn the tide in the end, even tho bad will befall her. Of course, her fatalistic attitude doesn't make her think that she has much to lose, either.

Novalero: I don't think you are wrong about Christian or anything else -- all of this stuff hits us each from different perspectives and there's no reason why any reason isn't as good as the next.

Regarding male leads in novelas: it seems difficult for writers to give them a role where they actually have some brains.

Also, My tastes run toward a more active sort of interpretation. I like the way Mauricio Islas plays roles, for instance. He's had horrible luck at Telemundo -- his bad guy role in Amores was weak and the show stunk, but he still got a lot out of the lame writing. Same with Los Plateados, even tho that show wasn't quite so bad. Peccados Ajenos gave him better material and he did well there, too.

On the other hand, the more laid back actors aren't as interesting to me. Lots of people swear by Manolo Cardona. In Gitanas, he was sleep walking most of the time (even tho he was in the featured relationship -- at first) and in Marina, where he took over from a stoned and addicted Mauricio Ochmann, I saw no difference: Manolo was just as out of it, even without the drugs. I am watching him in El Cartel and he is much better, tho.

Also, it took some time for me to get used to Mario Cimarro's work in El Cuerpo del Deseo. I like him a lot in that show now, but I've watched it several times on DVD and this is my second time on TV.

So I don't think you are wrong about Christian -- for yourself. If he makes things work for you, then he is pretty good!
 

Margarita, my fabulous Spanish teacher is somewhat on the north side of 70 and quite the Luddite. She doesn't even HAVE a computer to my knowledge. We have an email list going with the class members, but she just shrugs delightfully and says she's the quill pen type.
 

Good point, Timoteo and not to beat a dead horse, as it were, but concerning why Melquíades didn't follow the Sergeant, I'm still not convinced that it wasn't a contrivance of the writers for the following reasons:

First, when DB reproached Melquíades for not following, he didn't tell DB that he couldn't follow. He didn't even try;

Second, there aren't exactly super highways in the Arauca. Even in a vehicle, I doubt Melquíades would have had trouble following on horseback. Even if he couldn't have kept up with the vehicle all the way to where Meléndez is, he knows the area and would be able to say that the Sergeant went to X area.

Thanks for the translation on untar, Margarita, Funny little things trip me up all the time.
 

Timoteo, wow, you've seen most of the same novelas I've seen! Yes, I also like Mauricio Islas. I'm watching El Cartel, but may not have time to watch it when it goes to a full hour. It's pretty good and I'm enjoying Manolo's conflicted narco role. It is somewhat confusing keeping all the gangsters straight and, yowza, the way they speak is dificilisimo. I keep having to back up and hear some sentences several times. There's apparently lots of Colombian slang.
 

You're welcome Jean ;) You have such fabulous insight, it's nice to be able to return the favor once in a while.

Timoteo, I completely missed how Pernalete miscounted the Egyptian plagues! It is a sad state of affairs that so many of us forget things we learned when we were young, and it's good to be reminded when we forget ;)

Novelera, ludites come in all ages, but your teacher at least has more of an excuse. On the plus side, she knows how to use recording devices, at least to play. I think it's great she's still teaching at her age. There are only so many telenovelas a person can watch ;)
 

I forgot to mention, I think that the candle and the knife Melendez put on the table have a role to play in the upcoming episodes -- especially in that the barn is full of hay.

I also forgot to mention that I have no idea what Santos and Gonzalo expect to do against people with M16s and pistols. But I'm certain that I have more of an idea about what they are doing than they do.

Jean: You are probably right. My thinking was that the SUV might be able to clear the city and disappear into the forest before Melquiades and BP could follow to see the direction they took.

Novelara and MC: There are always Luddites, but your teacher may well not fall into such a category. younger folks have grown up with computers and menus on ATMs and the like as part of life -- also VCRs and all sorts of computerized stuff.

When I was young and computerized telecom switches were being introduced, there were a lot of older guys who simply could not relate to binary numbers and file systems and all the sort of stuff that goes with computers. They were very smart on the old technology -- the best, really. But they simply couldn't "cross the divide" into bits and bytes.
 

Thanks, Jean. The comments on this site are always insightful and thoughtprovoking. And I agree that Melendez is an excellent villain...depraved , unrepentent, and despicable. Bleeech.
 

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