Caray, Caray!

Greetings, friends, I'm covering for Cheryl, she's spending a month in Mexico!

From yesterday: It's a full moon again.

Soledad (they put white powder on her face and blast her with a white light, do you think she's supposed to look like an angel?) begs her son to put aside his rancor, to break the chain of hate and vengeance (what good advice for the entire world); he can't and won't, he will bring down Ricardo and Gabriela if it's the last thing he does, and, as Nickster astutely pointed out, it probably will be... They have this conversation a couple more times during the episode.

Eva mopes, Sofia commiserates, "if YOU were my daughter, would you forgive me?" "Of course." Eva mopes some more, mopes and mopes. Then she goes and finds Ruth and warns her away from Furd, and says "we have so much to talk about," but Ruth doesn't think so. Goaded by Eva's relentlessly kindly platitudes, Ruth snarls: "I. AM. NOT! YOUR! DAUGHTER!!!" After several reiterations, Eva is left impactada - or rather, befuddled - into the commercial break. There is a lot of yelling about this same tired subject afterwards. Ruth looks as old as her supposed mother. I keep waiting for the collagen in Eva's lips to subside.

Later, Eva and Sofia have their same conversation again, with this important addition: "If Ruth is NOT your daughter, then - who is? And where is she?" Yawn.

Tad enters the hacienda. "Padrecito," sneers Furd, "you were told not to come here." Well, Father Bouffy announces he has a signed letter from Augustin that Furd tried to kill him, and he has a witness too. "What witness?" Ruth appears on the stairs sporting a less-than-loving look. Bouffy prompts her: "You saved Augustin when Furd tried to kill him, remember? You remember, don't you?" She retracts it all.

OK, for the pointless diversion of the night: Quintina and her two Maria friends dress up like Bratz dolls with pink and green wigs and go ogle the male strippers. They're just having a grand old time till there's a roust, and they get taken to jail with everybody else, have their mugshots taken and have to sign papers. Is there a point to this?

Gabriela, reading in bed, mopes: "Always alone, waiting for somebody, Furd for instance, I'm tired of begging for love, for attention. Only that low-life Coyote wants me. Hmm," - remembering I guess that, although bald, Coyote has a nice body - "why not? I'll go look for him!"

Meanwhile Coyote is again repeating (in case you missed it), Gabriela and Furd must pay.

Oscar is on his floor blanket and manages to move a toe, which leads Juan to harass him impatiently and remind him he's supposed to get up and walk. This irritates me. "I don't want what I can't have!" Oscar explains, and that's my philosophy too.

Franco tells Juan, over Oscar's head, that he visited Sara at the Gew-Gaw Palace and heard Jimena met a new fella. This gets Oscar's head up off the ground, but it's just a joke...

What actually happens at the Gew-Gaw Palace: Sara sadly takes leave of Jimena, who tells her to go home. Bunking down among the mylar balloons at Tchatchkes R Us, Jimena dreams morosely of Oscar and decide she should leave, go far away as soon as possible. Sarita, at home asleep over a book of riveting poetry, is awakened by Franco's rose and they share happy reminiscences and kisses.

Question: How does Franco keep his stubble so even? He seems to have two days' worth of beard every day. How can he do that?

Sofia starts badgering Gabriela, "Why do you hate me so, why do you like Ruth best?" "Do you really want to know?" "Yes." "Really, really?" "Yes." "Are you sure you really, really, really want to know?" "Yes, yes, yes." So Gabriela takes her to the study, presumably to tell her, but wait...

... Soledad gets shown in; Sofia and the maid are ordered out. "Bossy as ever, Gabriela!" "I thought you were dead." "No, just blinded and burned. But you're going to pay." "Who's going to do it? You, you idiot?" "No, my son [unnamed] by Ricardo, whom I tried to kill when I was pregnant, but now he's a man out for vengeance. He's closer to you than you think. Now I've warned you, my conscience is clear."

Meanwhile Raquel, wearing a plastic wig suitable for a Skipper doll vintage 1964, is lurking around the hacienda corner, waiting for Soledad, whom she has evidently chauffeured on this mission. She's worrying about Soledad's safety (oh, sympathy and concern? I guess Raquel has been rehabilitated while I wasn't watching this show) and is biting her fingernails when --

Ricardo shows up! He shouts, shakes her, yells about Important Papers, she doesn't know anything about them, Coyote is in the trees with a serious weapon and a bead on Ricardo, he fires, commercial! After commercial - well, he missed. Ruth runs (not well), Coyote shoots again and skedaddles. He catches up with Ruth and they leave together.

Meanwhile, Gab is throwing Soledad out with the usual, "Never cross my threshold again," and Sofia, aghast at this breach of hospitality, sweetly asks the blind woman if she'd like a lift home. "No, someone is waiting for me, but who are you?" She repeats Sofia's name and says she won't forget her kindness.

The Reyes brothers stand in a row at Libia's shrine and thank her for Juan's impending wedding, etc. Oscar, somewhat less thankful, mopes to dead Libia that he's lost the love of his life through arrogance and pride.

Very indignant, Ricardo reports to Ruth that somebody shot him! Two Times! Who was it? Raquel is being protected by somebody! And then the words we love to hear, that signify the true beginning of Ultimas Semanas: "Things are getting complicated." "Nothing is going as we planned!" Ricardo asks Ruth if she wants to separate Sofia and Juan for (1) hatred of the former or (2) hots for the latter.

It's a full moon again, again. Juan staggers a bit, stumbling in from vaulting up over the balcony. He and Sofia bring on the anvils by saying they will be together in two days, nothing can stop it, they have overcome all the obstacles that separate them.

That is clearly not true, as we all know such a moment comes in the LAST CAPITULO and NOT BEFORE!!!

Coyote asks Ruth crossly why she brought his mother to Gabriela. "Well, your mom was very insistent." They mull over the documents Ricardo was shouting about. They must be very important. But what are they? Where are they?

Now Ricardo, not having gotten sufficient satisfaction whining to Root about his evening, whines identically to Gabriela. "Raquel was outside, spying, and somebody shot me. TWO TIMES! Somebody was protecting her." "Who would protect her, she's so useless! Oh - maybe Soledad's son?"

This is a double surprise to Ricardo, who didn't know Soledad was alive, and also didn't know she had a son. His bug eyes bug out even more than usual, he is double impactado somewhat to Gabriela's surprise: "Why do you care, anyway?"

"Because I was profoundly in love with Soledad, and she returned the love with equal intensity. Remember when I said you were my first love? I lied. My only regret in life is that I abandoned her. I want to see her!"

Tomorrow: Furd, intent on getting "his half," prepares to shoot Gabriela. Juan has a fistful of documents as he steps, hard, on Ricardo's shin.

Labels: Fuego