Caray, Caray!

This is the third of my four recaps for Cheryl, and the subtitles are still dead. I'm going to wait till the switchover to digital signal and then complain. In the meantime...

From yesterday: Franco would give Sara up out of respect for Sarita's devotion to her awful mother, but Oscar points out the mother is a ghastly witch and Franco shouldn't yield. Darth, drunk as a skunk, comes to the hacienda and shouts for Gab's sympathy: their spouses did it together! Dismayed, Furd leaps up the stairs to reassure Gab he has tender love for her and never strays. She falls down the Staircase of Death but, as Julie sadly reported, does not die.

Juan appears, scoops Gab up in his Manly Arms, and puts her to bed while Sofia and Sara fuss around. Sofia's ruffled satin blouse is exceptionally hideous.

Root scolds Darth as he lounges against the would-be Stairs of Death: "Daddy, shame! You're the one who told ME to act only in cold blood!" "I was mad." Root's angst-bubble: "Will Furd tell Mommy I boinked him?"

Soledad tells the Bouffy Padre she feels guilty that Raquel went to confront Darth and now she's gone. Helpfully the Padre consoles her: "Each of us has a destiny that can't be evaded." Soledad wants to report Raquel's absence to the authorities. Hey, good idea!

To compress all these bed scenes: Gab doesn't want to see the good daughters and says so clearly, over and over and over. She only wants to see Ruth and Furd. However, she doesn't trust them. Though Furd swears he loves only her and that Darth is lying, Gab heard differently from Raquel herself. She also knows or intuits that Furd's boots have been under Ruth's bed...

...Furd and Ruth give each other hateful looks, but jointly assure Gab that they, and only they, love her with a deep, disinterested love (ie nothing to do with her moolah, though Furd casts speculative glances at her jewelry.)

Furd thinks Root will have to help him hustle Gab along towards the Pearly (or not) Gates. That's because he thinks he still has, in his safe, the paper she signed giving him half of Gab's fortune. However, Juan gives the paper to Root (in exchange for her having revealed to Sofia the drugged sex caper), so she's free of that particular blackmail, and she is not exactly with Furd's Pearly-Gates program. She is searching, searching: for love, for a way out of her life of hatred... She feels emptiness; Furd says she's weak.

The Doctor comes (probably on a donkey). He inspects Gab and tells her - and then the others - that she hasn't done any of the things he told her to. She drinks and doesn't watch her diet and is surrounded by stress (is this a Public Service Announcement?) and so she's much sicker and if she doesn't mend her ways she could die of a heart attack at any moment. He leaves.

Quintina and her solterona friends (a soltera is a single woman; a solterona is a big hunk of hopelessly pathetic single woman. Like me for instance...) are sewing rhinestones on things and preparing for some dumb ceremony, Quintina will be M.C. and she picks up her skirt and shows her red underpants.

The moon is still full.

Eva appears several times, futilely telling Root not to be so bitter, that real love is giving so others can be happy. She tells the Good Daughters she is there for them like a mother. It makes me want to puke.

Coyote (aka Ricardo Uribe Jr.) comes to pay his respects to Gab and hears that the Stairway of Death almost killed her. He and Juan have important discussions...

...Coyote reveals his true identity and his desire for vengeance against his father (Darth) and Gabriela. Juan remembers he promised Soledad to take care of her son, to dissuade him from his fatalistic path of vengeance. He sort of tries to, yelling that retaliation doesn't work very well and that Soledad doesn't deserve to suffer this way and she won't like it if her son falls off a cliff while trying to avenge her.

"Thank God you have a mother - I'd love to be able to talk to mine -" Juan gets so wrapped up in flashing back his own tale of vengeance, he gets all excited and sort of ends up encouraging the whole idea.

They both wonder, meanwhile, where Raquel is. Then, Coyote says: "Many unexpected things happen on rainy nights like the one during which Libia died. Maybe you should investigate further." "Hmm, maybe I should investigate further," our sharp-witted hero replies.

And Juan vengeance-bubbles: "My heart tells me the people responsible for my parents' deaths are very nearby..."

Simultaneously, Darth remembers Raquel falling off the cliff and seems a little remorseful. "I've killed twice, FIRST THOSE REYES and now my own wife! Gabriela is to blame!" He winces, ugh, Raquel gloating about Furd's superior amatory ability... "I have to get vengeance on him..."

He realizes Soledad must be the mother of his mystery son. He rides all over asking peasants if they've seen a scarfaced woman. He finally gets pointed to her house. Juan, also on horseback, is close on his tail.

Furd goes off to fill Gab's prescriptions and comes home with poison polvo. "Here, take this." Gab watches him with haunted eyes and swallows the bitter pill.

Finally: Oscar is out of the wheelchair and onto crutches. The Reyes brothers rejoice hugely. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the idea that only on legs can Oscar really be part of the action, but I guess that's too politically correct for Mexidoon.

Tomorrow: Sofia pardons Juan (yawn); Gabriela is not doing so well on her Furd-administered medical regimen...

Labels: Fuego