Caray, Caray!

As we in Viewerville begin another of our nightly forays into the land of Mexiloon, we join-in-progress as two-thirds of the Reyes Brothers’ brain trust is at the Double E (Hacienda de las Elizondo y del asqueroso ese, Escandon) watching Fernando throwing papers from his safe into a satchel. Ah-hah! Fer has left the mysterious little wooden chest behind so Franco immediately hands it to Oscar, the crip on the crutches, to open. However, before The Disabled One can perform this nifty balancing act, Fernando suddenly grabs the mystery-box out of his hand and stashes it along with the rest of his stuff into the satchel then exits stage left. (“It’s a fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley!” --Sorry, but the similarity to Laurel and Hardy here is just too overwhelming to ignore.) Now all the incriminating evidence is gone in a flash cuz Feo’s got his stash.

At the same time back at Comisario Central, Muttonchops is forced to let Darth Rico go for lack of evidence. However, DV cannot leave town because there’s still a homicide investigation. Darth says no way he’d dream of leaving this berg till he’s finished what he came for. He makes a show of ambidextrously checking his two pistols and struts out the door. Padre Tadeo, who’s come to get Fermin released, walks out from the cell area and is told that Raquel Uribe was found dead at the bottom of a ravine and that Juan has accused Darth of killing her. Pad Tad thinks to himself that he hopes now Gabi will wise up and kick out that murderous bunch from her hacienda. He then takes Fermin back to the rectory.

Back at the Double E, Juan goes upstairs to his room after seeing Fer walk out the door with his man-purse. HIs brainiac brothers tell him what just happened. We get two minutes of Larry, Curly and Mo arguing about how they just let Fer get one over on them. The only thing missing are the eye boinks and the head-slaps.

Meanwhile, Feo enters the rectory office and hides his m'urse of goodies in the base of a pedestal underneath a statue of St. Francis of Assisi. (¡Qué ironía!) Padre Tadeo enters immediately afterward and asks him why he’s there. Feo fudges and says he has been waiting to speak to him and the priest lights into him immediately about being in no mood to hear a confession about his murdering Raquel Uribe. For only the second time in his life Fernando is honest and denies any knowledge that Raqui was offed. Fermin is unlucky enough to walk in behind Tadeo. Feo warns him about opening his mouth. Pad Tad jumps in to tell him to save it because Fermin fears not, that Fer’s time to pay for his wicked ways is fast approaching and BTW, Gabriela has now confessed and repented whole-heartedly of all her sins so not to go counting on help from her end either. Feo knows she’d actually have to have a heart first so he just stands there and smirks.

Speaking of the aforementioned Heartless One, she is now sitting in her bed and devising another plan to keep Jimena and Sarita with her at the hacienda indefinitely (if not longer). She tells herself that if Sofia leaves then they’ll follow her and she’ll be left all alone there. So, whatever it takes, she’s got to keep Sofia there for her own protection.

Sofia, meanwhile, is downstairs telling her sisters she’s leaving the hacienda because she’s finally had enough of Mama’s guff. Jimena says she’s coming too and asks Sarita if she’s still determined to stay by Mama’s side and give up her chance at happiness with Franco. (Yeah, Sarita. So how’s it working out for you so far? --Will somebody head to the drugstore in town and get Dr. Phil on the phone, cuz this gal is in definite need of some serious intervention.)

Somehow Padre Tadeo has lost track of Fermin and comes back into the rectory office looking for him. He spies a note supposedly from Fermin saying he’s run away because he’s too freakin’ afraid of Fer. Pad Tad tells himself that he must understand that not just anyone can face Eeevil. Speaking of which, the Blood-Sucker, Fernando (note the hanging garlic framing his malevolent mug at the market stall) stops to look at a number of nasty-looking knives. He thinks back to Padre’s words of warning. He snickers to himself and says no, it’s more like time has come to get rid of his enemies and knowing Gabi the way he does, there’s no way she is ever going to truly repent for her sins. He chooses the dagger he wants.

Night falls, and time stands still, as the everlasting “luna llena” (full moon) of Mexidoom rises. Gabi goes downstairs and tearfully begs her daughters not to leave her. Sofia says she’s getting what she wants most, her hacienda, and they’re leaving her to it. Gabi pulls a tantrum and cries that her daughters are all that really matter to her. She even gets on her knees just to make it look good. She promises to change her ways, but Jimena and Sarita tell her she’ll never change. (Hey, is that a suitcase in Sarita’s hands? Hmmm. Maybe Jimena’s a better life coach than I gave her credit for.) Gabi then promises to give her consent to their relationships with the Reyes’s. Just then Juan and his brothers arrive to take the three of them back to the Double R (Hacienda de los Robles-Reyes) with them. She whines and snivels on Juan’s shoulder and tells him she’ll even consent to them with her daughters. Just don't please take them away just yet. Everybody thinks the old witch has gone ‘round the bend.

Pad Tad and his faithful donkey, Platero –yes, the donkey does have a name—are walking back through the woods to the rectory after a very successful day ministering to the faithful when the Grim Reaper suddenly appears from behind in the moonlight. Fernando, jumps out at the priest from the bushes to crescendos of Phantom of the Opera-style refrains. Disguised once more behind a scarf, a serape and a huge sombrero, he attacks Padre Tadeo and stabs him in the gut. (Feo took the tiniest dagger in the bunch. Granted a four-inch blade can kill, but I still find it hard to believe that he actually was able to penetrate through two or three layers of smock and undies or whatever and mortally wound Tadeo. That little thing doesn’t look like it could cut butter, let alone mortally wound somebody. Silly me.) Lightning flashes from the heavens and Padre Tadeo helplessly drops to the ground as Fernando sneers at his handiwork and thinks to himself, “Good riddance, little priest!”

Juan is disgusted with the whole Mama scene and tells Gabi that it’s come to this because nobody can stand her any longer, and both Franco and Oscar tell her they won’t permit her or anybody else to abuse the women they love any more. She promises never to insult them or to interfere with the three couples again. Juan gives up in frustration then and tells Sofia and her sisters it’s their choice. He says they’ll stay there to protect them but just until her mother is recovered, though as far as he’s concerned he doesn’t believe a word of it. Sofia gives in and they all agree to stay on till she’s better. Mother Hen pecks her way back upstairs and her three little chicks follow. (Ugh.)

Oscar tells Juan and Franco he thinks she’s faking too, and it’ll be forever till they get their women back. Juan swears he won’t fall for that again and it will only be until Gabi gets better. (Ha! Oscar is on to something here. A woman with a heart condition that calls for surgery might not ever get well again. They could be waiting till Hell freezes over.) Franco reminds them that the priest told them she’d confessed her sins and repented, but Juan figures she deceived the priest.

Speaking of which, the poor prelate is prostrate as the rain storm moves in. He asks for forgiveness and waits to die. Fernando takes off his disguise and looks over at him from a clearing in the bushes. “Poor Padre Tadeo. Well that’s life! Good things don’t last long.” Suddenly lightening flashes and causes two crossed branches to catch fire. (Holy symbolism, Batman!) Fer walks away in the opposite direction.

Back at the Double E, Oscar is still complaining to Juan about Gabriela’s faking. Juan says he’ll make sure the old lady doesn’t go back on her word and then he reminds them they still need to find their parents’ and Libia’s murderers and to see justice is done.

Upstairs, back in her bed, Gabi thinks to herself that she really hated all that begging and groveling she did in front of the Reyes’s to make sure that her daughters would stick around. She figures that at least Juan will be good protection against Fernando and if worse comes to worst she might even tell Juan about Fernando’s being the one responsible for killing his sister.

At the same time, Feo pulls up in front of the barn. Darth Rico just happens to be skulking in the bushes and sees him. He follows him into the barn and notices him hiding something but doesn’t know exactly what. Darth confronts him but Fernando says it’s nothing that concerns Rico, but he has heard that Raquel is dead and he’s sure that Rico murdered her. DV sniffs. “What can I tell you? She deserved it for fooling around with you!” He slugs Feo unexpectedly in the snout. Fer gets up and tells him he owes him for betraying his father and that it’s his fault he lost everything and committed suicide. DV tells him his daddy was a simple-minded fool the same as Fer and it’s “Wrestle-mania II” for a while till Rico falls to the ground and Feo pulls a nearby pitchfork on him. He’s got his foot on Rico’s neck and Rico is too winded to get out from under him. “You’re time has come!” He’s just about to spear him when Rosendo walks in on them and asks what’s going on. “Nothing. Ricardo was just learning about farming implements and I was demonstrating.” Fer thinks twice about things then and throws the pitchfork back into the hay.

The Reyes’s ride out to Libia’s grave to tell her even though they’ve given up on vengeance for the good of their women and their little daughters, they’re still gonna grab the guy what done her in. It starts to pour outside.

We beam back to the Double E where Gabi has sent for El Coyote. “Pardon the informality of my bedroom.” She hands him the bottle of pills Feo gave her and asks him to check to see if they’re really what’s written on the label because she’s afraid that Fernando is trying to kill her.

On the way back from the Bat Cave, the Reyes’s come across Pad Tad’s half-dead body lying in puddles of mud and they take him into town.

Alone, outside the hacienda, El Coyote takes the pills and crumples the snake trim he’s still carrying with him. “You’re time has come, Gabriela Aceveda, yours and Ricardo Uribe’s also. Forgive me, God, but this is much stronger than I.”

The Reyes’s arrive back in town. Juan carries Pad Tad in his arms and s-l-o-w-l-y walks toward the little clinic as the town folk suddenly appear in droves with torches. (Ok. Now, the guy is bleeding to death—not that we see even the first drop of blood on him—and the whole town, Juan included, gets hit with an attack of Tortoise-ites?) It’s raining cats and dogs outside. Juan suddenly stops in the middle of the town square to pray to the diosito to save the priest. (Now, is it just me, or, shouldn’t he do that AFTER he drops him off at the clinic????? I mean, normally these people run around like chickens with their heads cut off whenever there’s the slightest emergency, but now everybody suddenly gets the S-L-O-W-S????) “Don’t take him from us yet, Lord.” (Yeah, at least not till they get him into the freakin’ clinic!!)

Finally the good doctor races out into the rain and tells them Tadeo's still breathing (now that IS a miracle) and they take him inside and leave him there, knife wounds and all. The doc examines him. (No rush to get an ambulance or a truck to race him off to the ER at the hospital in Puebla City like they did for Gabi and for Sofia. Nope. Nothin’ doin’. I guess Pad Tad’s on his own with this one.)

While all this is going on in town, Darth starts to search the barn for whatever it was that Fer hid. Eventually he finds the bloody dagger (conveniently wrapped in plastic) and slides it under his jacket for safekeeping till the time is right to use it against Fer.

Back at the Double R, Hortensia, Quintina and Eva discuss the fact that Juan and his brothers have started looking into their sister’s death again.

Over at the Double E, Rigo comes to tell Sofia and the others what has happened to Padre Tadeo. He takes Sofia and Jimena to town with him and Sarita stays to look after Mama. Once they get to the little clinic Sofia gets the rundown on Pad Tad from Juan. Everyone is in the waiting room waiting for news. It doesn’t look good. He may not last. Nabor walks over and tells them that he can’t prove anything, but Fernando Escandon has been threatening the priest for a long while now. Caras impactadas all ‘round.

Back at the bungalow Root is looking for Papa Bear. Suddenly Fer (the busy beaver) jumps her and starts choking her because she won’t tell him what she said to get Juan to give her back that document she signed giving Fer half her inheritance. Out of nowhere Coyote appears and pulls him off her. Fer tells him to stick his nose out of it and he starts to go after Coyote, but the posse appear just as suddenly out of nowhere and cock their rifles. “You’re pretty brave as long as you’ve got your men aiming at me, but one of these days I’m going to get you when you’re all alone.” “—Anytime! And don’t mess with Root again or you’ll have to deal with me.” Feo threatens him again but Coyote just stares him down. Feo brushes off his hat and leaves.

Root wants to know why Coyote was there protecting her. He tells her they’ll get together the next morning and have a long chat, but he doesn’t have time right then for it. “You must learn (Grasshopper) that in order to survive one must be patient.” Root is mesmerized.

Back at the clinic, Eva rushes in to tell Juan and Sofia that the town is up in arms and looking to lynch whoever is responsible for attacking Padre Tadeo. (I say fine. It’s about time we get a little vigilante vengeance thing going where Feo is concerned.) Pad Tad regains consciousness just in time to make Juan promise he won’t allow the town to do something they’d regret later. Juan promises and then goes out to talk to the angry mob. Everyone mumbles. The Borg Sisters (resistance is futile) chant in unison, “Nothing that you might say will change our desire for revenge!” (Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do.) Juan wins out though, and he convinces everybody to pray.

Back at Hellhaven, Gabi tells Sarita that it’s too bad about Padre Tadeo, but after all, he was sort of looking for it by always meddling where he didn’t belong. Sarita can’t believe The New and Improved Mama would say such a thing, especially after getting right with God. Gabi is quick to correct her daughter’s errant thoughts. “I never separated myself from God, just from Tadeo’s parish. (Sorry, but I have always thought that huge cross on her wall should have been more appropriately turned upside down the way she practices religion.) They agree to visit him the next morning if he doesn’t croak first. Sarita drones on. Gabi nods as if she's listening but actually is lost in her own thoughts that it would be better for her if he dies now that he knows so many of her deep, dark secrets. The priest has just been a regular nuisance for her and she hopes to Hell that he does die.

The town prays for the priest outside the little clinic throughout the night and into the next morning. The good doctor checks Tadeo for vitals and tells Sofia and Juan that there has been a slight improvement. Juan and Sofia rush to his bedside and Juan whispers to him that he must make the effort to get better. He promises to never look for revenge again and to trust in the law. Sofia reminds the padre that the town needs him. He’s their hope and their faith, their word of God. (All right already. We get the picture.) Everything is sweetness and sunlight….

Meanwhile, Coyote is getting ready to drive back to Gabi with the pill bottle. He says to himself that the medicine has definitely been tampered with and if she continues to take it she will get worse day by day. (Woah there! What kind of new leather ghetto garb is our boy wearing now? Will you get a load of the fox collar on that leather jacket of his? Hey, far be it from me to say anything, but isn’t it like the middle of summer there?) Coyote tells himself that Fernando may want to kill her but he’s not going to succeed. Before he does, Coyote will do her in himself.

Coyote gets back to the hacienda and gives Gabi back her meds. He tells her they’re perfectly fine and to take one now to make sure she doesn’t mess up her schedule. She is all smiles and swallows a tablet. She fawns over how trustworthy a man he is. He says his respect for her is just as high, yada, yada. He asks her then why she feels Fer is trying to kill her. “He must owe on a few deaths, huh?” (Sorry, but that phrase threw me.) At first she balks, but he tells her that she needs to trust him and come out with it all so he’ll be forewarned should things come to that and he’s needed to protect her.

Gabi still is hesitant so Coyote says it’s obvious that she loves Fer much more than he loves her. She asks what he means. He explains that the night before he found Feo abusing Root and it seemed they had an odd sort of relationship. It seemed to him they had something going on between the two of them. (Anvil #2 has just dropped.) Gabi refuses to believe this. “It can’t be! He swore—“ “—Don’t get upset. I made a mistake.” He gets ready to leave her "in the hands of her husband whom she so greatly trusts.” Gabi calls him back and says he’s right, that she really does trust Coyote more than Fer. Coyote reels her in a little farther and says apparently not because she won’t open up to him like she used to.

Gabi finally gives in and says okay, to show Coyote how much she really trusts him she’ll tell him something only she knows. He’s all ears. “Speak to me in full confidence. I would never dare to betray you…..” “--I know. Okay. You’re right about Fernando. He’s guilty of a number of crimes.” Coyote knows he just hit pay-dirt. “Among them is the death of the Reyes’s sister.” Coyote realizes it’s not just pay-dirt. It's an all-out El Jefe sized gusher! “Yes," says Gabi conspiratorially. "Fernando murdered Libia Reyes.”