Friday, May 01, 2009

Doña Bárbara - Thurs., Apr. 30- Descansa en paz, Carmelito; Vengeance is mine says Santos

With all the horrible things happening in the real world, I don't need to be sitting in front of the TV sobbing because a character on a telenovela died! I don't think it was any easier because we got a lot of warning. In addition to the event itself, we had all the anxiety beforehand.

Anyway, on with the recap. Santos is unsuccessful in reviving Carmelito.

DB is upset at what Juan Primito suffered because of her enemy. She wants to make a frontal attack on Sapo's hideout but Melquíades persuades her that would be suicidal and unsuccessful.

Sapo calls his henchmen who let JP escape bigger idiots than JP.

Cecilia asks Marisela to forgive her saying that Marisela was going to marry Gonzalo to get revenge on Santos. Because Marisela paid Lucita's hospital bill, Cecilia knows that whatever the reason Marisela is marrying Gonzalo, it's not out of spite. Marisela says that she can't tell Cecilia what she is doing but she asks Cecilia to believe in her.

Antonio gets out of prison and is told not to leave the city.

Gonzalo tells Don Encarnación that Antonio has been arrested for embezzlement and suggests that he isn't fit to raise DE's granddaughter.

Antonio returns to Cecilia's house and is mean to Marisela. He tells Cecilia that Marisela betrayed them. Cecilia tells him that Marisela paid Lucita's hospital bill with her own money. Antonio wonders if she paid his bail money, too.

Mujica tells Pernalete about the attack on Carmelito and María Nieves. Pernalete says that they have to tell DB.

DB brings JP to La Chusmita and tells Eustaquia and the other women to take care of him.

Pernalete tells DB about what happened to Carmelito and MN. Melquíades watches Leon suspiciously. DB says that she expects Santos to blame her for what happened.

Santos comes to tell Melesio and Gervasia about Carmelito.

DB tells Pernalete that the shootings have to be solved as soon as possible. Mujica says that the best thing would be if MN woke up and identified the culprit. DB says that she hopes that MN is well guarded since if the culprit knows that he survived, he will try and finish him off. Pernalete assures her this is being done.

Cecilia tells Antonio that he will have to apologize to Marisela. A telegram comes with the news about Carmelito. Genoveva says that she will tell Marisela and they will all go to Progresso.

Melquíades tells DB that he thinks Los Mondragon and particularly Leon might have been responsible for Carmelito's murder. DB points out that it could have been Sapo trying to ruin Santos.

Melesio tells Santos that it isn't fair that Carmelito never got to know his own child. Josefa and Melesia come to say that Gervasia has locked herself in her room with Carmelito and won't come out.

Marisela tells Gonzalo in no uncertain terms and without a trace of any affection that he is not welcome in the Sandoval house and isn't coming with her.

Dr. Arias tells Santos that there is no change in MN's condition. It is in God's hands.

Gonzalo is furious that Antonio was released on bail. He sends his guards after him. Casilda tells them that Antonio has gone to Progresso.

DB comes to Dr. Arias' office. She says that whoever attacked his men will pay. Santos replies that he is beginning to doubt that there is justice in this world. DB is the living proof that one can get away with crimes. He asks what Carmelito did to her. DB swears by her life, Eustaquia's life, Santos' life that is her life that she didn't do it.

Santos is nasty to Marisela when she comes to Melesio's house. Antonio tells him that Marisela hasn't changed. She paid the hospital bill and bailed Antonio out of jail. Santos is impactado.

To distract him from his grief, Geno asks Pajarote to tell her about his life. He tells her that he as abandoned as a baby and had a hard childhood: hungry and cold.

Leon tells Tigre that he has to earn his share of the stolen money by finishing off MN.

Gonzalo sends his guards after Antonio in Progresso.

At Carmelito's funeral, Santos gives a 'vengeance is mine' eulogy apparently directed at DB.

So much for guarding MN, Tigre apparently just walks right into Dr. Arias' place. He is sneaking up on MN when Dr. Arias surprises him and demands to know what he is doing there.

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Comments:
Thanks, Jean. I can't believe that they killed off sweet Carmelito. That episode was so hard to watch. I hope MN survives...I think he will.
 

Sobbing in front of the television is right! My DVR records the East Coast feed of DB at 5:00 here in California. So when I get home from work it's already there. I compulsively watched it before going to someone's house for dinner at 7:00. My eyes were swollen! The actress portraying Gervasia was completely believable in her representation of soul-killing grief.

What an awful cad Gonzalo is! He was willing to show up there in the middle of their suffering to make sure she'd have nothing to do with Santos, asserting his claim on Marisela. I'm not sure if his insistence on Antonio being locked up is sheer, nasty vengeance, or if it's to prevent Antonio mounting a defense based on the fact that he originated the documents Antonio signed that are being used to prove his embezzlement.
 

This is some more of the novel (from the chapter Las Tolvaneras), which I had not described until now because it reveals the sad fate of Carmelito in the book. Just as in the TN, Santos has ongoing money problems at Altamira. However, they manage to gather many heron plumes that are apparently shed at certain seasons. The text says dos arrobas, and the footnote says an arroba is a measure of 25 lbs. They expect these feathers to fetch 20,000 pesos, a tidy sum. Santos sends Carmelito to the state capitol to sell the feathers and then buy barbed wire to use for the fencing around Altamira. His brother went with him.

Several days later two of Pernalete’s men show up with Carmelito’s horse, which they recognized by the Altamira brand. They say they also found a corpse too badly decomposed to be sure of the identity. But it must be Carmelito. No sign of his brother Rafael.

The next chapter is entitled Ño Pernalete y otras calamidades. Apparently ño is a llanerismo, a diminutive of señor. Santos goes to the city to demand justice for the murder of Carmelito. Mujiquita is now the judge, while Pernalete is the jefe civil. But Mujiquita can't help. His post is purely ceremonial. Pernalete has all the power. It turns out that the president of the republic had been concerned about crime rates and asked for statistics from the various towns. Pernalete proudly wrote that they had no crime at all in El Progreso. He had already learned of the death of Carmelito and had declared it to be of natural causes!

Of course the feathers are missing, and when Pernalete is confronted with this obvious clue about a crime, he jumps to the conclusion that the “other guy” killed Carmelito and made off with the valuable feathers. Santos brusquely tells him that the other guy, still missing, was Carmelito’s brother. After a lot of pressure, Pernalete makes a weak statement that he’s going to investigate. In a conversation with Mujiquita after Santos leaves he reveals that he’s afraid to take the case farther because DB is a good friend of the president, and he’s sure she’s behind the deaths and stealing of the feathers.

This is the turning point for Santos. He says to Mujiquita that had he gone in a different direction, he would not be “doctor” Luzardo, the lawyer, but “general” Luzardo, ruling by fear, as does Pernalete. He mounts his horse vowing to get vengeance for Carmelito himself, outside the non-existent justice system of the area. In other words, he’s going to revert to the violent ways of his ancestors. There’s some similarity in this to Santos’ speech at Carmelito’s funeral in the TN.
 

I can't believe they killed Carmelito. That guy had to be one of the sweetest characters on the show. I hope the Mondragons get what's coming to them.
 

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