Caray, Caray!

Latifa burns the expensive supper and goes to pieces. She blames it on the oven, the pans.. Anything, to keep from collapsing into a heap of weep. Her loving, long-suffering husband Desi says, “No, Lucy, I like my meat well done! (click here)” O algo asi. Actually he promises to pick up dinner at the restaurant every night, so no one will find out. Ali overhears but decides it would be wise to NOT share his wisdom in this situation. I like Ali. But he does suggest to Latifa that they ask Zoraida for some recipes.

Jade, who was supposedly sleeping, walks through the front door, carrying bags, followed by the bigger bag, Nariza. Everyone cringes to see her, but the rest hide it better than Jade. Ali asks her how she got outside, and Jade “dissimilates.” Badly. Ali adds it to his tally of suspicious happenings.

At a bar on the beach, Lucas tells Marisa about how he met Jade, and that he rarely gets to see her because she’s not supposed to leave the house. Marisa speculates that it must be horrible to be involved with someone you never get to see (in contrast to someone like me who is VERY available.). Ahem. He asks about her life: college? Novio? No, she explains, no one has been able to match up to Diego. “But with you everything is wonderful.” Ahem. Lucas suggests they leave and she assumes that her plan is working perfectly. Except that he walks away without waiting for her to join him. She sees she’ll need to ramp it up, She says that if he were Diego they’d… and she kisses him. Not a first kiss kind of kiss. More of the kiss the hero gives the sweet young thing just before she loses her virginity. Lucas’ answer? “Ahem.” So she runs off and Lucas just stands there, perplexed.

I’m trying to figure out what her dress looks like. I know! You know those really thick rubber bands they put around broccoli in the grocery store? Well, I think her dress is made of one of those. Or maybe two. Maybe. But certainly no more than two.

Cut to the lab. Albieri looks through the microscope and considers going through with the cloning. He debates with himself. The demon and the angel, Molly Brown and Molina, sit on his left and right shoulders, urging him to go through with it, or stop. He imagines the glory and fame he’ll get for creating the first human clone. We shall call this scene “Albieri debates.” Whenever I say that in this recap, come back and reread this paragraph since they repeat the same scene.

Luisa is waiting up for Albieri. And waiting. She calls the lab but he doesn’t answer the phone. The distraction breaks his concentration, and he fails to implant Lucas’ DNA in the ovule he’s working on. He gets frustrated, shouts “Arg!”, and wonders if he should give up because he hasn’t got what it takes. We shall call this scene, “Albieri says ‘Arg!’ “ Fortunately he has 32 eggs to work with.

Dora is excited that her baby could already exist. Vicky tells her it’s a locura for a baby to start life inside a refrigerator. She tells Vicky she’ll look at Osvaldo’s picture every day so her baby looks like him. Vicky suggests, “Wouldn’t it be better to look at a papacito like Dr Armando.. Oops! Ricky Martin.”

Albieri says “Arg!” Albieri debates.

I find it interesting, that even though it took years of research and a big team of specialists to clone a sheep in the real world, Albieri is cloning the very first human, all by himself, sleep deprived, timing his procedure with a wristwatch which has five-minute increments, with eggs that were harvested for IVF, not cloning, with skin cells from a possibly cancerous mole, in a Petri dish that has been endlessly jostled as Albieri debates, “to be or not to be,” while he wipes his sweaty brow with his gloved hand, the hand that is doing the procedure. Oops, beanie slipping. Tighten it a little more.

Albieri says “Arg!” Albieri debates.

Leo tells Enrique how difficult his grief is. Enrique says Diego communicated with his friend who is a medium, and said that he’s happy and will soon be reincarnated. Okey-dokey. Leo says Enrique was more sensible back when he was drunk and high.

Albieri succeeds in inserting Lucas’ cells into the egg. He dances around the room triumphantly, shouting, "I made a clone of Lucas!" Visions of Rocky at the top of the steps (click here), shouting victoriously. At this moment in the show, my son walked into the room and asked, “Is that the mad scientist?” You don’t have to be a rocket scientist..

I’m reminded of the priest who ditched church to play golf. St Peter tattled on him, “GOD! Look what he’s doing!”
God: I see it.
Peter: Aren’t you going to do something to punish him?
God: Yes. Watch this.
The priest tees off and gets a hole-in-one.
Peter: GOD! I thought you were going to punish him! You gave him a hole-in-one!
God: Yes. But who can he tell?
Albieri has apparently reached his life’s dream, but he can’t tell anyone.

At Miami’s Little Morocco, Nariza keeps trying to get the upper hand in the conversation, but Ali keeps slapping her down with a velvet glove. Back in Big Morocco, Said is chatting with Abdul about Nariza’s doubts regarding Jade. He assures Abdul, Jade pleases him very much, and he will marry her, regardless of Nariza’s disapproval or anything else. Abdul silently ponders the “anything else” part, but tells Said that if that is his decision, adalante, but he will need to teach his wife how to behave. Abdul says that if there is no grave charge against her, he gives his blessing to the marriage, but he will not permit Jade to bring disgrace to their family.

Rosa reveals why she doesn’t want Lucas to marry Jade - he’ll move far away and they won’t see him anymore.

Nariza barges into Jade’s bedroom and tells Latifa that she made the bed all wrong, and besides, she doesn’t know how to do anything right.

Albieri worships his creation and imagines all the glory he’ll receive. Albieri debates. He concludes that he must destroy this clone. He takes it to the sink to pour it away, debating all the way, but he can’t bring himself destroy his crowning achievement. He procrastinates, “I’ll get rid of it tomorrow.”

It’s 5 AM, and Luisa is still waiting up for Albieri. He’s on the pier, pondering. He gets home and talks to his wife (what a concept!). He asks whether she thinks a human clone might already exist. She reminds him what he said at a conference in Chicago. Human cloning is theoretically possible, but it’s an aberration, because before there was a successful one, there would most likely be many abortions and many babies born with serious birth defects. Albieri rationalizes, what if it was for a really good reason, like a father lost a son and could get him back. (Bite your tongue, Paula.)

Jade and Lucas are on the beach. She warns that Ali will soon take her back to Morocco, and they’ll never see each other again. IOW, what are you waiting for, Buster? Lucas claims that he’s really trying, but gee, shucks, no jobs have fallen into his lap. He mentions going out with Marisa last night, and let’s just say that doesn’t sit well with Jade. Lucas decides maybe he shouldn’t tell Jade about the ignition kiss Marissa gave him. She says she will not tolerate sharing him with anyone. He teases her and they play in the surf.

Luisa brings Albieri his breakfast. He’s curled up, fetal. She’s shocked that he didn’t prepare Dora’s embryos. Albieri tries to blow her off.

Latifa and Ali talk about the situation. Ali is controlling his temper, not giving Jade the punishment she deserves. Latifa pipes up that Jade only thinks about herself, no one else, and Ali agrees. Ali settles on a plan. Westerners have no patience, so if he keeps Jade from seeing him, after awhile he’ll get tired of waiting and forget about her. That Ali, he’s one smart baklava.

Luisa takes a call from Dr Sylvia. She returned early from the conference. Albieri intends to go back to work without sleeping, but he sits down on the bed and falls asleep, and Luisa doesn’t waken him since Sylvia is covering the clinic. She says, “There‘s nothing important you have to do today.” (I did that once. I’d been awake 40 hours, no kidding. I sat down on the bed for just a minute, I didn’t even lie down, and the next thing I knew, it was 14 hours later.)

At the clinic, Sylvia wonders why there is only one embryo, what happened to the others? Just then, Dora arrives for her procedure. Sylvia will proceed with just one.

Cris meets her friends by the pool. Norma can’t wait to echar la chisme, she saw Leo and a buddy out last night, with two hotties. Cris says she’ll find that woman and bust her face. Today Cris is not wearing green eye shadow. Does anyone remember the MASH episode where a practical joker put ink on Col. Potter's binocular eyepieces, so that he got gobs of black ink on his eyelids when he used them? Well, I think Cris borrowed Col. Potter's binoculars.

Leo counsels Lucas, and Ali counsels Jade, that this choice is unwise and they will find love somewhere else. Just then Marisa arrives. She tries to explain to Lucas what happened last night, she felt like she was with Diego. She apologizes and insists that he go to the beach with her, which he does.

Albieri wakes up and is surprised by how late it is. He races through the clinic like OJ at the airport. But I guess OJ was in better physical condition; Albieri arrives too late, just as Sylvia finishes implanting the embryo in Dora. Dora thanks Albieri, “Ya sé que fue usted quien creó a mi hijo.” I know you are the one who created my son.

Labels: clon