Caray, Caray!

Emanuel and Marianela are out in the garden at Viper Villa, having a pleasant conversation until Kristel and Mauricio ooze on in and ruin everything like BP is managing them. Mauricio scoffs at the idea of Mari being related to all the pretty ladies of the household. No puede ser! He-manuel comes to her defense, bristling like a mama bear, but Mari pulls him back and says she doesn’t need anyone to defend her. “Ooooh, what an attitude on the fatty! A real fighter…well, a sumo wrestler!” mocks Mauricio. Kristel thinks this is hilarious. Marianela starts to leave, and Kristel runs over and turns on the sprinklers so that she gets drenched, then leads Mari to believe that this was Emanuel’s idea of a fun trick. Mari yells at him to go ahead and laugh; he’s just as cruel as the others! She walks away, and Emanuel goes over and chastises the gruesome twosome for their bratty behavior. “It was just a joke!” says Mauricio. POW! Emanuel punches him in the face. “Qué the heck?!” they say. “It was just a joke!” says He-manuel. He tells them to lay off Marianela or he won’t be Mr. Nice Guy anymore.

The doctor has given Gretel a sedative. Fedra hopes aloud that she will sleep for three months. Emiliano glares at her. After Fedra leaves to escort the doctor out, Emiliano holds Gretel’s hand and says she was such a happy child; what happened? Maybe Netty is right; what they lack in the house is love.

Marianela is in the kitchen, sobbing to Delicia that she doesn’t know why they are so mean to her. Delicia tells her not to take it personally; they are just bored bullies who don’t respect anyone. They are mean to everyone. For example, they found out that Delicia is terrified of toads, so for her birthday they gave her a box of toads. And Fedra is even worse. Delicia advises Mari not to let them see her cry. Mari remembers her mother telling her that she is beautiful and precious and not to let anyone ever make her feel bad about herself. She agrees that she will not give the bullies the pleasure of seeing her suffer.

Ilitia, Muñeca (her mother, aka Camila), and their chauffeur are heading out of the airport when Comisario Tejeda stops them. Ilitia naturally thinks he is a fan wanting a photo or autograph, but he says she needs to give her statement to the police. They are all ridiculously put out by this.

Oscar is driving Brandon, and they are reveling in Brandon’s heroism. Oscar can’t believe he didn’t even get that girl’s phone number. Brandon says he doesn’t like girls like that; they’re only good for hanging clothes on.

Benigno catches Emanuel on his way out of the house. Em says he’s worried about his sister and his cousin. He doesn’t want Mari to think no one cares about her, so he’s going to buy her a present to cheer her up. He drives away in his BMW convertible, which has the logo covered up so you totally cannot tell what sort of car it is.

Mari is in her bathrobe, yelling at Fedra for throwing out all her clothes. Fedra says they were horrible, so she’ll just have to keep wearing her school uniforms for now. Mari only has two, and one of them is soaked and the other in the laundry. After Fedra leaves, Delicia offers to try to rescue some of the clothes from the trash. Mari says no thanks; the uniforms will be fine. Mari wants the two of them to be friends. Delicia says okay, but Fedra can’t find out, and Mari has to stop crying and sharpen her claws.

Fedra lounges and Bernardo rubs her feet. Ugh. Fed whines about all the money they’ve spent on medical care for Gretel. Bernie says mental illnesses are tricky. Something must have happened to her; something they don’t know about. She changed right after Luis Felipe died; maybe that has something to do with it. Fedra thinks it’s unlikely; he wasn’t her father or anything. “Don’t forget what happened after we returned from the burial,” Bernardo says.

We see it in flashback: Crying little Gretel burned all her uncle’s clothes in the garden, and wouldn’t leave the fire until the clothes were all gone. Fedra thinks this is a coincidence. Bernardo says there’s no such thing.

At the office of Ruiz y de Teresa Publicidad, Lorenzo and another guy discuss that none of the models they looked at are right. They need a really special chubby girl. The other guy leaves and Emiliano comes in and gets the same report. Emiliano is in no mood for work meetings, though. Other guy tells him he needs a drink.

Fedra laments that her daughter is crazy, while the actual daughter of the deceased guy is perfectly sane. “For the moment,” creeps Bernardo. The phone rings. It’s Netty, wanting to talk to Marianela. Fedra uses a stupid fake voice that makes her sound even more than usual like she’s been drinking gin in a bubble bath all afternoon like her alter ego Miss Hannigan and pretends it’s the wrong number. Consuelo tells Netty to try again.

Emanuel goes to a fancy candy shop and picks out a big box of chocolates. The sales lady tells him his novia will love this gift. He freezes with a smile on his face and raises his eyebrows.

Fedra makes rude fat jokes about Mari, which fail to amuse Bernardo. Netty calls again. Fedra pretends to be an answering machine, so Netty leaves a message saying she wants to talk to her niece and she’s very worried. “HAhahaha, you stupid ridiculous wannabe actress, I laugh in your face!” cackles Fedra, but she must have already hung up because Netty doesn’t seem to have heard this.

Mauricio and Kristel are doing the only other thing they know how to do. Kristel worries that they’ll be killed if they are caught in her bed, but Mauricio finds the danger stimulating. They carry on.

Ilitia is at the police station, abusing Oscar and Brandon and accusing Brandon of kidnapping her in the airport. He says he had to shut her up because she was screeching like a bipolar hysteric. Oscar watches their exchange like it’s a ping pong match, then tries to intervene and convince Ilitia that this is routine procedure. Brandon tells her if she doesn’t cooperate, he’ll put her in jail. Ilitia says she’ll use all her influence to make sure he can never get a job.

Delicia goes into Kristel’s room with an armful of laundry and gets an eyeful of something else. The puerile pair do not see her. She quickly backs out and Fedra sees her standing there all saucer-eyed. Fedra is really perfecting her Miss Hannigan impersonation as she asks what’s going on. Del says she knows nothing so Fed threatens to yank her eyes out. Fedra knocks on the door and Kristel freaks out.

Emanuel finds Nereida in the foyer and tells her he needs her to do something for him. She smiles.

Marianela, still in her bathrobe waiting for dry clothes, tells a picture of her mother that she is not going to give up. She is going to stay in this house and make the best of it. There is a knock at the door. She opens it and sees the chocolate box sitting on the floor. The note from Emanuel says (addressed to “mi gordita hermosa,” which as we’ve discussed is not as rude in Spanish as the translation would be in English) this gift is to apologize for the bad times she’s had in this house, and he’s under her window hoping she’ll accept it. Mari remembers Delicia telling her about the gift box of toads and says she may or may not be a gordita hermosa, but she is definitely not a fool. She goes out to the balcony and yells at Emanuel and chucks the box at him, knocking him out cold. Oh no!

Fedra is still knocking on Kristel’s door. Nereida asks Delicia what’s going on. Inside, Kristel and Mauricio fight over the green sheets to cover themselves with. Kristel wins. It must be noted here that Mauricio is wearing leopard-print briefs, and only leopard-print briefs. Hey, if I have to have that visual in my head, so do you, even if you were lucky enough not to see it. Kristel makes Mauricio go out onto the balcony. He thinks that’s overexposure, but she thinks he’d be in worse shape caught nekkid in bed. Over the rail he goes.

Marianela thinks Emanuel is faking, but it becomes apparent he’s not. She remembers finding her father lying on the pavers bleeding to death in that same courtyard when she was a little girl. All he said was “the silver lily.” Mari thinks she’s killed Emanuel.

Mauricio runs around the pool in his skivvies. He goes around the corner of the house and sees Emanuel lying there with his head bleeding. He decides to save his life. No, not Emanuel’s, duh. His own.

Fedra is upstairs screeching for Bernardo when Mari comes through hollering for help. Fedra says, “I’m not interested in your problems! Get lost!” Mari leaves.

Mauricio has dragged Emanuel over to the pool, stolen his pants, and put them on. He’s busy unbuttoning the shirt when Mari comes out. Mauricio tells her she never saw him there, got it? He runs away. Mari tries to wake Emanuel.

Bernardo calmly and coolly finally responds to Fedra’s fit. He kicks in Kristel’s door with little effort. Fedra searches the room and yells come out, come out, wherever you are hiding in the altogether with Mauricio. No response. She hears the shower running.

Mauricio is still clutching his side where he hurt it jumping from the balcony. He gets to his car and realizes he doesn’t have his keys. Emiliano drives up in his Mercedes convertible that you cannot tell is a Mercedes because the logo is covered. He demands to know what Mauricio is doing in front of his house half nekkid.

Mari realizes Emanuel isn’t wearing pants, and wonders why he and Mauricio are each wearing only half an outfit. No time to think about that, though; he’s still unconscious. She thinks he’s dead and begs him for forgiveness, then decides he’s still alive, then thinks he needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (if he hasn’t been breathing all this time, it may be too late), then worries that it’s too intimate and forbidden, then decides it’s better than letting him die, then she goes for it. He instantly wakes up with her lips on his, and they both scream. “Were you kissing me?” he asks.

Kristel comes out of the bathroom in the same pear-print robe Romina used to wear on ENDA, I think. Fedra demands to know where Mauricio is.

Marianela tells Emanuel she was just trying to revive him, the same way he saved her after she fell in the pool. “Sure, sure,” he says. Now she accuses him of faking to mock her. She starts to get up and leave, but he grabs her and pins her down while straddling her, asking why she will never listen to him. Then he notices he is bleeding.

Mauricio claims he was assaulted by four big brutish guys, right there in the driveway, and they stole his shirt! “Que barbaridad!” says Emiliano. Where are the guys? Mauricio says they escaped. “Lucky they left your pants,” says Emiliano. Mauricio says they took his wallet, keys, and footwear. Emiliano thinks it’s strange they didn’t take the car. Mauricio pants that they were about to, then they fled. Emiliano invites him into the house to borrow some clothes, but Mauricio claims that would be too much trouble, and besides, the gorillas could still be in there! Emiliano needs to go protect his family! But first, a little favor: he needs some money for a taxi. Emiliano gives it to him.

Marianela yells at Emanuel that he promised not to make fun of her, and now he has given her a chocolate box, full of toads or bugs or some strange thing! “Qué?” he asks. “What are you talking about?” He says he only wanted to apologize and welcome her to the house. He opens the box and shows her the chocolates. She’s touched.

Fedra doesn’t believe that Kristel was just showering and looks for Mauricio in the bathroom. Kristel sobs that her own mother doesn’t trust her.

Marianela apologizes to Emanuel. He feeds her a chocolate and says not everyone in the world wants to hurt her. She asks for another one, with cherries. He tells her to eat like there is no tomorrow and is happy to see her smile.

Fedra is still yelling; Kristel is still crying. Delicia gets dragged in to testify that she thought she saw Mauricio. Kristel yells that she hates her, then sobs to her mother that Mauricio stopped by but nothing happened. Delicia agrees that this is true. Fedra yells at Kristel to worry more about appearances.

Marianela has chocolate on her face. Ick. Emanuel tells her he will never let her lack chocolates. She says he isn’t a bad person after all. “What am I, then?” he asks. She says he’s her cousin who gave her chocolates, and offers him one. He lets her feed it to him. They agree that someday they will be friends. He invites her to go for a walk. “Like that?” she asks, and he suddenly realizes he hasn’t been wearing pants all this time and is embarrassed. Then he recovers and thinks this is a joke she is playing on him.

Benigno reports to the General about Mauricio being in Kristel’s room. The General says Fedra is going to kiss the floor for the way she’s treating Marianela.

The secretary, Carmen, at the publicity business escorts a new model into Lorenzo’s office. She is slim. I thought they were looking for a large lady. Lorenzo’s wife Muñeca calls and Carmen tells her Lorenzo is not in. Muñeca tells her to find Lorenzo immediately and tell him she and Ilitia are at the police station.

The “model” is apparently an old “friend” of Lorenzo. He gives her a drink and says she’s more beautiful than ever. She says he hasn’t changed at all. The sexophone plays in an unbusinesslike fashion. Their lips are millimeters away when the phone rings. Carmen gives him the message.

Marianela denies having stolen Emanuel’s pants. He doesn’t believe her and insists that she wanted revenge for the supposed box of toads and wanted him to be embarrassed when he woke up without clothes, but joke’s on her! He is not at all ashamed to be seen naked, ha ha! He takes off his shirt, too. She is not quite sure what to make of this and hides her face behind the chocolate box.

Avances: Continued striptease, pie in face, Fedra plots, Netty is going to find out what’s going on with her niece.