Caray, Caray!

Mini Summary: The gang at JJ’s celebrate the return of the kiddies; no one calls Elsa; Yolanda spends the night at JJ’s but sneaks out early in the morning; JJ asks Ale to marry him tomorrow and she accepts; David tells Gabi just enough truth, and gives her plenty of loving, to keep her satisfied (for now); battered, bruised and broken Edgar becomes roommate to an awakened and recovered Susana at the hospital; the hospital calls Edgar’s only phone contact- Adolfo, who finds an unconscious Edgar; Elsa takes a hard look at herself, her attachment to and jealousy over JJ, and her treatment of Mauricio—she decides she wants Mauricio in her life; the kiddies share their tale of kidnapping, Yolanda and Edgar with the gang and Leo; Caramelo gives Yolanda a promotion to Tia, and demotes Elsa to Tia; the writers give us an easy way out of this custody nightmare by having Caramelo choose to live with the newly solidified family at JJ’s (new mommy and all); Elsa accepts this, but does not accept being bullied by Dante and his goons; Edgar convinces Susana to team up with him to hide from Adolfo’s wrath—they leave the hospital before Adolfo shows; Leo throws Adolfo off his game by taunting him with his latest failed attempt at assassination (it was a guard that was killed by Hernandez, not JJ); Susana fruitlessly searches her apartment for the money and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter diamonds; at their hotel hideout, Susana tells Edgar all about the money acquired from selling THE LETTER, and shows him THE PICTURE, THE SHOES, and THE DIAMONDS.

Full Recap: Limon has lost consciousness and his wig, and JJ has lost the power of speech, at the sight of the two beaming kiddies, safely delivered to the front door. They are both soon joined by joyous Lucha and Ale, and the kids and adults join together in happy hugs and kisses. Limon reminds Ale of the power of faith. From now on, she’s a believer! This giddy scene is interrupted by the entrance of Yolanda, who lets them know that she came with the kids. Caramelo elaborates further by telling them Yolanda was kidnapped (fue secuestrada) with them. Ale introduces Yolanda to everyone as a friend of her Tio Mario. She is immediately invited to sit down and to eat, and asked if she needs a doctor for her head wound. She takes a seat, turns down the offer for a doctor, and since Chicles already took the two lady-folk to dinner, she is only in need of a bath. They gladly offer her the bath facilities and convince her to also spend the night, with much urging. Lucha is so happy to have her little scamp back that she promises to never scold (regañar) Chicles again (we’ll see how long that lasts). Caramelo moves Yolanda to tears by declaring her to be Tia Yolanda for how well she took care of them during the ordeal. Chicles also thinks Edgar deserves props, leading Ale to wonder what Edgar they are speaking of. They all shoo away the bad thoughts to once again celebrate the return of the kids.

It would be nice if they actually thought of spreading some of that joy on to Elsa, because she is spending a sleepless night of regret and worry. Luckily, she has Kindhearted Ulises to share her woes. Woe #1: Her heated argument with Ale, when what happened to the kids could have happened to anyone. She realizes that her rage (coraje) had to do with feeling that Ale stole JJ from her. Woe #2: JJ was never hers to begin with. He never loved her. Woe #3: Mauricio The Wonderful came into her life, helped build her confidence in herself. And what does she do? She kicked him to the curb. (mandar al diablo/send to the devil) She’s so stupid! She’s done everything wrong. Woe #4: Her little girl is missing, and what if they don’t find her?! She can’t even think about it or what might be happening to her. Ulises thinks she’s having one of those moments, when she’s at a crossroads of confusion and regret thinking about her life. He thinks it’s best if she goes to bed to get some sleep, and pray to San Jose for a miracle. The next thing she needs to do is to stop being stupid about Mauricio. In addition to being an absolute babe (bonbon), he’s also a good man and he loves her like crazy.

Ramon, who is really burning the candle at both ends, calls Leo from the office. They’ve identified the two corpses found at the kidnap site- Pablo Cantu and Luis Delgado (aka Ears). They used to do business with Felix. And their fingerprints appeared on Ale’s car, so they for sure were involved in the kidnapping. All most likely under the orders of Adolfo.

At the hospital Pretty Eddy, who isn’t looking so pretty at the moment, has just been wheeled in to Susana’s room at the hospital. She obviously doesn’t recognize him with his face swollen to twice its normal size and black and blue. Two doctors are attending to the pretty patient who was comatose until recently. They are pleased with her recovery. She gets released tomorrow, but has no friends or relatives to pick her up.

At Adolfo’s, he and his partner (socio) Dante have just come to an agreement. Dante will go see the girl tomorrow. Just as Dante leaves, Adolfo receives a call from the hospital. They found his number in the phone of an unconscious man- around 35 years old, black hair, strong, formerly handsome… Adolfo knows who it is, but says it’s the relative of one of his servants.

Back at Elsa’s, she has not taken Ulises advice to go to sleep, but she has taken his advice to stop being stupid about Mauricio. She calls Mauricio and asks him to accompany her to JJ’s the next day to find out if they’ve learned anything new about the kids. She’s dying of anxiety over the kids and can’t sleep. Mauricio tries to calm her down and asks if she wants him to come over. She turns down the offer since it would be too much to ask of him, but she still wants him to come with her tomorrow. Mau wonders if she just wants him to come with her because she doesn’t want to go alone. She brings a big smile the big guy’s face by telling him the reason why she wants him to come is because she wants to see him.

At the hospital, Adolfo is trying to figure out what happened to Edgar and making sure the police haven’t been brought into the matter. As he talks to the nurse and a comatose Edgar, Susana trembles in fear on the other side of the curtain, recognizing the familiar evil voice. He tells the nurse that he’ll be back tomorrow to transfer him to a private hospital. (Either Eddie will get the same private medical care as Felix, or he’ll be joining Garnica on that “aquatics team.”) A while later, the nurses gossip about the poor man and his injuries- multiple fractures in his arm, and bruises all over his body. And how’s Sleeping Beauty? ( La Bella Durmiente) She’s awake, has all her faculties and no permanent damage.

At Casa Genoves, David and Gabi are showing us that just because you’re married, doesn’t mean you can’t still bring the sexy. They bask naked in afterglow under the sheets. Gabi is promising she can keep a secret, if David tells her all. She wants him to have confidence in her. David decides to tell her a bit more about the plan to foil Adolfo’s plans to kill JJ with a fake hit (asasinato falso), and that’s what he, JJ, and Leo were celebrating when she called (he leaves out Fausto/Mario). Never one to be satisfied with sketchy details, Gabi starts to ask more pointed questions about the whos/whats/whens/wheres/and whys. David puts a halt to her questions, asking her to just trust him. And he has no idea who the mystery woman who has been calling is either. He doesn’t have “amigas”; she’s the only woman in his life. Gabi wonders if it could be a former girlfriend. David doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He’ll speak to whoever it is next time. What he does know is he loves her with his whole soul and he doesn’t want to be with anyone else, he simply can’t. He only wants to be with her. They get back to married couple loving.

At JJ’s it seems that the phone actually works, because Ale is speaking to Leo and telling him about the return of the kids and Yolanda’s involvement. Your recapper is too angry at our two otherwise lovable protagonists to share in their joy about the return of the children, or to really care about JJ’s proposal to Ale get married the next day. She says yes. I’m done with this scene. (Ok, Ale also said some stuff about the guilt killing her, loving Cara and wanting to be her mom.)

Early the next morning, Tia Yolanda sneaks out of the house. And at the hospital, Edgar has woken up from his drug induced sleep and getting news of his injuries from the doctor. He’s obviously in a LOT of pain. On the other side of the curtain, Susana is being discharged and given back all the items she came with, including THE PICTURE and THE SHOES. She clutches the precious shoes to her as the nurse advises her to wear flip flops instead. The doctor joins in. High heels like those are a no no for someone in her condition. She could lose her balance. In addition, she will likely have occasional lapses in memory, but it’s normal. She needs to take it easy and do her rehab exercises, until her body and mind fully heal. Back on the other side of the curtain, Edgar’s doctor tells him about Adolfo’s visit and that he’s coming back today to “transfer him to a private hospital.” Edgar doesn’t like the sound of this and decides he needs to leave, NOW, broken bones and bruises be damned. He tells the doc that he’s got a cousin who’s a doctor who can care for him at home. The doctor wants him to at least make a statement to the police about the guys who beat him up, but Edgar refuses. All he needs are his anti-inflammatory and pain meds prescriptions.

Yolanda returns to her condo and heads straight to Juanita’s room to search the mattress for THE LETTER. She is shocked to find not only the mattress missing, but all of Juanita’s things.

Back at the hospital, Susana get’s discharged just as Edgar is being dressed and put in a sling by the nurse. He finally sees her face, recognizes her, runs after her, and catches her just before she catches a taxi. He hobbles up behind her, scaring her, but convinces her to get into a taxi with him right away before Adolfo arrives. If Adolfo finds them, he’ll KILL them! They pull out just as Adolfo pulls up. He is shocked to find out from the nurse that Edgar already left.

At JJ’s, the whole gang is up, dressed and has visitors—FaustiMario and Leo. I’m guessing there was plenty of time to call Elsa. They explain about Yolanda disappearing before daybreak. FaustiMario is sure Adolfo must be threatening and controlling her, and Ale marvels at how some women will still stick to a man who harms her. Caramelo thinks Yolanda is good peeps (buena gente). The two kids tell Leo the whole story of the kidnapping from the beginning, horrifying the adults with all the scary details. Chicles gets to the part about Edgar letting them escape. Ale thinks it’s a miracle that Edgar, although one of Adolfo’s men, let them escape. They all argue the point about whether someone like that could have good in them.

In the taxi Susana explains how she ended up in the hospital. Edgar tries to talk her out of going back to her apartment since he’s sure Adolfo is on their trail. She insists she has to go to pick up a few things.

The doorbell rings at JJ’s, and the kiddies as usual run to answer the door (haven’t these adults learned anything?). Elsa and Mauricio are shocked to see Chicles answer the door, and even more so when Caramelo leaps into Elsa’s arms a second later. “Como estas chiquita?!” After Caramelo assures her she’s well, a royally ticked Elsa enters the house and wants to know why they didn’t tell her the children were back. JJ looks like he can’t be bothered. Limon tries to act like all it all just happened and they were about to call her. Chicles chooses the wrong moment to start a 100% honesty policy and calls out Limon on his lie. He announces to Elsa that they arrived last night! “Do you think I’m an idiot or what?!” Ale jumps in and says they were all just so excited (emocionados) that they forgot to call her. (Thanks Ale. That makes it all better.) Elsa responds with sarcasm- “Oh, that’s totally understandable. Of course!” Caramelo looks up at her- “Please don’t get mad tia.” This pushes Elsa to her limits. She accuses the Insensitive Gang of influencing Cara to start calling her tia again. JJ doesn’t try to smooth things over, instead he tells Elsa that Caramelo will no longer live with her, but instead will live in HER HOUSE, with HER FAMILY. When Elsa says she’s her mother, JJ yells at her that she’s NO ONE’S mother. He and Ale are getting married and adopting her. Elsa throws his ex convict status and inability to adopt in his face. Mauricio decides to jump in to diffuse the situation. He asks JJ to let Elsa take Cara tonight and then tomorrow they can talk about it calmly. Since everything that comes out of Mauricio’s mouth, including common sense, sounds like a threat to JJ, he goes after Mau and yells at him to butt out. Leo holds JJ back from getting physical with him. “This business is between me and her (Elsa)!” Mauricio says he’s just trying to find a way for them to deal with this in the most just/fair way. (There he goes talking that common sense to JJ again. He should know better by now.) Remember that Elsa has the legal rights over Caramelo, even if you don’t like it. JJ doesn’t like it, so much so that he wants to break Mau’s face. Leo holds JJ back as he yells at Mau, Ale starts yelling as well, and Leo shouts them both down to calm themselves. Caramelo goes over to give her Tio Limon a hug and tells her Tia Elsa that she doesn’t want to leave him. This is music to Limon’s ears. “What did you say my love?” “I want to live here with you. I don’t want to be apart from my Tio Limon. I want to be with him always!” She also wants to be with the whole gang who live in the house. JJ looks at Elsa smugly, as she clings sadly to Mau. Mau tries talking common sense again and tells Cara that she has to live with Elsa because she’s her mom (Social Services would likely agree with this). Elsa stops him and graciously says to leave her. If she doesn’t want to live with me, so be it. When she leaves, JJ and the gang act like they just defeated the Evil Witch of the West. Ding dong the witch is dead. Cara is the only one who has remorse that her Tia Elsa left being so sad. Well she’ll just have to get used to it because you’ll be living here with us! Cara wonders if this means that Ale will be her mama. Limon loves this idea! (Could it be because Ale will be living in the same house? If she wanted to live somewhere else, without Limon around, he’d change his tune.) Happy, happy, joy, joy!

At her police sealed apartment, Susana discovers that the money and the butter diamonds have been taken. “Me robaron todo!” (They stole everything from me!) Her shouts bring the landlord who is none too happy to see her. She accuses him of stealing her money and her butter. He didn’t touch anything; it was the cops and he’s going to call them now to tell them she’s returned. Edgar tries to hustle Susana out of the apartment. When the landlord tries to detain them, he gets a swift whack to his family jewels from Eddie’s cane. He’s left rolling on the floor in agony as Edgar and Susana flee.

Adolfo is scouring the newspapers for news of last night’s hit on JJ when he is interrupted by a call from Leo. “What the hell do you want?! Make an appointment with my secretary!” Leo needs to talk to him right now. In fact, he’s in his house. “Que?!” He opens his office door and is greeted by the stern face of Leo.

Mauricio drops off Elsa at her door. She asks to be alone so she can think about everything that happened. Mau looks a bit put out, fearing he’s getting the cold shoulder again. Elsa asks him to have patience with her one more time. It’s just that what happened with Caramelo really hurt her. He knows. That’s why he wants to be with her to support her. But he doesn’t want to be taken for granted and ignored. She admits she has been self centered (egoista) in the past and taken advantage of him. But she loves him and she wants to be with him. She touches his cheek. Right now she just needs to be alone. He agrees to leave her alone, but he’ll be in his office if she needs anything. He goes in for the kiss on the cheek, but newly bold Elsa changes the trajectory and plants a firm smooch right on his kissable lips. They are in the midst of being transported by this kiss when Ulises interrupts. He’s happy to see the pair reunited.

Adolfo, however, is not happy to see Leo. This is harassment! If he doesn’t have a warrant for arrest or concrete proof, then he’s going to bring Leo up on charges of abuse of power. Leo’s not bothered. Proof is steadily coming to light. Adolfo still thinks they’ve got nothing on him. He’s not going to fall for these pressure tactics that they learn at the police academy. Unless Leo has an order from a judge, he needs to beat it. Leo’s ok with that. He just came for a social visit. He makes his way out, but then turns back to Adolfo. If Adolfo is looking for news of JJ’s murder in the papers, then he’s wasting his time. “Victoria no esta muerto.” The one Hernandez killed was a guard. Now they’ve got him in questioning and he mentioned a guy named Edgar Lopez, who he believes works for Adolfo. He used to work for the Genoves and is the prime suspect in Roberto’s murder. Adolfo plays dumb. He doesn’t know the guy. Leo goes on. This Edgar escaped from the cops after the attempt on JJ. Speaking of JJ, he gave the police the address of the location where two bodies were found. These same two were the ones who kidnapped two children from Ale’s car. “You don’t know anything about this?” Adolfo has had enough. He orders Leo to go. Fine by Leo. Soon he’ll have the pleasure of seeing Adolfo in jail.

Dante is at Elsa’s door with his two goons, outnumbering Elsa and Ulises. Ulises has her back as she tells Dante that she doesn’t want to talk to him and orders him to leave. He convinces her to talk to him, and Ulises to leave. Ulises says he will be in his apartment, but instead he sticks close by listening on the other side of the door. Dante wants to know exactly what Elsa told the cops. She defiantly tells him she told them the truth about what happened. That he had her sell jewels that didn’t have bills of sale, although he told her they did. He calls her stupid, since the problem was easily fixed with him giving the clients back their money. Elsa doesn’t know why he’s coming to look for her. The one who should be upset here is her, for him having involved her in something so disgusting (asqueroso). Dante doesn’t think he’s responsible for dragging Snow White through the mud. He’s done some investigating and found out she has a brother in jail for murder and smuggling. He’s sure she has the same criminal tendencies in the blood. Elsa tells them to get the heck out. Ulises senses the moment is getting tense and springs back into Elsa’s apartment. He threatens to call the cops if Dante doesn’t leave. He and Elsa stare them down as they exit. “Shoo shoo shoo.” Ulises begs Elsa’s forgiveness for having connected her with Zaida for the job. She tells him not to worry about it.

At the hotel Edgar explains that he’s hiding from Adolfo because he didn’t do something he ordered him to do. He has her order his meds though room service, since it’s too dangerous for her to go out. She will be his life line, and he swears he’ll protect her. He’s not going to hurt her. Now he wants her to explain the money and the butter.

At Casa Genoves, Ale interrupts Gabi and David’s meal with the happy news of the return of the kids. She then shocks them with the news of Yolanda and Edgar’s roles in the whole drama. Anyway, she has to head to the beauty salon, because JJ wants them to get married tomorrow! Gabi jumps up and gives her cousin (unbeknownst to her) a congratulatory hug. Ale convinces Gabi to come with her. They run off leaving David.

Back in the hotel, Susana has just given Edgar his shots, using her nursing aid experience from the States. Now it’s time to spill the details. She tells Edgar about the 1.5 million pesos that was in her bag, but hesitates. Edgar once again begs her to trust him. She begins the tale, detailing how she found Dora’s letter, then the photo of Gabi and the connection to the shoes she is wearing this very moment. Edgar’s still not getting the importance of all this. Then Susana takes off her shoe and shows Edgar what’s inside. Huge, sparkling DIAMONDS! Edgar is speechless.

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