Caray, Caray!

Tonight Aislinn Derbez is Martha, Manipuladora (Martha, the manipulator).

Martha watches her mother, Teresa, go into her nightstand for a pair of scissors, then start begging her stepfather, Alberto, not to leave. Teresa threatens not to kill him, but to kill herself, and her wrist looks like it has old scars. Alberto smacks Teresa around some, and when Martha takes the scissors, he dares her to kill him.

Teresa sits in the interrogation room and says "I killed him, I killed Alberto." Moran gives Capellan the 411: "Divorced, 44 year old, born in Argentina, but living in Mexico since 1994, married the second time to Alberto Alarcon--the victim, history of psychiatric problems." The whole time, she's sitting on the other side of the glass, rubbing her hands and saying she killed him.

Teresa wakes up, griping at her husband for being up so early and being dressed so well for a Saturday. He laughs and says it's Friday and he's already late. Somehow, this leads her to believe that he's cheating on her. He says he doesn't have the time or desire to argue with her today . She asks him again why he looks so handsome and where he's taking the "piruja" (whore) he's going out with. He ignores the question and says it's late and he has to go. She complains that he never has time for her and doesn't love her. He's still finishing getting dressed as he says he does love her, and she says he doesn't, etc. Finally, he pulls his shirt aside to reveal a scar and says "If this isn't love…."

Three years before…Alberto sits out on the patio with Martha and Hernán. Hernán asks where his suegra (mother-in-law) is. Alberto says she wasn't feeling well and she went to lie down.

Actually, she's inside, in the kitchen yelling at a "mocosa altanera" (high and mighty brat) that she's "harta" (tired) of something I can't make out because she's screaming so loud. The young girl she's yelling at backs away and the maid comes to her defense. Teresa accuses them both of lying to her, "just like everyone else does!" Oh, "mentiras" (lies), that must be what she's tired of.

Hernán asks Martha if she doesn't want to check and see why Lorena hasn't come out yet. She agrees, but doesn't look very enthusiastic. The guys start talking business.

Teresa is angrily explaining to Lorena (aka, the mocosa altanera) that her father is cheating on her with any woman who crosses his path. "Haven't you seen the way he looks at your sister?" The maid says she's his daughter. "No she's not!" Lorena says she might as well be--he raised her. Teresa is convinced he's liked her since she was little. Lorena calls her crazy. I don't disagree with that, but you're in a kitchen and there are a lot of potential weapons around, so please don't bait her! Martha comes in to see what's going on and Teresa grabs a knife out of a drawer, holds it up to her wrist and says "Confess or I'll kill myself!" Martha says she doesn't know what Teresa is talking about. Lorena helpfully chimes in "She says dad likes you!" When Martha starts "Dad…" Teresa insists again that he's not her father. Hernán comes in and Teresa tells him that his wife is trying to steal her man! Alberto comes in as Martha is saying that Teresa is having a "crisis" (just what it looks like, except you say it "creesees") and Hernán says he'll go call the doctor. That leaves Martha standing next to Alberto. "Look at them, see how good they look together! You're not gonna steal my man!" She starts to go after Martha with the knife, but Alberto gets in the way and gets stabbed for his trouble.

Back to Alberto looking at his scar. "If this isn't love, I don't know…" he gets muted out, but I think his lips were saying "que carajo es" which would mean "what the fuck it is."

Capellan walks through DIEM's shiny new computer area (does anyone else get the impression that the crew is so excited about their new sets that they're having people walk around and have conversations in random places just so they can show it off?) and runs into Gerardo. Gerardo smugly hands her a folder and says he doesn't think there's a lot to investigate. "Teresa stabbed her husband 3 years ago. We have her confession, her mental state, her daughter's statement, the presence of gunpowder on her hands. And besides, she'd tried to kill him before, Sofia." Sofia says that doesn't mean she did it. "With all due respect…" "With all due respect, I'm going to keep investigating." She sashays back out of there in her swishy little printed skirt with her "I'm a hot, powerful woman who can throw your ass in jail" leather jacket. She and Gerardo totally need to hook up, but I'm afraid he's not man enough for her.

Back in her office, she shows Martha and Hernán a picture of Alberto's scar. Marta says her mother did it. "She stabbed him with a knife. She didn't kill him this time." It wasn't a very deep wound and they did what they'd done several times before--had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She'd been admitted 4 or 5 times before for one or two months at a time, depending on how she was when she got there. Martha looks at the picture again and says "We should have done something. Poor Alberto. Now I'll never see him again." This sets Capellan's Spidey senses a'tingling.

And now for an episode of "Bizarre and Somewhat Inappropriate Workplace Conversations":

Gerardo: Camila, puedes venir un momento? (Camila, can you come over here for a minute?)
Aranda: Dígame, doctor. (What's up, doc?)
G: Cuantos años tiene usted, teniente? (How old are you, lieutenant?)
A: Usted debería de saberlo, doctor. Tiene acceso a todos los expedientes. (You oughta know, doc. You've got access to all the records.)
G: Y vio bien a la victima? (And did you get a good look at the victim?)
A: Digo, la vi…lo que se dice bien? Dentro de lo que cabe, lo vi…muerto a balazos. (I'd say, I saw him…what you'd call well? Within limits, I saw him…dead from a gunshot.)
G: Y le pareció interesante? Un hombre guapo? (And did he seem interesting to you? A handsome man?)
A: Era un cadáver, doctor Trejo. Que, no tiene limite? (It was a dead body, doctor Trejo. What, don't you have any boundaries?)
G: Estoy haciendo un trabajo estrictamente y puramente policiaco. Digo, ya se que era un cadáver, pero…imagínalo con vida. Usted vio fotos de el, muchas. Te pareció, le parece, un hombre guapo, atractivo? Hasta para una mujercita de su edad? Que si se cual es, eh, aunque no lo crea. (I'm strictly and purely doing police business. I say, I already know that it was a dead body, but…imagine him living. You saw pictures of him, lots of them. Did he seem, does he seem like, a handsome, attractive man? Maybe even for a young woman of your age? And I do know what it is, eh, even if I don't believe it.)
A: Bueno, si, me parece que en vida el Señor Alarcón fue guapo, es bastante guapo, con un cuerpo moldeado… (Ok, yes, I think that in life, Mr. Alarcon was handsome, is very handsome, with a chiseled body…)
G: Bueno, ya, ya, ya, no es para tanto. (OK, enough, enough, enough, I don't need that much information.)
A: A donde quiere llegar, doctor? (Where are you trying to get to, doctor?)
G: Teniente, usted tendría un romance conmigo? (Lieutenant, would you have an affair with me?)
A: Usted sí no tiene limites! (You really have no boundaries!)
G: No se ilusiones, es puramente policiaco. (Don't get your hopes up, this is strictly police business.)
A: Muy bien, bueno, pos no. Jamás tendría una romance con usted. (Very well, ok, well no. I would never have an affair with you.)
G: Por mi edad? Hasta cuantos anos tiene que sacarle un hombre a una mujer para que lo considere…un rabo verde, o un viejito? (Because of my age? How many years does a man have to have on a woman before you consider him…a pervert or a dirty old man?)
A: A donde quiere llegar? Porque, sabe que, estoy un poco ocupada. (Where are you trying to get to? Because, you know what, I'm just a little bit busy.)
G: Es que, para un hombre tan guapo, exitoso, con dinero, termina con una loca así? Por que mejor no se va con una… (It's just that, for a man so handsome, successful, with money, to end up with a crazy woman like that? Why didn't he just go with a …)
A: Por amor, doctor! (For love, doctor!)
G: Eso carece completamente de fundamentos científicos. (That's completely lacking in scientific foundations.)
A: Entonces? (Well then?)
G: No se. No se. (I don't know. I don't know.)
A: Con permiso. (With your permission; excuse me)

That's the kind of conversation that gets the whole office sent to sexual harassment prevention training.

Martha comes to Alberto's office and gets introduced to his secretary as his eldest daughter. Alberto also corrects his secretary that she's "señora" (Mrs.) and not "señorita" (Miss) because "ya se me casó" (she already got married on him--it's that taking it personally construction again, the same way cars break down "on you" or people die "on you"). Martha came to invite him to Hernán's birthday dinner tomorrow. He pretends not to know who Hernan is, ja ja ja. He suggests, since she said she wanted Hernán's birthday to be a good time, that they send Hernán and Teresa out to dinner together alone and the two of them go have fun. Cause between Teresa and the boring Hernán, he's already dreading it. He does agree to go, though. He offers her a drink, but she was just stopping by long enough to invite him to dinner. He walks her out of the office and innocently kisses her on the cheek before she leaves. A smarmy guy in a turtleneck comes over and tells him he's liking them younger every day. Alberto just laughs. Okay, if not for the fact that Teresa keeps accusing them of being together, I don't think I'd be reading anything into that. It's all very vague.

Aranda is hanging out with Lorena, the younger sister. She asks who Lorena is texting. "Daniela, a friend. I'm telling her what happened." And she does know what happened, she says. Aranda says she doesn't seem too bothered. "Do you understand that you father is dead?" "Aja." "Your mother could go to jail." "Aja." Lorena refuses to go around crying and screaming like her sister Martha. She gets teary, but struggles to hold it in. "Do you know when I've been the calmest in my life? When my mother was in the psychiatric hospital. So if she goes to jail, that will be even better, right?" "Did your mother ever attack you?"

Teresa digs into her wrist with the point of a knife, then starts kicking at the dining table yelling "Come out from there!" Lorena is hiding underneath. The two of them start screaming at each other, Teresa saying that Lorena's dad is cheating on her with Martha, and Lorena saying that she's crazy. "I'm not crazy! I'm the only one in this house that knows how things really are!" Teresa grabs a box of matches and some alcohol from the sideboard and starts splashing alcohol on the rug and on Lorena, yelling, "You want to do the same thing she does! You want to take him away from me! I won't let you steal him from me! I didn't raise two daughters to be a pair of whores! I'm going to kill you, you hear me?! Whore! Whore!" Holy. Crap.

Gerardo shows Aranda the two bullets that were extracted from the body. She says there's one problem. Ballistics checked out the gun and it wasn't fired twice, it was fired five times.

"Five shots?" Capellan repeats. Gerardo confirms that he only took 2 bullets out of the corpse. Aranda requests permission to have the trajectory of the shots figured out so she can look for the other 3 bullets. Capellan smiles at her, "Shouldn't you have done that already?" Aranda leaves to go get it done. But before she goes, Capellan asks how Mrs. Alarcón is doing. Since Aranda reports that she's calmer, so Capellan asks to have her moved into interrogation. Gerardo says he's got a previous stab wound and she's got 3 missing bullets. I guess he thinks the score is in his favor. Capellan just grins at him and nods.

Capellan starts interrogating Teresa. Teresa says that Alberto is dead. She says she killed him, but it almost sounds like a question. Capellan says she's trying to figure that out and asks if Teresa really can't remember anything about what happened. "We argued. He made me mad. He always made me mad. But it was Martha…she's the one who…It was Martha's fault. Martha and Alberto had an understanding." Capellan reminds her that they're talking about her husband and her daughter, Martha. "Yes. Alberto isn't Martha's father. Martha is the daughter of my first husband. Alberto isn't her father. That's why she took him away from me." Capellan says her daughters have said she's obsessed with this topic. "I'm not obsessed. I'm sure. As sure as I am that the baby she's carrying is Alberto's and not her husband's." "Why are you so sure? Do you have proof?" Teresa says she does. The person who told her is never wrong. "Madame Marion. She's never wrong." Oh, this just keeps getting worse and worse!

Madame Marion reads Teresa's Tarot cards. The Queen of Coins is Teresa (a mature, wealthy woman who shares her wealth). The Devil is the next card out, but Madame Marion says it could mean a lot of things in that position, so she reads on. "Here's your husband" the King of Coins (a powerful man). "And, oh, you've got a matrimonial crisis!" She lays Temperance (a need for moderation) over the King of Coins. "I can't tell you who it is, but the Tarot doesn't lie, and the Tarot says that you know who it is," she says, pointing to the Hanged Man (divinity, knowledge). Judgment (does exactly what it says on the tin) is laid out to the right of the Queen. Madame Marion says she can't tell her if the other woman is going to take him away and that there's some confusion (sitting to your left, there, Madame). She can't interpret it well, because there's some bad, negative energy (again…to your left!)…. Teresa yells at Lorena, sitting in the other room, to get out of there, please. Madame tells her to calm down. "Does her name start with an M?" Madame pulls another card, Death (the end of something, but not necessarily a death), and nods. Just for the sake of reference, The Devil can signify being chained to an old idea that keeps you from being healthy.

Outside the interrogation room, Gerardo says to Sofia, "Madame Marion? Sofia, por favor!" She shrugs and walks off.

Alberto, Lorena, Marta, and Hernán are having dinner together. Hernán is holding a baby. Marta asks him to put the baby to bed already, since he looks tired. She gets Lorena to agree to go with Hernán and help him change the baby's stinky diaper. When they're gone, Alberto asks her what's wrong. She says she's worried about her mother. "Because she didn't show up? She's at an appointment with Madame Marion." "Again?" Alberto says she's been making appointments with her behind his back. They both know that seeing Madame Marion messes with Teresa's head. "All she does is get money out of her and fill her head with nonsense." "Well, with the new pills they're giving her, she goes to bed earlier and gets up later."

Teresa gets up out of bed.

"We've never been so happy, right? Something else is going on with you and it's not necessarily about your mom. What is it?" Marta says Hernán got offered a better job, but they'd have to go to Monterey. She won't go. "Why not?"

Teresa is sitting in a corner of the kitchen crying that he's cheating on her with her own daughter and she knows they're together right now! The maid finds her and tries to calm her down, but Teresa insists that the maid is being deceived the same as she is. Teresa demands that the maid call Alberto and demand that he come home or she'll kill herself.

"You don't care if I go to Monterey?" Alberto says it's not that he doesn't care, but if it's about her well-being. She rushes around the table and grabs his hand, saying "I would never abandon you!" Their faces are pretty close together. Lorena comes in and Alberto and Martha turn to look at her, but they don't let go. "I would never leave you and Lorena alone with my mom. I wouldn't leave the two of you for all the gold in the world!" She hugs Lorena.

Teresa is making shallow scratches on her arm and shouting "I'm going to kill myself!" while the maid tells whoever answered the phone at Marta's place what's going on.

Alberto gets his jacket on to leave and turns down Hernán's offer to call an ambulance. Alberto and Lorena leave and Hernán rubs Marta's arms briefly, before she walks away.

Lorena comes running into the kitchen and calls to her dad. Alberto comes in and tells her it'll be ok. Toña, the maid, reports that she scratched her arm. Alberto asks if she cleaned it with alcohol and what the pretext was this time. "The same as always." He thought she was sleeping, but it's the same stupid shit as always. He roughly tells her to get up and starts dragging her to her room. He tells Lorena to call Daniela and ask for a ride to school. "I'm not going to be able to drop you off or pick you up tomorrow, and your mother will be asleep all day." Lorena says she will and watches him dragging her mother out as her mother keeps smooching on him, half-drugged out of her mind. "How long are you going to keep doing this?" he asks.

Lorena tells Capellan that her mother would do that every so often. "Aren't you worried about who you're going to live with now? That is, if your mother ends up in jail?" She figures she'll live with Marta, Hernán and the baby. Sounds like she maybe has a little crush on Hernán.

Alberto gives Teresa some pills, but she accuses him of wanting her drugged out so he can shag her daughter. Alberto says he wants her to feel better and well-rested. He reminds her that the company party is tomorrow night and she was supposed to go with him. She sounds pathetically grateful about going out with him, but he says that Martha and Hernán will be there too. He's getting an award and he wants the whole family to be there. Lorena will stay home with the baby. "Oh, so you're inviting Martha, but not your own daughter?" He says it's a grown up party and Lorena will be bored. Besides she's too young. "Young. Pretty. Both my daughters? I can't believe you're doing it with both my daughters?!" He tells her to calm down, she's his daughter. Teresa cries. Alberto says she's really going to kill herself the next time. "If you let Madame Marlene in the house again, I'll kick her out." "I'll kill you first. I'll kill Martha, and then I'll kill Lorena and your bastard too."

Capellan tells Martha and Hernán that she's trying to find out what set things off. "My mother is a sick woman. What more do you want to know? She's been that way for years and nothing out of the ordinary happened." Hernán said a lot of things happened at the party.

Martha and Hernán hand the baby off to Lorena. Alberto comes in and Martha says he's looking good. "I suppose my mom's not coming?" Teresa comes down the stairs, laughing, and says she supposes wrong. Hernán tells his mother-in-law that she looks beautiful. "See? Some men still want me!" She flirts with Hernán. Martha says maybe they shouldn't go. Alberto says no way, they're all going. "No, let her. If you don't want to you, I'll go with my husband and yours. You take my husband away from me and I'll take yours away from you." Alberto asks Marta not to pay any attention to her and let's go. Teresa tells Alberto he's looking very handsome. "Isn't your father handsome?" she asks Lorena. Lorena grins and says he is. "Well, you're too young for him." OMG, every time this woman opens her mouth it just keeps getting worse! This is psychological torture, constantly accusing your 13-year-old of wanting to sleep with her own father! And I have yet to see any of Martha's "manipulations," even though Capellan seems to suspect something. Martha takes the baby to say good night, then carries him over to Hernán so he can say good night to his daddy. Teresa pulls her over and says, "no, no, to his daddy" and pulls the baby over to Alberto. Argh! This woman! Alberto tells Teresa that she's a "pesadilla" (a nightmare).

"My mother-in-law had this obsession" Hernán tells Capellan, while Martha looks at him, horrified.

People mix and mingle at the company party. Smarmy guy greets Alberto and Teresa, then stupidly says he didn't realize that Martha was Alberto's daughter. Teresa has been allowed to drink (Why? For the love of my sanity WHY?!!!) and says, "Well, daughter, stepdaughter…I'm sure they're something more, though I don't know what." Alberto asks her if she'd like some fresh air, but she'd rather dance with Jaime, AKA, smarmy guy. Alberto (WHY?) lets him take her. Hernán offers to get drinks for Martha and Alberto.

"Do you know how long it's been since Alberto even took me down to the corner?" Jaime asks if he can tell her something, with all due respect. "Your daughter is so beautiful." YOU'RE. NOT. HELPING! She gulps more champagne and says the younger daughter is beautiful too.

Alberto accepts congratulations from another coworker, who also wishes him luck. Martha wonders what that was about, but Alberto says he'll tell her later. "I'm worried about your mother. She won't stop threatening."

Teresa has finished her glass of champagne and tells Jaime that she's feeling sick and can he get her another glass of champagne. Insert silence and a blank stare on my part. In what universe do those two concepts connect logically in that order?

Alberto and Martha are standing really close together and he's very quietly telling her that Teresa has threatened to kill her and the baby. Teresa comes over and shoves Martha away, asking what she thinks she's doing. A predictable scene ensues. The guests get a free show. Martha and Hernán leave so they can check on the baby. Jaime takes the floor and calls for a toast to Alberto. He announces that next week, he's going to open a new office in Bogota. Teresa gets faint and Alberto calls for a doctor. Martha, who apparently hadn't left yet, tells Alberto he's going to be sorry.

In the car, on the drive home, Teresa is falling asleep and Martha is half curled up in her seat, teary eyed. Alberto is sneaking glances at Martha in the rearview and Hernán is just looking sad and confused.

"I think your mother wasn't the only one surprised and angered by the news." Martha angrily demands to know what it was supposed to matter to her if Alberto left or didn't leave. Capellan says she's out of line. "You have no idea what my mother has done to all of us." She leaves and Hernán starts to follow her, but Capellan asks for a word with him. Martha wonders what more she could want to know. Hernán stays behind.

Capellan takes her fancy schmancy DIEM folder in to see Gerardo. He jokes that she's bringing him Madame Marion's testimony. He looks in the folder and says "This is illegal! You can't ask for a paternity test without the permission of at least one of the supposed fathers." Well, Hernán signed the authorization.

"Why not put your doubts to rest?" Hernán says she's got a point, and signs the paperwork.

"The baby is Alberto's son. After all, his wife wasn't so wrong." Gerardo says that's only more of a reason for her to have killed him. Capellan admits it was a low blow not to have Gerardo run the test, but she was right. Capellan calls to Aranda to get "Mrs. Alarcón's" daughter in there (though she didn't say which one) and an order from the judge to test for gunpowder residue. Gerardo reminds Capellan that the results have nothing to do with the murder. She wiggles the folder at him and walks out.

Capellan hands Hernán the test results and he cries. She walks out of her office and takes the gunpowder tests from Moran. She smiles and thanks him, saying this was the missing piece.

Teresa and Martha are both sitting in the interrogation room when Capellan walks in. She asks Teresa if she's sure she killed her husband. She is…no, wait, she's not. "I didn't have a gun. I had scissors. I don't know where I got the gun from." Martha says it was in the chest of drawers where Alberto kept it. "But how do you know that?" Teresa says Martha was there. "What were you doing in your parents' bedroom?" Martha said she helped Alberto get her mother upstairs because she was drunk.

Alberto and Martha help Teresa up the stairs. Martha shouts down to Hernán to go to Lorena's room and get the baby ready. "Ready for what?" "Ready to go home, what do you mean for what?" He complains that it's really cold, but she tells him to just do what she says.

Capellan asks if Martha and Alberto talked about anything specific. "Yes, I complained about him leaving. He'd be leaving my mother alone." "No, you were demanding he not abandon you." Martha calls her crazy. "No, I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. If you want, I can tell you everything that happened."

Teresa is sacked out on the bed. Marta is telling Alberto "Everything I've done for you? And now you're going to abandon me?" Alberto says what they've been doing is wrong and someone has to pay for it. Martha asks if their love and their son are wrong. She starts desperately kissing him and saying she loves him and begging him not to leave. Teresa wakes up and says she knew it. Martha shoves Alberto away and tells Teresa, "You don't know what your husband did to me!" Teresa says she knows he got her pregnant. "And do you know how? He raped me! He threw himself on me and attacked me!" Alberto gets pissed off and demands she tell her mother the truth. "Tell her you've been after me since you were a girl! Do you want to know the truth? You've demanded the truth from me many times, so no, I didn't rape your daughter, she's been my lover for a long time." Martha says the baby was Alberto's and they had the baby because Alberto said he didn't like Teresa anymore, because she's old and crazy and sick and made him sick. Alberto says they're both nuts and yeah, he's a piece of crap, but the two of them have been good company. Alberto starts to go and Martha demands that Teresa do something. She grabs the scissors and we get a repeat of the scene from the beginning. This time, we see what happens after. Martha gets the gun out of the drawer, puts in in her mother's hands and screams at her to kill him. The first three shots miss.

Aranda laughs at Gerardo and says she thought he was flirting. "I was trying to convince myself that things weren't as they seemed, and I didn't want to think Capellan was right." He says it's being confirmed right now in interrogation. "I made a mistake with you, Lieutenant. Because the question wasn't why a man like Alarcon would put up with a crazy woman like that." "For love. I wasn't wrong." "The question was 'for what'…to stay close to the woman he loved, and his son."

Capellan asks, "Then what did you do?" Martha says she didn't do anything. "My mother had a gun in her hands. What did you want me to do?" Capellan points out that Teresa was in no condition to fire the gun and she didn't even know what it was. "You're the one who opened the drawer and put the gun in her hands." "That's not true." "What did you do when you realized your mother had botched her shots? You wanted to keep the father of your child from leaving you." "I don't know what you're talking about." "I have a paternity test. Your husband authorized it." "Hernán?" "You fired the gun. There were five shots: the last two, the precise ones, you made. You have gunshot residue on your hands. Do you want to tell us what happened?" "I killed him because I loved him. I'd loved him since I was a girl. He was the father of my child. I sacrificed myself for him and to be by his side and to protect him from this crazy woman. And what did he do? How did he repay me? He wanted to go to Columbia and abandon me. He broke my heart. Well, I destroyed his heart, too."

Martha takes the gun away and shoots Alberto twice in the heart. The bloody butterfly flies away. Martha turns to the camera.

"Martha fue condenada a 25 anos de prisión, acusada por homicidio en primer grado, con todas las agravantes. Su madre permanece internada en un institución psiquiátrica. Hernán Carrasco se divorcio de Marta y obtuvo la patria potestad del pequeño Alberto. Solicito también la tutoría de Lorena. Ambos menores llevan sus apellidos y los educa como a sus propios hijos."

Martha was sentenced to 25 years in prison, convicted of first-degree homicide, with all the aggravating factors. Her mother remains interned in a psychiatric institution. Hernán Carrasco divorced Martha and won custody of little Alberto. He also requested guardianship of Lorena. Both minors carry his name and are raised as his own children.

Next week: Premios Juventud. Mujeres Asesinas will be back on the 24th.

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