Caray, Caray!

Poor poor Osvaldo. Still languishing in the worst attended hospital in the world: a place where a man whose heart had stopped -- who was clinically dead! -- whose damaged heart is hooked up to monitors that apparently no one … well, monitors -- And these crazy people keep coming up to his bedside to pick fights with him!

Os is still trying to explain to Vic why he kept Leonela’s story a secret. He wanted to protect Max. And if Victoria had a right to know his secret, well hell’s bells, he had the same right to know hers.

Meanwhile, Leonela is in the cafeteria playing the loving mother tragically separated from her son by the scheming Osvaldo. If you don’t believe me, just ask your father, she tells Max.

And in the church, papá padre Juan Pablo explains to María ya no Desamparada that as a papá, he wants her to be happy; but as her spiritual advisor, he’d prefer she seek that happiness elsewhere, with someone other than Max…

Take that nice boy Alonso. Please.
Get a Life Al sits on a park bench and mopes and moons about the old days when he could still exploit M ya no D’s vulnerability. Good times!

Milagros is astonished when M ya no D fills her in – the father is her father but he wasn’t yet a father when he fathered her, so it’s all cool. María declares the life lesson she has learned: she is going to be faithful to her love and fight for her right to happiness with Max.

Victoria must have missed that class because she continues giving Osvaldo his unorthodox cardiac stress test. She can’t forgive him, she snarls through gritted teeth, turns and leaves. (Someone check the monitor! Please!)

Enter Max to the sound of ominous drumbeats. He demands to know why Osvaldo lied to him, why he denied the existence of his mother.

Back in the vecindad, María assures little JP that now no one can keep them from forming a happy family with Max and Osguito. Uh oh. Watch out María – here comes trouble with a capital “R”. It’s Roxana and she wants to talk about Xi.

Os tries to explain why he lied to Max – it was to shield his son from a painful reality. Max can’t square what he’s hearing with what Leonela told him – that his father snatched him away from her.

Roxana sniffs dismissively at the vulgarity of her surroundings as María puts the baby in his cradle. So ordinary. Once María is back, she tries to lay a guilt trip on her – it’s María’s fault Xi is in the manicomio, that the marriage failed. Xi isn’t responsible for what she did – she’s insane! And only Max’s love can save her now. Isn’t María ashamed of being so cruel and selfish?

Well Roxana is right about one thing. Xi is truly nuts. We see her in her bed in the loony bin, raving “Mi hijo está muerto… no no no.. el tren… el tren” and flashing on images of the train and the car with Max and Osguito inside.

Osvaldo tells his son the parts of the story Leonela left out. His mother was an impulsive, unpredictable woman who tended to take out her rages on Os. When he could no longer stand the situation, he separated from her. Then out of spite, she took a lover. One day, she and her lover argued and – cue the echo machine – Ella lo mató… Ella lo mató… Ella lo mató!!! She killed him.

She was sentenced to life in prison (cadena perpetua). It was only after she had gone to prison that Os learned she was pregnant. And Max was born in jail.

Os couldn’t let his son grow up in prison in the care of an emotionally unstable mother. And he thought it would be easier for his son to believe his mother had died than to cope with the shameful truth that she was a convicted murderer. Of course Victoria’s loving presence was vital.

Ay ay ay. Vic still has those teeth gritted. Toni gets an earful: Osvaldo deceived me! Max’s mother is alive!

Leonela has made her mad way back to Gui’s Palace of Pretense and Porn. [And she is so eerily Xi-like. Aha! That’s why Gui had a thing for Xi! She was Leo-Lite!] Drink in hand, she relives her thespian past – I was Medea (still are, sweetie!)! I was Julieta! I was Ofelia! She thanks the public that only she can see and then dissolves into diabolical laughter. The laughter turns to sobs as she sinks onto Gui’s whoopee cushions.

Osvaldo begs his son to forgive him. Max gets why he protected him when he was a child, but once he was an adult, surely he had a right to know the truth. But Osvaldo was afraid of the harm it would do to invite Leonela back into their lives.

Now Max wants to give him some good news – this is what he came to tell him in the first place – the judge has awarded Max custody of Osguito!

We get a brief glimpse of baby Os snuggled on Fabián’s chest while Luci looks on fondly. [Sorry, Nati. You get stuck with the lout.]

And Rotten Rox is still trying to persuade María to step aside so Max can save Xi with his Magical Love Beams. Go see Ximena, Rox tells her. You’ll find out for yourself how obsessed she is with Max.

Images of delirious Xi – mi hijo…

Even as Rox throws herself on her knees and asks if María can be happy at the expense of someone else’s misery, María stands firm. I have to look out for my own happiness now, she tells her.

The news about Osguito’s custody gives Os a moment’s joy. You’re the first one to know, Max tells him. Then Os reflects: Maybe I was wrong to hide the truth; I was afraid I’d lose you and Victoria, your love and admiration. You chose badly, says Max. And now you may have lost both of us.

Lurking Leonela (who must be traveling around town by magic broomstick – didn’t we just see her at Gui’s?) is enjoying Os’s despair. Payback is just getting started. Soon he’ll be weeping “lagrimas de sangre” for abandoning her in that damn jail!

Rotten Rox pleads for María’s help. But María hasn’t forgotten who Ximena is -- a cruel person capable of murder. She shows Rox the door.

Wow! Those Lovely Cosmetics commercials are everywhere. Xi goes ape when she sees María’s face on the tv in the dayroom and grabs another patient’s doll and starts a fight. Attendants rush in to restrain her.

Casa Bernarda is not a happy place at the moment. The Demented One rails against the ineptitude of her contract killers, Padilla and Scorpion Guy. The latter thinks Max must have a pact with the devil – nothing seems to touch him. He gets a Demente swat for his trouble – how dare he mention the evil one in her presence! (Professional jealousy?) And she slams Padilla even harder with her words: He was going to get even with the Sandovals, but Victoria is winning; he’s the one with the dead son!

Eva announces that Luciano Ferreti wants to show her his new designs. The Demented One welcomes him with a smile. (I’m disappointed. I was hoping for Pipino’s evil twin. This is all your fault, Sara!)

Victoria is back home and stops in to see Fer. Vic knows that her daughter felt excluded in the past when the family hid things from her. So now she is going to be upfront with her: Osvaldo’s first wife is alive. That means he and Victoria aren’t really married. And this woman -- Max’s mother – is a murderer who until recently, had been in jail.

[Timeout: Is this a continuity problem? An Os problem? Because Os told Padre JP that he was divorced from Leonela. So is he? Do the writers know? Is it just that Victoria didn’t give Os a chance to tell her about the divorce? Inquiring recappers want to know.]

Let’s take a moment in the mercado where Napo is trying to teach Nati a few dance moves for her date with JJ. The Jarochas move in until Millie loses her patience and shoos them away.

Another cardiac stress test for Os: Leo’s back. She slithers up to his bed and admits she’s there to make his life miserable, to upset (perturbar) Max’s life. It’s what Os deserves for his selfish behavior. Os says he did try to help her but that Leo brought her misfortunes on herself.

Max updates Fabián on the Leonela situation. He still doesn’t know what to make of it all. But his one consolation is that finally, María ya no Desamparada has decided to come back to him. And the divorce is a done deal.

In the vecindad, Nati holds JPito and advises María not to go see Xi. But María has made up her mind to confront her.

For attacking the other patient, Xi has earned herself a stay in a padded cell, straightjacket and all. She sees the train, she hears an infant’s wails – Max! No! Mi hijo!

The other Xi, that is Leo, looks like she’s bucking for a padded cell of her own. We get to hear more of her crazy diabolical laughter. (Is anyone checking Os’s heart monitor???) She is there for vengeance!

Os reminds her that he was forced to save their son from her. Well now she is ready to switch things around. She’s going to turn Max against him, she’ll take him away from him. And she’ll destroy Osvaldo.

Fabián congratulates Max on getting back with María. He wants to know what he’s going to do about Os. After all, he was only thinking of Max’s welfare.

Fabián is right. And even in his hospital bed, Os continues to defend his son from the forces of darkness. He looks hard at Leonela: Don’t dare hurt Max, he tells her. Go back into the shadows! You’re dead to us and we won’t let a dead woman harm us! We’ll see, smirks Leo and leaves. She doesn’t seem to notice when one of her earrings drops to the floor beside his bed.

Fabián urges Max to put himself in his father’s place. What is he going to say to little Osvaldo – “Your mother was crazy and she tried to kill both of us”???

The great Leonela Montenegro sashays down the street. She is replaying some memories: she remembers how she looked her lover in the eye and shot him dead; she remembers how the police found her, gun in hand, before his dead body; and she remembers demanding that Osvaldo get her out of jail. The real world intrudes on her reveries when a police car passes by, siren blaring. Leonela hugs the wall as if to hide and takes a swig from a bottle.

Just as Oscar arrives with Max’s divorce decree, Rox bursts in and pleads with Max not to abandon her daughter.

María gets to the manicomio and spots Ximena sitting quietly, knees drawn up to her chin. She is lucid enough to recognize María but not lucid enough to understand that Max and little Osvaldo are still alive. María doesn’t get distracted by Xi’s whining and blaming. She wants Xi to know she is done sacrificing her happiness for her. She and Max are getting married, they are forming a family and they are going to raise the boys.

And then canny crazy Xi looks at her slyly: ¿Aunque mi hijo no sea de Max? ¿Aunque mi hijo muerto sea de Guillermo? (Even if my son isn’t Max’s? Even if my dead son is Guillermo’s)

Kayakless credits roll.

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