Caray, Caray!

Nasty and Old

We get to see Lucio punch out Gabino’s lights. And we hear the old man tell him that sooner or later someone younger will come along and take HIS place at the procesadora, someone with more rights to that place than he has (Sons of Rosendo, wherever you are! Game on!)

We get to see rotten Carwatermelon go splat in the empty pool.

Nasty and New

Elisa wails Lolita’s name. Lolita comes to the rescue, climbing into the pool with surprising agility. Then somehow she manages to get help.

We are spared the details of the scooping up and removal of the ugli fruit.

Suddenly it and we are transported to the Health Center. Lolita and Blanca are huddled with Elisa, trying to comfort her. (“ I know she’ll blame me and my father will believe her!”) Disgusto joins them.

Now Dr. Tovar comes out looking, if not happy, at least relieved. Augusto is the father of a healthy son. While Carmina is in serious condition, she’ll recover. The problem is, because of complications in the emergency surgery, she will never be able to have another child.

Elisa wants to see her little brother but Disgusto dismisses her coldly, sending her home with Lolita.

Nightfall

In the Health Center, Augusto smiles fondly at the new baby.

Back at Casa Castañon, no one is smiling. Lolita tries to console Elisa.

Disgusto finally gets around to visiting his juiced orange. The fact that she’s unconscious doesn’t stop her from running her mouth:

It’s Elisa’s fault... Estefanía was terrible ... It’s my son – don’t take him from me, Rosendo ... Don’t do anything to him, Rosendo ... he’s yours, Rosendo ... he’s your son.

Say what? Disgusto leans over the raving ramera and shakes her angrily. What is she talking about? Why is she saying Rosie’s name? (How stupid ARE you, Augie?)

The nurse pulls him off her and ousts him from the room: Can’t he see that she’s sick? (Um. No, not quite yet.)

Braulio pays a surprise visit to Lolita at Casa Castañon. Will she marry him? They’ve been novios for a year. And he’s thinking of leaving the procesadora (“No aguanto a Gabino Mendoza” I can’t abide GM). They can go to a new town where he can find work and they can start a life together.

Lolita adores him but his proposal has taken her by surprise. She’s not so sure about the leaving part ...

Hubris? I’ll give you hubris! (or think twice about naming your kid after an emperor)

Padre Lupe warns Augusto he has become estranged from God. This crisis is a chance to get closer to Him. Augusto retorts that it is God who has moved away from him. (Lightning bolt, anyone?)

Doc Tovar has heard about Augie’s angry bedside outburst and now tells him that when people are delirious they say crazy sh*t. He has cared for Carmina all the way through her pregnancy – from that day she fainted in the street and ...

... Fainting in the street? News to Augie. But what really worries him is the PREMATURE birth of his son. They only got married eight months ago.

Doc is taken aback. (Why? He lives with the biggest gossip in town. Can he really be the only person in La Ermita who doesn’t remember two funerals and a wedding eight months ago?)

The nurse rescues him by letting Disgusto know that Carmina is awake and asking to see him.

Carmina is more gray than orange today. Still her crazy eyes gleam madly as she prattles on – they’ll name their son Augusto, after his father ... Now all they need is a daughter ... Elisa? She’s not HER daughter ... She wants a daughter with her blood and his ...

When she’s a bit better, they need to talk, Augie tells her.

The Wicked Black Widow is Whack

Doc’s been blabbing again. Now Begoña shares the latest with her BFF, Alfie: Carmina can’t have any more kids! The Black Widow’s reaction:

Me alegra. Seguramente es un castigo divino para que el apellido Bouvier no se prolifere más. (I’m glad. It’s surely a divine punishment to keep the Bouvier name from spreading any further).

Whoa. Even Begoña looks a little freaked. There we have it – Alfie’s theme for the night – It’s a punishment from God. Instead of repeating it, we’ll just say The Widow is Whack (thus blithely stealing the idea, if not the actual words, from Sylvia. Meh. So sue me.)

Enjoy it while you can, Carmina

Disgusto isn’t buying Carmina’s “Es igualito a ti” (He looks just like you!). Why didn’t she tell him about her fainting spell?

Blanca and Elisa’s entrance spares the sour citrus the effort of lying. Elisa wants to meet her little brother but tía Naranja warns her to stay away – she might hurt him! Meanwhile, Disgusto slinks out.

The Boss Lady wants to know

Gabino reports to Alfie that Disgusto’s invernadero isn’t doing well. His whole life is kind of going downhill since he was widowed while Alfie’s fortunes are soaring. The Widow is Whack. Okay, it’s divine justice this time. What isn’t just, slimes Gabino, is for a woman as beautiful as Alfie to be alone. She’s still in mourning, she sniffs.

He’s not breathing!

Back at the Health Center, Blanca helps Carmina get out of bed and step out of the room for a moment. This gives Elisa a few seconds to take a close look at her little brother. She speaks to him so sweetly – “I’m your sister and I’m going to help take care of you and we’ll play together ...”

The nurse comes in to bathe the baby. Elisa tells her the child is asleep. But when the nurse leans down to pick up the infant, she gasps: “He isn’t breathing....”

And Carmina and Blanca return just in time to hear the nurse say: “¡El niño está muerto!” (The child is dead!)

[Um. Excuse me. The baby stops breathing for several seconds and no one tries to resuscitate him? Are you kidding me?]

Carmina goes ape and aims for her favorite scapegoat, Elisa. Blanca is able to keep Carmina from hurting the little girl physically but she can’t stem the tide of venom that pours from her mouth : “What did you do to the baby, Elisa? You’re a murderer!”

Blanca takes the girl outside the room and tries to comfort her while Carmina holds the dead baby in her arms and sobs.

Elisa murmurs tearfully to Blanca: “Yo no hice nada, te lo juro, madrina, yo no hice nada.” (I didn’t do anything, I swear, godmother, I didn’t do. anything).

Now Augie comes back and Blanca tells him what has happened. The doctor calls it crib death (muerte de cuna). His place is with Carmina, she reminds him. Now is when she really needs him.

He finds her in bed, a terrifying zombie stare replacing the manic elation of a few moments ago. And she repeats ad nauseum: Elisa killed my son! When Augusto tells her that’s crazy talk, she doubles her bets: She didn’t trip and fall – Elisa pushed her so she’d lose her baby. “Es un demonio, es una maldita, es un peligro!”

Not everyone is in the Health Center.

Braulio and Lolita are courting. So sweet. And so doomed. They love each other. It’s also no secret that Antonia, Alfie’s maid, has a thing for Braulio. She’ll be there to catch him if (when?) Lolita decides she can’t leave Elisa unprotected.

Disgusto has swallowed Carmina’s lies whole and now vomits them back at Elisa. But Blanca comes to Elisa’s defense: How can he believe those atrocities?

Elisa tells her father she was just trying to escape Orangina’s beating. Disgusto refuses to talk to his daughter.

“Papito...” she begins pleadingly.

“Vete a la casa” he barks.

Outside, Gabino hits on Antonia. She flicks him off like a cootie. Which he is.

In the Health Center, Doctor Blabbermouth advises Augie to hold off on telling Carmina she can’t have another baby. He needs to wait for the right moment. (Like maybe when she's in four-point restraints?) He admits that crib death is something they don’t really understand.

At the cemetery, Elisa places a white rose on her mother’s austere (or should we say "neglected") grave.

Doc Blabbermouth goes home and blabbers to Begoña that Carmina’s baby is dead. Begoña is so OMG impactada that she stops painting her toenails and picks up the Alfie Hotline to spread the word.

The gravedigger prepares the earth to receive another body. Elisa stands apart and watches. Augusto places a cross at the gravesite.

Tal para Cual

Alfie slips quietly into Carmina’s room. “I heard what happened to your son” she says icily. The Widow is Whack.

“Well guess what, Miss Churchypants, I don’t believe in that crap so your words don’t hurt me” retorts the blighted grapefruit.

“Then let me put it in terms you can understand” says the widow Arango: La naturaleza se está encargando de que les Bouvier desaparezcan para siempre. (Nature is seeing to it that the Bouviers disappear forever).

When her father leaves the gravesite, Elisa walks over and places a flower on the newly piled earth. Then she traces in the dirt with her finger: H E R M A N I T O.

Carmina boasts that the Bouviers will keep on keeping on:

“El que haya perdido a un hijo no quiere decir que no puedo tener más.” (Just because I lost a child doesn’t mean I can’t have more.)

“Oh, didn’t they tell you?” asks Alfie with the casual cruelty that only a born sadist can affect. “You can’t get pregnant again.”

"Estás vacía, seca; nunca vas a saber lo que es ser madre." (You are empty, barren; you’ll never know what it is to be a mother.)

Mission accomplished. Alfie leaves.

Carmina crumples. She may feel she has hit bottom. But she hasn’t.

Gabino is trying to help her along though. He rides up to Augusto and after a cursory offer of condolences he says coolly: “The baby you buried wasn’t your son.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Just ask your wife ... the father was someone very close to you – but you’ll never be able to accuse him of anything. And one more thing – if you say we talked, I’ll deny it.”

Night falls in La Ermita

Antonia douses herself with perfume and ambushes Braulio on his way home, inviting him for coffee. He turns her down politely – it would get him in trouble now that Lolita has agreed to marry him!

Antonia is left alone. Her eyes brim with tears

Augusto returns to the Health Center and finds Carmina’s bed empty. No one knows where she is. She certainly hasn’t been discharged.

Elisa comes home to Lolita – at this point, Lolita IS Elisa’s home -- and brings her up to date on the latest tragedy (the baby is dead), atrocity (Tía Meana says she murdered the baby and pushed her into the pool) and petty cruelty (the baby’s grave is far removed from her mother’s. Why? Her mother could have taken care of him.)

Crazy, stricken Carmina staggers down the street, holding onto buildings to keep her balance.

Disgusto rides on horseback searching those same streets for crazy Car.

Paloma walks along with her basket of pan dulce. Gabino bumps into her, stares at her creepily, and tells her she looks just like her mother, Remedios. Only Remedios wasn’t as cute. Paloma is surprised that he knew her mother. Did he know her father? No, says Gabino. He left town. “You mean he’s not dead?” “He might be around” smirks Gabino. “You never know. He might be watching you.”

Then Gabino spots Antonia sitting alone and heads over to her.

BFFs Alfie and Begoña stroll and Alfie brags about drawing blood from an orange. She won’t tolerate any deviance from her idea of morality. Begoña’s kind of worried that Doc Blabbermouth will find out she was Alfie’s source. If that happens, says the pillar of virtue, just deny it. Asunto arreglado.

Now Begoña catches sight of Alfie’s servant, Antonia, sitting in public. At night. With a man. What a scandal! Alfie denies it. Hah! The woman may look like Antonia, but she’s clearly someone else. Asunto arreglado.

Gabino is working pretty hard to capture non-Antonia’s interest. Why is she stuck on Braulio? She should aim higher. He, Gabino, is the boss at the procesadora. And yes, he IS the marrying kind!

Disgusto gives up the search and comes home only to find Carmina in bed. She left the hospital to forget what happened, she says.

Does she mean forget what happened with the baby? Or what happened before when she got involved with him so he’d marry her? Because Gabino Mendoza told him the baby wasn’t his.

Avances: Augusto tells Carmina he knows Rosendo fathered the baby. Carmina points a rifle at Gabino

Labels: abismo

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