Caray, Caray!

Very satisfying watching Maria "I hate Violence" calmly brush aside an outraged JAntos and smack the daylights out of Elvirus. No one expected that from their sweet Maria. And while I'm no fan of Amelia Hear of a Mother I really enjoyed watching her haul off and swat Elvirus as well. I kind of expected sa line up of women ready to join the fun.

Interesting too was the look on Ruben's face like he was aligned with a snake. It also told him for the first time that Maria had lost the baby.

Fernando does indeed seem to have given up on Ana and on trying to help JAntos. Love all the lady folk getting in Dumbs way while the cops all go together to search. Apparently splitting up never occurs to them.

I can't help but wonder how Dumb was leading the whole group. Cops are notoriously territorial and to have American cops ordering around the Mexicans would never happen — oops Novelaland.

Laughed my head off during the Michael - Whiney scene. There on the wall is a big sign that says no guns and weapons permitted. For the love of God it IS a prison. I guess people do come armed to the teeth when visiting the prison dentist. LOL

How old is OJ? In the previews he and Ruben are having the predicted fall out. Rub tells him you will pay for what you did to Maria and OJ warns him you'll go like Santos Boom. I guess he is about 5.
 

Oh, Decie, my sentiments exactly--from the Maria the "I hate Violence" slap heard round the bar to the Santos Boom. I guess he's about 5.

Decie--when are you going to start recapping for us (you'd make a terrific guest recapper).

Thanks, Jar, for the perfect title to go with a perfect recap.

Loved--He’ll be ba-a-ah-ck.
And--Vi sneers a birthday cheer to Maria.
And--The guests take turns at obstructing justice…er… slowing down the police to exclaim in fear and ask questions.

This was a Keystone Cops + Piedra Clave PoPo (and I didn't make up the piedra clave part). What was up with all the Swat Team repelling up to the 2d floor, but they still couldn't find Santos. Of course they weren't supposed to. I guess they knew that ahead of time.

Decie--I saw the sign in the prison, too. It was there the last time they were together, when Wendy was telling Mike she only quered him for her child's sake. Now she amors him? When did that happen?


 

Just thinking about those stupid cops. They mounted that whole SWAT operation without even being sure that Santos was in JNTR. They didn't even bother to check it out before bursting in guns drawn and terrifying some little kids and a bunch of old ladies. That's the kind of thing that gets police departments sued in this country. Yes, Santos was there but they didn't know and it will take me some time to forget how frightened and distraught Isa was. And why wasn't Concho in his own bsr, he's been there every night before.
 

Yes; that was the same stupid move as in the first episode. It could all have been done far more discreetly both times. Looks like stupidity is contagious.

If Pinchi and Homerito can ID the two thugs they can be connected to Giuliano who can be connected to Ruben. But who else would think of that except Santos?
 

I don't normally watch this novela but I left the TV on after La Tempestad. I enjoyed the silliness of the cops raiding the bar, Jantos fleeing, and the older ladies obstructing justice and not letting Derecho do his job. Oh and I can't forget the beatdown that Maria gave Elvira. The doubleslap and the punch were awesome!
 

I kept wondering if I'd slept through somebody telling Derecho or Com. Luny Tunes de Mexico that Santos could be found there at the bar. Guess not?

 

Jardinera- Many thanks for the wonderful recap.

I recorded this episode because of the slap down shown in the previews. I was very satisfied with the slaps and the punch Maria gave Elvira. I only wish there had been more of a tongue lashing from everyone to go along with it before the Keystone/Benny Hill Cops interrupted with their nonsense.

Does this mean that Maria won't get on Santos' case about "violence" anymore?
 

Jardinera

Their have been several conversations about JNTR with both sets of cops. Also all of them had been in the bar when JAntos first began singing there although the LA set arrived too late to see his face. The Mexicans have seen him and placed him in JNTR. They called the dumb set in LA and told them where he could be found hence the dual country guns metaphorically blazing raid to catch a white collar criminal. They had enough firepower to take out the head of the Zetas. Ridiculous but what the heck it is entertaining.

Considering how Curtis' wedding to Derecho depends on them catching Santos I'm surprised she wasn't running all over the place and thinking of the dressing rooms in an effort to be sure he got caught.
 

Under the heading of All Things Considered, Santos and Maria would be safer in a Mexican jail than anywhere else with Giuliano and Ruben running around loose.
 

Amelia was very pro JAntos during this episode but I can't help thinking that after the police raid she'll be right back on her you've got to leave this man horse. It's too dangerous, how can you live your life as a fugitive's wife yadda, yadda, yadda.
 

Amelia was very pro JAntos during this episode but I can't help thinking that after the police raid she'll be right back on her you've got to leave this man horse. It's too dangerous, how can you live your life as a fugitive's wife yadda, yadda, yadda.
 

Why was Coloso not at the party? I don't remember seeing him there.
 

Pablo was suspended for a period of ten episodes so when Jorge Alfredo became the financial administrator of JNTR Oscar resigned rather than report to him. He went back to Apodaca.

Which doesn't make sense because we have never heard him speak of having any family or friends left there. Since he was a headliner at JNTR he could have gotten a job at any mariachi bar in D.F.
 

Thanks Urban. I guess they just had to make up an excuse in the story for him not being there.
 

BTW ladies, I had occasion this afternoon to view Sexo, Pudor, y Lagrimas and discover that on my initial viewing I had missed a very crucial second.

Which gave me the answer to a very important question...
 

Mauricio

The whole Coloso not being at the party is odd even though we fans know why. Also they have been trying to get in touch with him to tell him Gloria is dead and his son is all alone but have had no luck.
 

Thanks Jardinera!

It was really satisfying watching Maria knock Elvirus on her @ss! I wish she given her some more.

The whole SWAT team operation was really laughable considering that the Commandante is easily being bamboozled and delayed by the old ladies.

BTW do we actually know which - th Bday was this of Maria??
 

No, we don't. We know that Paloma is 15 and that Isabel is between 8 and 9 because Maria and Paloma's father is dead 10 years as of the opening episode. There is a flashback that implies that Maria was a teen when baby Isabel was found. This suggests that she might be 25 or 26 now. It looks like she has always had a relatively high level of responsibility for her sisters.
 

Undoubtedly, Col's absence at both Gloria's funeral and the parties was an oddity, but the writers covered well enough IMHO. Had forgotten PM had been in legal hot water at this point. I'm bummed they wrote Gloria out of the story. Thanks for the reminder, Urban!

ViviDC: I guess Maria will say there's a time and a season or some such, right? LOL
 

Mauricio: Welcome to the Sat. site.
 

Slightly off-topic but perhaps of interest --

Here is an article on telenovelas that some of you might enjoy:

http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-Telenovelas/140017/

It appeared last month in The Chronicle of Higher Education and was written by scholar of Latino Culture, Ilan Stavans. Prof. Stavans happens to be the son of 50-year veteran novela actor, Abraham Stavans, so he knows a thing or two about the soft white underbelly of the genre.

I was intrigued to see the same Ilan Stavans quoted in a piece in the New York Times a few days ago in a discussion of law, religious freedom, personal names and culture.

http://tinyurl.com/lpfzzgn

[You may, perhaps, have been following the saga of the Tennessee judge who changed a baby's name from "Messiah" to "Martin" and is now being challenged by the ACLU. It turns out, by the way, that there were 762 babies named "Messiah" in this country last year, putting it between "Scott" and "Jay" in popularity.

Anyway, Prof. Stavans weighs in on all the boys named "Jesús," for example, in the Latino world.

And in the same article, I learned that in the Anglo world, it was considered sacrilegious to name your baby girl "Mary" up until the 12th century.]
 

OK, Urban A--Answer to what important question? I've watched S,P y L. It is intense to say the least. I don't know if I would want to watch it again, just to try to adivinar what you are talking about. Must have *something* to do with Jorge, no?

 

Read the article. Really interesting approach and for once not knocking Telenovelas. I sometimes think some Latinos feel it necessary to slam them as some kind of reverse snobbery, like Anglos who claim they never watch commercial TV only PBS. I did think he was incorrect in taking a shot at the acting. There have been some fine performances in novelas as well as the flat type he mentions.
 

Decie Girl,
I agree that at times the acting transcends the genre. At times. :)
 

Decie Girl- I made the same comment about the acting in response to the article over on the La Tempestad post. It seems like an insult to his dad, no? And his dad is a great actor.
 

VIVI that comment did surprise me. I'm also pretty sure that not every actor uses the ear buds although some have admitted they do and any director worth their salt wouldn't want to rely on them since it does drag down the pacing. I know in some American soaps they are forbidden to use cue cards so the actors have to do what they are trained to do and that is memorize the script and act. Many novela actors do stage work so I'm guessing they pass on the ear buds and learn the words. It is impossible for a good actor to develop a character if all he does is listen for words to be pumped into his brain. It's laziness of the worst kind.
 

Anita, check your e-mail. ;)
 

Decie Girl- Carlos Moreno (CME, Amore Bravio, En Nombre del Amor) refuses to use the ear pieces, so none of the actors in his shows have them. Some actors always refuse them. Sometimes you can catch glimpses of them (they are "flesh" colored) if the camera gets the wrong side of the actor.

Although I think it's best of the actors actually learn their lines and characters (to be able to ad lib if needed), with the grueling filming schedules of these tns, I can understand if an actor needs a line reminder every now and then.
 

NovelaMaven, thanks for those articles.

Having been a drama student I can't conceive of being able to memorize a full new script every day. I've been under the impression that most of the time the actors are reading off teleprompters and the earpieces would be used for outdoor scenes when reading teleprompters would be difficult or impossible.

When the legendary Dark Shadows was in production, the actors would get the next day's script at the end of shooting and would read through it at the table before calling it a day. The following day there would be a walk-through and line rehearsal before getting dressed and made up to do the actual taping. They used teleprompters and this was occasionally obvious, but we regarded it as equivalent to the stage convention of addressing a line or a speech toward the audience to be heard.

More conventional soaps probably contained a lot of ad libbing by actors who have played the same character for most of their careers. I understand that Susan Lucci had a lot of input into her character if a new writer wrote something that didn't seem right. She could say "Erica would never do that" and it would be changed.
 

Urban- The tns from Mexico don't use teleprompters for any scenes. Either earbuds, or nothing at all. I am actually very impressed with these actors' ability to memorize so much each day.
 

Considering how many lines we can identify as cliches, maybe it isn't so far fetched after all.

I do think that novelas should be used as teaching tools for learning Spanish. Think about how much we learn from them!
 

Novela Maven: thanks for the link. It was a terrifically informative piece.
 

URBAN I was a drama major too and have always admired soap actors for their ability to handle horrendous work loads. American soaps run an hour a day like the TN's with shooting schedules of up to 16 hours a day (talk about slave labor). A typical script load for a major character could be about 20 pages of dialogue a day. Being able to memorize that much is a trained skill, like a muscle and of course actors playing the same character can ad lib if they don't go too far astray. I've read stories about actors having a horrific time playing opposite GH's Anthony Geary who is a notorious ad libber.

Back in 2007 there was a mini novela that was shown in the afternoon called Amor Sin Maquillaje. It was a tribute to 50 years of Televisa novelas and was the story of a girl who wanted to be a novela writer and whose family had worked behind the scenes on novelas. It had an all star cast with Sergio Goyri and Cesar Evora as TN actors. It showed a lot of the type of backstage action involving putting on a novela and in it both of them were constantly trying to learn new lines. It was a lot of fun and throughout it they showed clips of some of the all times greats from the days of black and whites like the original Cuna de Lobos.

 

The earbuds are used because sometimes the time between writing a scene and the taping of it is so short that the actors have only a brief time before shooting it to study the script. Sometimes, even when production seems to be going perfectly on schedule, something happens that ruins the pace of the tapings: actors get sick, permissions for locations are not granted, the weather does not cooperate, something goes wrong with the audio, etc. It's just very difficult to keep a good schedule going when you are expected to produce five episodes a week. Before "spoilers", novelas could be taped with months of anticipation, now they try to keep the distance between the taping and airing at a considerable minimum.

When I went to Televisa several years ago with my class at college they showed us the taping of a scene from Duelo de Pasiones. The actors were given the script minutes before shooting because they were behind schedule so they had to use the "chicharo". The scene included two newbie actors (a woman and a man) and Ludwika Paleta. The two newbies were having a difficult time with their lines and the actress was very nerveous and messed up her lines a few times. Ludwika Paleta however seemed to have no troubles at all with her lines and took it off by the third take so they could work with the timing of the other actress's responses instead of the cue given by the people at the production cabin ( although I don't know if that's normal for the more seasoned actors to do, because the actress had to grab violently Paleta's face every take so she was probably getting tired of that).

Jarocha