Caray, Caray!

We learn more about Chanclas. He slipped up and let Ximena know: he knew Magos was pregnant before he left town. But, unforgivably, when Magos comes back in the room and Ximena tries to talk about it, he denies and implies Ximena is lying.

Later Roberto surprises Chanclas looking around in his office. Chanclas picked the wrong place to get caught because when it comes to lying bums, "it takes one to know one." Beto, immediately suspicious, later tells Gumaro about the incident and they agree: Gumaro will get his shady associates - "uh, ex-associates" - to look into the guy.

Chanclas meets his skeezy friend, Axilas, who asks if they're going to be able to reap a fine harvest in Ikonika as they'd anticipated. Chanclas says there isn't much money, mostly checks, but the real gold mine in Ikonika is - Alicia!

Later Roberto visits Elsa's cafe and, while helping out, feels them out about Chanclas. He sees none of them, especially Ximena, like Chanclas. Ximena says: "He's a liar and I don't trust him at all." She's horrified at the notion he would take her and Magos out of the house if he gets on his feet financially. She says, "he and Magos can go but I want to stay."

At the engagement party Beto was trying to "retire his proposal," but the arrival of Don Augusto's half-brother ups the pressure and he ends up proposing after all. Luciana sticks up her finger expectantly for a ring but he'd forgotten about that.

When the reporters ask Alex and Alicia about the date for their wedding Luciana butts in and says she and Roberto will be marrying first. She also says her wedding will be the spectacular one, the Gutierrez wedding will probably be "canned soup and chickens all over the place" because they are not "people of our level." Alicia gets her own back a bit by planting in the reporter's mind that perhaps Luciana is in a hurry because there's a bun in the oven.

Here's the family photo:


Nothing much happens in that scene with Elias, who caught Sandra looking at a picture of the two of them when they were married. She pointedly says she'll be leaving soon with Don Augusto - "Where, to Transylvania?" asks Elias - and she tears up the picture. We hear Elias had a fiancee but she dumped him.

Rafael (the half-brother) tells his wife he's selling the mansion and they'll be moving to a modest home in the suburbs of Mexico City. She is aghast. Turns out everything valuable they owned has mostly been sold already. They cannot afford the penthouse she prefers. Also, as Chekhov's gun we have Rafael's heart pills - he rattles them in the fancy pillbox he inherited "along with EVERYTHING ELSE" yells Augusto - and we hear he can't survive without them.

Alicia asks Sandra for an assistant and is denied. However, I think this new post that's been invented for Luciana - it has a name so official and long she can't even remember it for a minute - may turn out to be "Alicia's assistant." I could be wrong.

Gumaro, holding four plungers at once, tells Roberto: "Your troubles will end the day you are not afraid to tell the truth." There we have the crux of this novela.

At the API meeting there is a bit of a dustup between one of the old codgers and Alex who, dressed inappropriately in a blue zip up sweater when everybody else is wearing a suit, says publicity needs a more modern face. They frown and warn he must stand for "family values and tradition, not the avant-garde."

Alex says being modern doesn't have to mean you are licentious. If you want the excellent Spanish words for all this they were "primordial libertinos vanguardistos e irrespetuosos." Roberto steps in and says "new package same product" is the way to go, or, in the colloquial phrase, "la misma gata pero revolcada" (the same cat turned upside down?) which makes everybody laugh and reduces the tension.

Sandra bursts into a meeting room and starts reaming Alicia out for changing the Grimaldi slogan, running right over Alicia's mild attempts to speak. She barks, "why did you change the slogan?" "Because I didn't like it." More yelling from Sandra, then the client steps up: "I didn't like it either but I love Alicia's new one." Sandra beams falsely and says she agrees. Hah! The guy who thought up the rejected slogan appears at the door (he'd tattled to Sandra) and says, "On second thought, I quit." "Adios!" says Sandra.

Augusto congratulates Beto for managing the dustup at the API meeting and says: "if it weren't for my son you would have been an excellent candidate."

There was some important music playing when Alicia, late at night, discovers in the old files: ten years ago there were a bunch of campaigns that never got launched, for brands she doesn't remember (she's been there a long time).

Alex and Alicia decide to move the meeting of the next day to an undisclosed location, tell only the real press (not the gossip rags) and not tell his dad etc. They want to "raise awareness."

Alicia says she'll help, gets a new office somehow and gives it to Chuchette - in exchange for Chuchette doing the arranging for this last-minute switcheroo and keeping her mouth shut. However, Luciana (with the bribe of being maid-of-honor at the wedding and bffs - which is a joke because Luciana doesn't have any other friends) gets her to tell.

Magos tells Alicia: when you're married you'll be able to sit on your hands all day like a princess. Ugh, Magos! You are a long long way from rehabilitated!

Braulio is in his new boss Nestor's office when the "wife" comes in and asks for grocery and school-fee money from Nestor. They kiss etc. and Braulio, perhaps sensing something off in the performance, takes some pictures as he leaves.

It appears that Mateo's orphanage is the new location of the meeting. Luciana and her mom are arriving. "I can hug an orphan as well as anybody else," she says, "I can be Saint Lucy."

One of Mateo's cronies has smuggled him a picture of Roberto and Luciana torn out of a magazine. He looks forward to meeting her. But before that can happen, as the people are starting to arrive (first to come being the gossip mag reporters Alex and Alicia had hoped to avoid) Mateo suddenly has a meet cute with Alicia.

Previous: Episode 48
Next: Episode 50

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