Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Amar a Muerte, 11/27/2018, Episode 19: Invasion of the Black Moths OR Too Much Wabbit Gives Indigestion
At Camilo’s house, Valentina continues questioning Camilo about his book and transmigration. She asks if her father’s soul might also be lost and questions if the stories in the book are true. All she wants to know if she is going to find her father again.
Labels: Muerte
There are a couple of ways that telenovelas are much more realistic than Hollywood movies:
1) Sex (even fornication) leads to pregnancy in telenovelas. But then typically the knocked-up lady is so happy to be pregnant unmarried -- not sure that part is realistic. What do you think? Are Hispanic women in Mexico etc. thrilled to get pregnant unmarried?
(Of course for both Hollywood & Telenovelas, STDs are rare. I never saw someone show a Herpes itch. In Telenovelas at least a couple of times there has been AIDS (SIDAS). In Señora Isabela, an old-now Colombian telenovela, the cougar got AIDS. But the remakes (Mirada de Mujer & Victoria 2007) deleted the AIDS from the guillon.
2) Conscience & Guilt. I have only seen 1 Hollywood movie where someone felt serious guilt & had an accusing conscience over sin = an old movie with Edward G. Robinson (who played Dathan in the 10 Suggestions w/ Charlton Heston as Moses - no guilt there tho). As I recall in that (30's?) movie Edward G Robinson was an artist who ghost-painted for a beautiful a young lady who was not a good painter. She got the credit. He was enamored for her, but she scorned him & eventually he killed her. They did kind of El Cheapo special effects to show his conscience attacking him, like flashing lights. But usually villains in Hollywood movies have no conscience, no matter how many people they murder.
But in telenovelas, people may have consciences & feel guilt. In our Tuesday episode they really rang the bell on guilty conscience. We have Chino-in-Beltran tossing & turning in bed under attack of guilt. Then we have Guillermo with his guilt over the liquor store shooting (which doesn't move him to treat his gal Friday nice). I think this is the most severe guilt displayed w/ nagging conscience I have seen in any drama. (Amarte Asi came close.) In this regard the telenovela has realism; because guilt & nagging conscience are realities of life.
The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire & dirt. There is no peace . . . to the wicked.
Relative to our Cliff Hanger:
Another way that Telenovelas in general seem different from Hollywood movies is the role of the male protagonist. Seems to me that in general the male protagonist is not a John Wayne or a Clint Eastwood, not the omnipotent hero who inevitably beats up bad guys & out-draws them. So I donno what Leon-in-Chino will do. Could Chino re-enter his cuerpo long enough to waste the enemies? Then Lucia will wilt over his bravery? But what would they do with the cuerpos? Which reminds that Chino-in-Beltran didn't take care of the body of the Brujo/shaman. But pardon me for not yet being convinced that he died (in a telenovela it is hard to be sure that someone actually died - they have a way of coming back - I hope not another transmigration of spirit tho; how many can one plot stand?).
But it seems to me that good guy male protags get beat up by bad guys in telenovelas. This was startling to me when I started telenovelas with Los Plateados where the hero (Mauricio Islas) could not beat the Villain Emilio in a fist fight nor outdraw him. They are not America cowboy heroes.
So I have no idea where this plot is now going. Thus far it seems rather diffuse, several plot lines, not moving in a straight line advancing a romance with simple set-backs & advances.
I note how the moth girl Karla seems true to stereotype: the dog returns to its addiction vomit, gambling, even in her new body. The gambler is of course unscrupulous; in poker a firm rule is that you can bail out of the game at any time; nobody has a right to put on a song & dance about how you have to let them have a chance to recoup loses.
And is there a tragic back story to the dress Juli will be wearing to lunch with Valentina?
Must say the endings on these episodes just leave you wanting the next episode to show up IMMEDIATELY. Guess we could see these cliffhangers as a method to teach us Delayed Gratification.
And speaking of delayed, I won't get to see this until lunchtime, but looking forward to it, thanks to your fine recap Kirby.
And Karla is still gambling? Must be why they call it an addiction. Kinda like the way I am about...air and food I suppose.
Oh Yippee Kai Yay, Vale is going to send her chofer for Juli? Let me think, now which one do we want her to send? Of course she doesn’t, so now we will have Juls on premise one door or hallway away from Papa for how many episodes? Put my guns in the safe deposit box so I don’t shoot ME !
Oh, and BTW, I hopeo that dress looks better on Juls than it did on the rack, as I am not surprised the original owner’s man trap failed !
I must be killing Camillo knowing what he does and then having Val come over, still so desperately missing her Dad, and not being able to say a word.
BTW, one little sissy punch does not redeem Guill, but it is a step in the right direction. And BTW, I really like Miss Renata. She is smart, spunky and pretty. I hopeo she is smart enough to jettison Guill after her excellent adventure. She is just adorable. She does pissed chick very believably.
I did wonder why her roomie, hot chick, couldn’t let her in when she was at home standing around outside.
There is not much about the real Chino, in Beltran's chassis, to like is there? He is more concerned right now about his not so miserable plight than what is happening to Little Sam who he kidnapped, nor his dead Grandpa. Maybe I started disliking him when he killed his best buddy. No, wait, it had to be the Judge, or no, killing the Boss's pretty girlfriend had to do it for me . Anyway, whatever, I just do not like him, and am glad his former body has been given to a more deserving soul. And Boo Hoo, bad dreams? Que Bonita !
Kirby, I have to agree with you about that dress. Uff. Thanks for your feisty comments that give me a smile.
Judyb, thanks for the info. My head is spinning...so many things to settle and decisions to make. Well, I havea long list of errands to accomp!ish on this chilly, gray day before getting my grandkids off the bus..
Keeping all the people straight: Spanish names are difficult for a Gringo like me anyway. On the promo for NBL last night one of the finalists is Meglis. QUE? What the hell was someone thinking, unless that is just a stage name. It just doesn't stay with you like, say Sue, or Karen.
Enoch, you pose much food for thought. This episode did seem to focus on the guilt-ridden. And I do hope that somehow Valerio lives...maybe Lady Death just shocked him enough to put him in a state of coma or something similar. I would just hate for little Sami to have to "feel" his grandpa's death which BTW he hasn't!
JudyB, ITA I'm always anxious for the next episode to come on. I start counting down at least a couple of hours before the show starts. I too was wondering if this dress will bring Valentina and Jul closer together.
Kirby and Susanlynn, I don't know what Juli saw in that dress, but since seh is gong to make some adjustments, I'm hopeoing that she just saw some potential to transform the original into a stylish shocker.
I was cautious in thinking that it would actually be Leonchi who would go pick up Juli...too soon for that encounter.
I'm really surprised that Barbara would want to get rid of Sami since he could be her meal ticket to greater possibilities. But in a way, I'm glad she hasn't thought things through; I would hate to see her exploiting to child.
Kirby, I too enjoyed seeing Renata's reaction to Guille leaving her stranded. Good acting! I just can't see how she could think that after stranding her the way he did, he would have the decency to apologize or return her keys himself...he's too self-centered and thoughtless.
U can never be sure some1 is dead in a telenovela. Valerio looks pretty stiff tho; I can't remember a more convincing stiff in a TN. But cud Valerio's spirit migrate somewhere? Who is a candidate? What if he enters Lucia?
Why don't the characters carry fly swatters?
As to Valentina, isn't the writer missing opportunities to make Lucia jealous?
I wait for Karla to kiss a guy w/ a moth mancha; shud be some explosion, etc.
Toño logically shud want to whack Willy, who is cruisin.
I've been trying to figure out how Lady Death made her selection as to who would get whose body/soul. Maybe she chose EL Chino's body for Leon's soul so that it would be easier for Leon to attract Lucia's attention. And maybe she selected Beltran's tall, lanky, skinny body for El Chino since he was so obsessed with his own body..and she is teaching him a lesson about vanity?? This is just a far-fetched theory, but as Leonchi pointed out, there has to be a reason for the trnsmigrtion andthe subjects selected.
"the dress the lady vendor wore when she met the love of her life, but married someone else."
The diffuse plot continues to go in all directions as w/ the Conchita stuff & Karla's gambling. More moth people coming?
Does anyone besides me find Lupita annoying? She doesn't know how to smile. She was weaned on a pickle.
Does La Muerte have plans for the Shaman corpse?
Beltran sure made up a yarn for Alicia.
Shud Leon-in-Chino kissing up to Lucia, instead of giving her the cold treatment?
"the popo"? New vocab for me.
"Camilo suggests that Leonchi should talk to his family and tell them all the truth."
Telenovelas typically sustain the plot by a refusal to spill the beans.
At Eva’s house Mateo questions Eva; he wants the truth and asks her who gave her the info on the Cartel de los Armenta.
To me Alacrán's failures to fulfill the patron's orders is black comedy. How many rabbits will the patron eat? We see a pending rebellion as A resents the rabbit-eating.
Tonight is a "must watch" episode!!!
Elsa aka Madame E!
Yes, Kirby, Renata is a sympathetic char, if also a tad pathetic. & her roomy indeed upstages her on beauty. Will Pathetic Willy see her & be flechado?
As to Barb, she is (as 1 said) an unsympathetic. Also pathetic, tho a little bit comic character.
Are we to suppose that La Muerte directs the migration of spirits to new bodies?
So we wait to find out of Leon-in-Chino will be the hero or if he & Lucia will end up in a basement tortured. For me, programmed to think in American Cowboy movies (which this ain't), LeinChino has to heroically save Lucia, like driving over some gangsters as he zooms away. Cowboy plot:
1) Roll down dat window!
2) OK, Please don't shoot. (down it goes)
3) Gangster sticks gun thru window, get owda da car!
4) LeinChino pushes up button on window, window goes up, traps hand & gun falls inside car.
5) LeinChino grabs gun as he drives away with the hand.
6) As he drives, running over gangsters, he throws hand out window:
Here, feed your rabbit with this!
7) LeinChino shoots the remaining thugs & drives off
8) Lucia is completely flechada.
9) Patron eats another rabbit.
10) SPCA takes Univision to court for having cruelty to animals on screen.
11) Jorge Ramos defends Univision in news cast.
12) Melania tweets condemnation of Jorge Ramos.
That wud advance the romance which seems obligatory. It being Mexico, U wud think that the car needs bullet proof windows.
Strange that a journalist like Mateo wud claim that he is never told what to write. I understand that bosses are very dictatorial & require PC language (like insisting on "anti-abortion rights" instead of "pro-life).
I donno how common it is in real life playing poker w/ some1 insisting on a chance to win back losses when some1 exercises his right to leave the game at any time. U reckon Karla will be hitting up Leon-in-Chino for a loan?
You think if Lucia sees Jacobo via a mirror Leon will appear in the image?
Maybe the black comedy of Alacrán failing to fulfill the Patron's orders will continue w/ Jacobo somehow driving away w/ Lucia & escaping.
Can U recall seeing a telenovela w/ such a diffuse & unpredictable plot?
LM: You gotta pay for your murders, Chinucho.
C: Howzzat?
LM: It is bad to be killing people, Chinucho.
C: Whatcha mean? You kill people all the time every day.
LM: But that's my job.
C: It was my job too, but I only whacked a few; hypocrite!
You know, I was thinking, Mat needs to figure it out and just divorce her and be done with it. They have no kids and no plans for any.
But then, thinking outside the box, I thought, "Nah, save yourself some money and lots of grief, just wait and Alacran will kill her. Beats a messy divorce from that shrew by a long shot." :-)
Yes, that last scene where they find LeonChi and surround him at gunpoint shows him and Lucia to be in a real pickle. Did we ever see how they discovered him and decided it was really him? Lucia looked like she had seen Ghost.
"C: It was my job too, but I only whacked a few; hypocrite!"
LM: It's unavoidable, it is just a matter of timing, and yours sucks.
Moths fly by
Rgv Chick--I can tell the two of you apart. Kirby's recaps are always in BOLD. So, thank you for a romp through the land of magical realism, as interpreted by Televisa.
It suddenly came to me where I've seen Michel Brown's blue eyes before--and sadly it's been too long--on Paul Newman. Maybe there's something to transmigration after all. Now whose body could we put Joanne Woodward into?
Better for Luci to be with Leonchi regardless of the outcome than Alirio. She wouldn't get the same vibes hanging on to him for dear life.
I think Leonchi is the only one who has seen himself in the mirror as Leon without changing into Leon's face. Silvina, OTOH, saw Leon for an instant when he turned around after leaning over the kitchen sink. We don't really know if it truly happened or she just imagined it. But she was spooked enough to tell hubby.
Bad advice, Camilo. If Leonchi starts telling his family the truth, Eva will send him to a manicomio, Mateo will write an article about this deranged person impersonating his FIL, Johny will have a heart attack and want to kill him all over again, Guille will just continue to be Guille and drain his bank account to assuage his guilt over Castillo. Only Val might believe him and wish he were someone else besides her father, Luci won't care as long as the sex is good, and Lupita may not want him back, but will definitely want a cut of the Carvajal money.
"U reckon Karla will be hitting up Leon-in-Chino for a loan?" I've been thinking about who it could be that accosted Leonchi and Lucia. Was it Alacran's men? I didn't recognize any of the men, but the scene went by so fast I didn't get a chance to get a good look. I t could also be goons from the other Cartel de los Armente. A real twist would be if Karla had something to do with it in an attempt to get money????
Didn't you think it strange that Leonchi told Lucia to calm down because everything was locked? Is the vehicle bullet-proof??
ITA, that was bad advice from Camilo. And your take on how the family would react is spot on.
I appreciate everyone's interest here, but the majority of us like to be on the same schedule.
Don't tempt us Buddy, I'm only so strong. :-)
"blue eyes before--and sadly it's been too long--on Paul Newman. "
Maybe you would enjoy watcing this classic Japanese movie, Roshomon (last I knew it was on YouTube in black & white) which is really unusual where we see 3 versions (at least) of the same story told by different persons with different axes to grind.
It was remade & set as a Western with Paul Newman.
"The Outrage (1964) is a remake of an early film by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon (1950), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Motion Picture." You might enjoy The Outrage.
Now as to CAPITULO 20 ON YOUTUBE:
Here is the complete rundown on it:
They did this that & the other.
But they didn't do the other thing!
They can take Lucia. Let her suffer. Also, girl needs to put on weight. That was pretty unattractive last night.
"the possibility that any of those hijacker guys would recognize Chino's body? Aren't they Alacran's henchmen?"
Great observation. I hadn't thot of that! Now that would make a strange twist to a strange-twisting story.
"girl needs to put on weight"
I wonder how many people told Karen Carpenter she was way too thin.
It could be that anorexia is an addictive disorder that you can hardly talk a woman out of. -- No more than you can talk a person who is obese out of obesity.
I don't think that Terencio (or whatever the cartel boss's name is) didn't know that the rabbit was Alacran's pet. I think he knew and did this deliberately to show Alacran that he means business. I also think he would not hesitate to do this again.
As for El Chino, he is now facing what he has done over however long he was working for this cartel but I have no sense yet of any true remorse for his actions. Regardless of whether he feels remorse or not, he has to pay for his actions.
Tonio is a psychopath and I think Guillermo is freaking out over it. I'm not sure how to feel about him yet. He comes off as a spoiled brat but Eva is worse in that she can't see her own incompetence in what she is up to.
As for journalists not being told what to write.... well, I don't have time now but a friend of mine had stories. I'll be back tomorrow with one.
Don't get me wrong, I am very fond of my dogs & I like to watch animal rescue videos on YouTube, & somebody taking care of a baby animal, etc.
But it seems to me that there is a type of person who does not care much for PEOPLE, but adores animals -- or plants! You may see a gangster movie, a mafia movie, where a ruthless thug who doesn't blink an eye on whacking people, yet gives meticulous care to his plants. Could be that Alacrán is one of this type of villain who cares nothing for people, but adores his rabbit. It is a casus belli for Alacrán to try to kill the patron eventually.
Somehow, someway, Leonchi will have to use his negotiating skills to get out of this on thing. I don't think he was an expert driver at using evasive tactics, so we just have to wait..(Countdown 2 hrs. 12 min.) You, know, even back in Sortilegio, important impresarios had armored cars. Maybe that will be what saves them.
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