Me Declaro Culpable #21, 3/17/20: Denial is not just a river in Egypt

This is “fast and dirty”, Patio.  I’m tired and stressed.  On top of grandma day care, our son’s local wedding this coming weekend has been rescheduled  thx to COVID-19 and ten-person gathering suggested limit (which I wholly support!!!  #flattenthecurve).   Crazy times we live in right now.   The novios  have scrambled to find an alternate solution,  and now we have a long day trip tomorrow to meet halfway between where her parents live and where we live, for a “pop-up” wedding  with only the parentals in attendance, and la nieta.   Our week is as crazy as this telenovela.  So here it is, Patio.  Forgive me for the lack of detail.    I’ve got bigger fish to fry. 

Oh, and the local transmission of this show has been the total pits the past two days, so there are parts I could neither see, hear, and how does one recap a test pattern?   Oh, forget it.  My give-a-darn meter is busted.

ALBA/GABRIEL/INGRID STUFF

Ingrid must work out at Orange Theory or Crossfit.  She managed to get Gabriel off the floor and onto his bed muy pronto.  But hey, she hauled Luciana to the dump, so there we have it.  Pedro shows up to visit Gabe.  Crafty Ingrid tells him Gabe is asleep, has a slight fever, he’ll see him tomorrow at school.   Then the bank calls and while Ingrid is talking to them, Pedro goes on back to Gabe’s room, does not like what he sees, and says ‘bye  to Ingrid like everything is normal.   We learn later that he went straight to Alba and told her Gabe is in danger; something is wrong over there in crazy town.

Next Alba storms the fort Ingrid’s house, packs up Gabe, who finally woke up, and is going to remove him from this dangerous place.  Ingrid is not a happy camper, they’re yelling at each other, and have a Mexican standoff (pun intended) while poor Gabe can barely stay awake and stand up.  Finally Alba hauls Gabe off.

It is revealed later that Alba took Gabe to the hospital and had them do a blood test to find out what Ingrid gave him.   It was a very heavy dose of sedatives.  Once back at Alba’s, she and Gabe have kissed and made up over their recent rift over him seeing Alba kiss Franco.  Sounds like high school, right?   Alba assures her son she and Franco are not novios.  Alba has also repaired the mural she trashed and it is completed.  In like....a few hours?  Even I'm impressed.

Bianca is furious over what Ingrid did and is arguing with Alba about her legal representation.  Alba wants to get a new lawyer (see past few episodes) and Bianca tells her he is one of the best, and free! so she is crazy if she does not call him, and go hide in your room. Now.  The police show up at the Heartbreak Café looking for Alba.  Bianca says she hasn’t seen her all day.   Cue stoopid Alba who runs out anyway and tells them what happened.  They put “las esposas” (I love this word) on her and begin to haul her to the hoosegow.    Gael shows up in the nick of time (thank you, Bianca, for calling him) and tells the police to let Alba go, here are hospital tests to prove his legal custodian almost OD’d Gabe with sedatives.   The police are like, Okay, take the cuffs off.  And they leave.  Dodged that bullet, eh, Alba?   

Gael fusses at Bianca, tells her she owes him for all the hoops he jumped thru to save Alba’s skin.  Bianca looks at him and asks --- “whatever you want”   Gael’s face gets a funny look as if to say, ‘really?’  and Bianca bounces back with “Well, we are BFFs…”   Recapper thinks writers are messing with our minds regarding these two as well as the Bianca/Dante storyline.   Whatevs….  

PAOLO/NATALIA STUFF

Paolo shows up at the bufete for his first day of work.  Aw, he cleans up very nicely.  Looks like Julian will be his trainer/mentor/tormenter.  In fact, he tells Paolo it was his idea for the firm to hire Paolo, so aren’t I just such a swell guy who believes in hiring the handicapped?  (eh, no you jerk)

Mauro discovers the new employee and starts to raise a stink over it but Gael strolls in and diffuses the issue.   Julian does not look thrilled with Gael, but does Julian ever look happy?

Some Katia/Paolo/Natalia stuff --- Nat is at P’s house when K rings the doorbell.  Nat answers, blah blah blah FFWD   -->

Later Natalia sees a 5x7 pic of Paolo in his soccer days, has flashback #81 of running him over.  Good thing we did not make this a drinking game or I’d be in the cirrhosis ward by now.

ROBERTA  SCISSORHANDS

So, Roberta is having another major meltdown today.  What is this?  Meltdown # 29?  She is locked in her room with her wedding photos spread out over the bed, caressing her face with some fairly large scissors, upset that Franco kissed Alba and blaming him for destroying their family, because there is no way her mental illness(es) is/are destroying love or her marriage or her family.  Nopis.  Please, just fall on those scissors right now and stab yourself to death, lady.  Nat is freaking out because she knows mommie dearest is in there having a crazy attack.

Mauro makes it into her bedroom (was the door unlocked all this time?  we don't see a key... sheesh!) and it is Conversation #39 about daddy dearest putting the horns to her mother.  At this time, the cable tv transmission really gets awful on my DVR recording, then the test pattern  (whee!), and I am spared the same old, same old.  I really need to call Comcrap and complain but I don’t have time.  See  #biggerfishtofry in opening paragraph.   ~sigh~

Nat tells Franco that Julian told Roberta that he (Franco)  kissed Alba.  (just like high school, see?)  Mauro is pissed off at Julian for telling Berta, grabs him by the shirt, and I want Mauro  to beat the dookie out of this jerk but Franco arrives.   It really did me some good to see Julian groveling, but the “oh shit” look on his face when Franco walked in was appreciated.  Fun times!  Julian denies EVERYTHING (would we expect any less?) and escapes consequences.

So here we have Franco/Roberta conversation #87.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Franco tells Roberta he did kiss Alba.  But now, Roberta is all “oh, that’s okay, as long as you love me and we keep our happy little family together.”  Did she finally take her meds?   Franco keeps telling her THEY ARE NOT A COUPLE  and Roberta is so calm and sweet,  like she has Teflon-brain.  Nothing is sticking.  She is in complete denial of their marital problems.   All is well as long as he does not leave her.  Recapper is sick of this and Franco is, too.  Bertie says if she was pregnant (OMG again with that???) it would be another story.   Convo ends with Bertie going to make lasagna for Franco.  Lucky guy. Not.

JULIAN/INGRID

Our snake visits Ingrid, not for a quickie, but to tell her that heavily sedating Gabriel was so not a good idea and Franco, excellent attorney that he is, will use it against her so Alba can recover her son.  The only way she can stop this is proof of violence when Alba took Gabe from Ingrid.  BSC Ingrid looks pensive and asks Julian to hit her.  He gently slaps her face, and she says “no, reeeally hit me!”  And vile creepy Juls looks like he just might.  

And we end there.