Caray, Caray!

The veeedeocleeep that Luigi is going to get stuck shooting with video instead of 35mm is for an artist named Benny Ibarra. Luigi has shot some test footage with Magali, the woman Fernando picked up at the cocktail party, and when he shows it to the suits from Benny’s record company they are in love. Luigi preens and soaks in the praise. Marcia tells Fernando that the record company has even agreed to give them a cut of some CD sales, assuming Benny’s sales go up after the release of the video. Also, every female within 10 miles fights the urge to throw their legs open with Benny in the building. Like if Tom Jones visited where YOU work. Tom Jones looks like Bob the neighbor from “That 70’s Show” but apparently is second only to Wilt Chamberlain for the all-time scoring record. But I digress.

Lety tells Fernando that Bat-guy is still asking her where to deposit her kickback. Fernando is very excited, he has been waiting for the subject to come up again. He calls Bat-guy’s hot boss on the phone and tells her “My assistant says that your guy there offered her a bribe.” Based on his half of the conversation that we hear, she is shocked I tell you SHOCKED to hear that such a thing is happening right under her nose. SHOCKED. Fernando doesn’t believe it either. He tells her, “here’s what you’re going to do. Take the money you were going to give her, and give it to Conceptos. Just do it, trust me, you don’t want to fight with me about this.” Then he smiles, she has agreed. So there’s a little cash in his pocket. Meanwhile, Lety is still getting paid something like 50 pesos per hour even though she’s acting CFO/VP. I actually paused the recording out of frustration after this scene. I looked at my wife and she was obviously thinking the same thing as me. Lety is the absolutely DUMBEST smart person in the entire country of Mexico. Her father might lose his job, her mother appears to be on some kind of happy pills, her best friend is the Mexican version of Squiggy (from Laverne & Shirley), the ’89 LeBaron loan payments are enough to put the family into bankruptcy apparently, and she WON’T ASK FOR A DAMN RAISE. I believe there was even a cuss word or two in the ensuing conversation. We really got lathered up about that. Remember, at least a month of shows has gone by since she took on additional duties. What a complete wuss. Boo, Lety, booo.

So of course you know what happens next. As soon as I start the tape again……

Omar tells Fernando, basically, “Fernando, you idiot, you keep giving her all this stuff to do and keep drawing her tighter into your little web and you’re still paying her like she’s an intern.” Fernando looks stunned. Gosh golly gee Omar it never crossed my mind. I’m so great and the president of a company but I can’t even think to keep my own assistant paid right. So he calls Lety in after Omar leaves and tells her he’s giving her a big raise, I think he said 800 Pesos. That must be per week. She says “800 Pesos?” like he said 10 Million Dollars. Yeah and I’ll let you keep my pocket change too. Fernando thinks she isn’t satisfied with that, so he bumps it up to 900. She is about to say “900 Pesos?” and Fernando, like you and me, sees that this could go on all night. He says yeah 900 Pesos, thank you, good night, I’ll be here all week. This is followed by the typical Lety swooning, dreaming, imagining kissies, etc.

Luigi has the scenery all drawn up on boards in his office. However, today is another one of those days where Paula Maria’s son got kicked out of school again or something and Lola’s ex-husband dropped her kids off too. So, after some wandering around, the kids end up in Luigi’s office. They see the pictures and decide to color them in, not knowing what they are. Lola’s young son has a dinosaur stamp, a stamp like you press on an inkpad and then on paper. He stamps little dinosaurs all over everything. Then we see Luigi instructing some painters to get the boards from his office and make sure the scenery matches his drawings. You see what’s going to happen here right? Later Luigi comes back and finds his veedeo scenery painted with dinosaurs! It’s pretty funny, mostly to see his super-gay reaction. This guy makes Jack McFarland from Will & Grace look like Sam Malone from Cheers he’s so gay. Fernando shows up, has an equally comical reaction, then they scream at the painters, then the kids, then the painters start working to fix it all up again. The whole thing was funny but a bit pointless.

More stuff happens with the shadow company. Fernando tells the plan to Lety, she’s surprised about the whole thing but of course she’ll do it, she’d take bamboo slivers under her nails for Fernando. They do some paperwork. This whole storyline is kind of a bore, though it does give a reason to keep Tomas and RoboPapa involved in the story later on rather than just for their usual shticks. Fernando tells Lety, about as many times as Omar told Paula Maria to keep their tryst quiet, that she can’t tell anyone about the shadow company. “Yeah, it’s totally legit, oh yeah totally, but uh you can’t tell anyone or I’ll have you disappear. Heh. It’s all legit though, really.”

Marcia the Unblinking Eye complains to Fernando’s mother some more about Fernando and how much influence Lety has on him. Lety is working on cutting costs and Fernando is backing it up 100%. Of course cutting costs is a good idea when you are losing money, but since it was Lety’s idea Marcia hates it.

For the 10th time of 100 times, Luigi asks Fernando where his new camera is. “heh it’s on the way really Luigi totally I was just checking on it this morning, really.” Fernando’s job has turned into walking around the building lying to people. And scoping out models. That’s about it.

Fernando then tells Lopez the creepy nasty HR guy to clean out Olarte’s old office, he’s moving Lety in there. Then he tells Lety, who starts to cry. He can’t believe it. She won’t go. He says don’t you want a window or something? Nope. She gives him some crap about wanting to be close to do all their business and he buys it. What a rube. He says fine, whatever you want. She goes into her office for the whole dreamy swoony thing she does. I know the first two notes of the music for when she does this, so I can roll my eyes about it before she even gets started now. Good times.

Lety brings Tomas in on her new shadow company. Fernando moved 100,000 Pesos into that company’s account, Lety wants Tomas to invest it for her. In direct violation of Fernando’s order to NOT TELL ANYBODY. Really, he couldn’t have been more clear. Here’s what Lety did: “uh huh, don’t tell anyone. Got it. Hey Tomas check this out…..” Nice work Lety. You’ll never get to be Mrs. Fernando if you do stuff like that. She ends up selling him 1% of the company, so he can work as an owner and not just an employee. To have rights with the money or something like that.

It’s the morning of the big Benny Ibarra veeedeo shoot and nobody has arrived in the office yet. Fernando is beside himself. As people arrive one by one, he bites their heads off one at a time. Finally everyone is there and there’s no one left to yell at.

Omar tells Fernando that Luigi is going to flip when he finds out there is no 35mm camera coming, just a new video camera. No duh Omar, good thing we pay you so much. Advice like that is priceless. Aren’t there some ladies working somewhere that you should be giving the constipation face to?

Tomas immediately lets his new status go to his head and he buys some business cards. He’s Donaldo Trump. Lety goes to work and continues to tell Fernando that she hasn’t told anyone about the company.

Saimon is having a little fun with the dancers from the video. As the world’s only messenger who wears a suit, he gets to pull his “I’m an executive” routine and starts teaching them to dance. He’s having a grand old time until he doesn’t notice Fernando standing right behind him trying to do the General Zod from Superman II thing with his eyes into the back of Saimon’s head. One more notch in the belt for Fernando, he might actually get to yell at every single person in the company today.

Fernando tells Lety that he’s going to L.A. tomorrow and that he’s leaving HER in charge of the company while he’s gone! Boy oh boy wait until the Unblinking Eye and Jessica Rabbit find out about THAT.

Labels: fea-e

I've been writing this on breaks at work, I was going to go a little farther but what the hell. Hopefully I'll have more soon.


At the end of the computer fiasco, Ariel the Little Mermaid corners Jessica Rabbit and tells her that he knows she’s responsible and he wants her to spy on the company for him or he’ll let the right people know, at which point she’ll be bounced out on her ass.

At the cocktail reception, Lety manages to somehow, I don’t know how, lose a shoe in the outdoor fountain. She argues with a drunken waiter to get it back, eventually it ends up back on her foot. She heads inside to find Fernando.

Inside, Fernando is scoping out the hotties, looking for some fresh meat. He sets his sight on one of the sales ladies, named Magali. She’s pretty I guess (she is going to be the female lead in Heridas de Amor) but there’s something not hot about her, I’m not sure what. Fernando doesn’t agree with me however, he zooms in. He and Omar put on a whole song and dance and seem to win her over, a little anyway. Fernando’s cell phone rings, of course it’s Marcia the unblinking eye, he nervously does the whole “what’s up? Oh nothing, this is boring, you know heh heh” thing since he’s standing next to his next conquest. He eventually gets her to laughingly agree to appear as a model in one of Conceptos’s next videoclips. I love they way they say ‘videoclip’ on the show, pronounce that with Spanish pronunciation and you’ll see what I mean. Veeedeocleeep. I love it, especially coming from Luigi.

Lety calls RoboPapa, who is pissed that she’s out late. Doesn’t she know all the men are just waiting for their chance to rip her clothes off and abuse her?

Jessica Rabbit goes home and finds notes from both the electric company and the gas company – she’s cut off. Miss high life has spent all her money on trying to look rich, now she has no electricity or gas. She calls her dad and begs for money, but apparently she has done this many many times before and he tells her tough noogies, no dice.

Fernando finds Lety outside waiting for a bus, he gives her a ride home. Marcia questions him when he finally gets back to his place, “Where the hell have you been?” “uh, with Lety.” The Unblinking Eye seethes. And seethes some more. She then rakes him over the coals about the report from the meeting, Fernando gets a “what the hell am I doing here” look on his face.

Meanwhile, Lety dreamily writes in her diary some more about how awesome Fernando is. Again.

The next day Omar tries to seduce Jessica Rabbit with his constipation looks, he says they should get together at her place later. She rushes to the Unblinking Eye to whine. “Maaaaarcia no tengo luz ni gas! Maaaaaaaaaaaaaarrccciiaaaaaaaaaa!” She begs Marcia to basically fix the problem for her. Marcia breaks down and loans her the money.

The big showdown over the 35mm vs video camera is progressing. Fernando intends to go all video now that the 35mm has been broken, so he tells Luigi “ok I’ll get you a new camera in a while, for now why don’t you use the video camera. You know, for a while.” Luigi, in his own special stereotypically gay way , says no.

Fernando and Marcia discuss his plans to give Lety signing authority on all the bank accounts. Of course, she is livid and thinks it is a horrible idea, based on her incredibly unrealistic jealousy of Lety. Fernando explains that she needs the authority because…… Tadaaaa! We’re all going to L.A. to drum up some business with some U.S. companies! They’ll be leaving in a few days/weeks, it wasn’t very clear. Fernando, Marcia, and Omar will make the trip.

J.R. tells Marcia that the money she loaned her wasn’t enough to pay her bills. What she DOESN’T tell her is that she used the money to pay her credit card, not the electric and gas.

In the next meeting, the subject of the next veeedeocleeep comes up, Fernando casually mentions that he has the model for it. He says Magali’s name, Luigi flips. He knows her and looooves her. “she’s so pretty, so divine!” He often says ‘divine’ in English. One of his little quirks is to say little bits in English a lot, most frequently “oh my GOD!” Hilarious. Again, the Unblinking Eye is all pissed off at Fernando for having the balls to be in the same room as an attractive woman, over the whole Magali thing.

Cinerent, one of the companies from the cocktail reception, decides it wants Conceptos’s business at any cost. Miguel from that company calls Lety and says he wants to take her to lunch to talk business. We see Miguel in his office with his extremely attractive boss discussing his plan to bribe her. This boss lady took me by surprise. Usually the hottest women are stars, or are featured heavily in the few episodes they appear in. This character could have been played by any woman between the ages of 25 and 80, for some reason this absolute knockout got this dud role. It just seems strange, that’s all. Anyway, Lety tells El Club that she has a lunch appointment, they all titter on like somebody proposed marriage.

Miguel says he’ll call her from his car when he’s in the parking lot, he doesn’t want anyone to see him with such a Fea. However, basically the entire company happens to be outside when she gets in his car. Patricia, one of the ladies in El Club, can’t believe Lety is going off with such a guapo. This guy, guapo? No way. He has the strangest ears I’ve ever seen. They look like bat ears. I was mesmerized by them and had to rewind a couple times because I wasn’t paying attention to dialogue. He could fly away with those things, or hear supersonic sounds. Like dog whistles. Lunch begins and Miguel tries to pump her for inside information on Conceptos with very little tact. Lety freezes up and doesn’t tell him anything. He goes on to tell her that he’ll offer her the lowest prices, she can come to him with whatever the prices are from anywhere else and he’ll give them a lower price. Lastly, he says he’ll give her a kickback – up to 500,000 pesos a year possibly. This is a ton of money, especially since that ‘89 LeBaron seems to have the family strapped for cash. Lety of course is appalled by the suggestion and suggests that Miguel take a long walk off a short pier. Or the Spanish equivalent of that at least.

Omar tries to work his constipated charms on J.R., she puts him off by saying that she’s having dinner with her father, in reality she is too embarrassed by not having power or gas in her apartment. The mere mention of ‘father’ sends Omar packing, he’s in it for the sex, there’s no way he wants to go anywhere near her parents.

Lety is in her office wondering what to do. She’s insulted by Miguel offering a kickback, but she wants the money to help her family. She decides to at least tell Fernando that Cinerent will offer prices lower than anyone else. She won’t tell him who to choose, but giving him that info won’t hurt. She manages to convince herself of this and tells him that part of Miguel’s offer.

Ariel the Little Mermaid shows up at J.R.’s apartment, he wants more info on what is going on with the company since he can’t get any scoop from anyone else there. He finds out about her electricity and gas being out and proceeds to mock her about it, then demands some whiskey. He derides the whiskey he gives her as piss. This guy is the perfect guest. J.R. can’t wait for him to leave, she won’t even sit down. “ok thanks for stopping by see you bye bye now ok bye.” But the Little Mermaid takes off his jacket, loosens his tie and gets comfortable. J.R. tells him all about Lety getting signing authority for the bank accounts. She goes on to tell him about Lety sneaking off with Miguel the bat-eared guy and says it must be for some secret business, Miguel is sooo handsome and would never go on a social date with a fea like Lety. The Little Mermaid calls Olarte to tell him about Cinerent and to see if Olarte knows anything about them, then gets off the phone and attempts to seduce J.R. She is REALLY not interested, she is repulsed by him, but he has too much power over her and she gives in. Blech.

Lety calls Tomas and tells him all about the lunch and the offer of a bribe. She also tells him that she told her friends that Tomas was rich and handsome and that the two of them were on the way to being an item. She told her friends that to throw them off, the cleaning lady reads fortunes and senses that Lety has a crush on somebody. Lety doesn’t want anyone to know of course that she dreams of bumping uglies with the boss.

With J.R. not available for the evening, Omar is out cruising the bars and he runs into Paula Maria, the receptionist. If you remember, Paula Maria is BUILT. She is dancing around in a micro-mini skirt and a top that looks about like a band-aid. Omar gets his super-constipated look, sucking air through his teeth like this trip to the john is a painful one, and lays some Fernando-quality lines on her. Oye guapa! She’s already a bit drunk, he gets her more drunk, she already likes him because he’s handsome and rich, so she’s an easy conquest. They head out of the bar together.

We see the Little Mermaid getting dressed in J.R.’s bedroom, we also see a very un-satisfied looking J.R. sitting on the bed. I don’t get the impression that Ariel was a great lover. She still has her dress on that she was wearing that day. He tells her that he’s going to keep coming by for information and sex and there’s nothing she can do about it. She says nothing. After he leaves, she desperately calls Omar on his cell phone. The phone rings on the nightstand next to Omar, who is laying in bed with Paula Maria. OOOoops. He answers, thinking Paula Maria is asleep, and tells J.R. that he misses her too, yes honey I love you too, etc. Paula Maria is awake, she hears the whole thing. Her face contorts into a very jealous scowl. Shortly thereafter Omar gets up and while getting dressed, implores Paula Maria not to tell anyone about what happened between the two of them. It was so special, etc, lets keep it between us, la la la. Same old story.

Fernando drops the news to Lety about the trip to L.A., he asks her to make the travel arrangements. He also decides to buy from Cinerent, since they offer the best prices. Lety calls Miguel the bat-eared guy and tells him that Conceptos will buy from them. He tells her “ok I’ll have your money ready, just tell me what bank to put it in.” She says nothing and gets off the phone.

In the morning, Paula Maria rides to work with Omar. Another day, another Conceptos employee coming to work in the same clothes as yesterday. Omar tells her for the 1000th time to keep what happened just between them. I think we get the message Omar. He then gives her a constipated grimace to keep her horny. Apparently Omar has stumbled across the look/grimace that drives women wild, like some secret chemical, or some special combination of words like what works so well for Fernando. Hola guapa!

Omar and Fernando start concocting a scheme that will be a major part of the story for quite a while. Fernando wants to start a second ‘shadow’ company to protect Conceptos in the likely chance that some of its creditors want to take some assets from them for unpaid loans. Business is bad, if they can’t make payments the company might go under. I’m not sure what passes for bankruptcy in Mexico. They will put this new company in someone’s name who they completely trust, since they can’t use their own names or the company won’t be separate enough. This shadow company would be given first rights to Conceptos’s assets if they go bankrupt. If the company gets all the company stuff, Fernando can protect himself from losing the company, so long as the owner of this new company can be trusted.

Lety tells her father what Miguel the bat-eared guy offered her, she tearfully says she doesn’t want to do it but the family needs the money. RoboPapa wheeeeezes through the conversation, his frequent need to draw a deep breat causing a 30 second conversation to last a good five minutes. In a nutshell – “wheeeeeeezz Lety mi hija hseeeeeszz don’t do it gaaasssspppp keep your integrity cough cough wheeeeeEEEEEEeeeezz gasp it is the first step down a slippery slope HAAAACCCKKK don’t do it.” Lety, even more tearfully than before, I think because she can hear her father slowly dying every time he talks, agrees that morally she cannot take the money.

Meanwhile, Ariel the Little Mermaid has made some progress. Olarte told him that Cinerent regularly offered kickbacks, he’s sure that is what Lety and Bat-guy were meeting about. Ariel is momentarily angry at Olarte, “that means you were taking kickbacks before?” but gets over it. He must admire Olarte’s sliminess, though it will never rival his own. He gets Olarte to call Bat-guy on the phone and tapes the conversation. Olarte leads the conversation to the subject of Lety and kickbacks, Bat-guy tells him everything, insinuating that Lety accepted the offer. Ariel gets an evil grin going, excited at the idea of bringing Fernando’s trusted assistant to ruin.


Lety goes to Fernando and confesses that Bat-guy offered her a kickback in conjunction with the low prices and she considered taking it. Of course, then, she quits. She says he can’t trust her any more so she’s quitting. Again. I think this makes quitting twice and getting fired twice.

Ariel arrives at Conceptos with his little cassette tape, prepared to wreak havoc. He first goes to Marcia’s office to set the plan in motion. He asks her, “does Fernando still trust in her blindly? He does whatever she says?” She answers yes, rolling her eyes and growling. He says “check this out then!” and plays the tape. Marcia is pissed and also is excited at the prospect of getting rid of Lety. The two of them storm off to Fernando’s office together to kill the rabbit. Uh I mean get rid of Lety, I was feeling like Elmer Fudd there for a minute.

Lety is still crying and trying to quit when the Little Mermaid and the Unblinking Eye storm into the office. Ariel is VERY proud of himself as he starts flinging accusations at Lety and brings out his smoking gun, the recording of Olarte’s call with Bat-guy. They listen to the tape. Fernando then tells them that Lety was just telling him everything before they came in. She DIDN’T take any money, and that phone call doesn’t prove anything anyway. Bat-guy never said he gave her money and Olarte has already proven that he can’t be trusted. Marcia turns on Ariel and switches sides, now siding with Fernando. They tell Ariel to grow up already and find something else to do besides potting the downfall of Conceptos. Don’t you have a real job Ariel? I can’t figure out what it is, but there must be something that keeps you in that bad haircut and ugly suits.

After the others leave, Fernando tells Lety that he has even more confidence and trust in her now than ever, de ninguna manera can she quit. By coming to him and telling him everything she has earned his trust. This doesn’t entirely make sense, but whatever. If I told my boss that I almost accepted a bribe, that I reeaaaallly thought about taking it but didn’t, he wouldn’t be telling me ‘good job.’

Olarte calls Ariel to see what happened, Ariel tells him to disappear and never call him or see him again. Adios. Now if we can only get rid of that GROSS fingerlicking Lopez the HR guy. He’s so nasty.

Labels: fea-e

I wrote Chris to ask him if he'd disappeared forever and this is his response:

no no no don't worry! I've just been reeaaaalllllyyy busy, I'm in summer school two nights a week working on a Master's degree and I just started a new job, and we're getting ready to move. Really. I'm surprised I even know where to go from one day to the next. I have a big chunk of a La Fea mega-post ready to go, it will be up in the next couple days. Tell everyone sorry I'll be there soon! I appreciate being missed, I have to admit that.

Labels: fea-e

Not much happens for a while. Jessica Rabbit is upset about Lety being important when her seis semestres de financia make her soooo much more qualified. Right. Yes, your community college equivalent should definitely outweigh Lety’s Masters degree. Gosh! How can you not be running your own company by now?

Fernando and Omar talk about how much J.R. hates and is jealous of Lety. Fernando thinks this is the first time a beautiful woman has been so jealous of an ugly one.

Marcia The Unblinking Eye and J.R. spend some time talking about…… Lety. For being so worthless in their eyes, they sure do spend a lot of time thinking about her. Lots of “Maaaaarcia, por que Fernando gives so much credit to Lety? Porrrrr queeee? Maaaaaaarcia? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa whaaaaaaaaaaaa.” Marcia later tells Fernando that he doesn’t realize it, but somehow Lety has brainwashed him. If giving him good information and advice, and doing good work, is brainwashing, then I guess she is. She’s a voodoo priestess.

Finally something happens. J.R. decides to perform some sabotage. Lety is working on some report for tomorrow’s meeting (same old story). J.R. decides to mess up her computer so she can’t get it done. Olarte the idiot finance guy gets involved again, as does Ariel the Little Mermaid. Olarte calls Lety to his office for something or other to keep her busy. J.R., with some instructions she got from the corrupt systems guy in the basement, enters some commands into Lety’s computer to lock it up. Olarte sifts through some papers while Lety fumes, finally she has had enough and stomps back to her office, though too late to catch J.R. in the act. Lola, Olarte’s secretary, DID see J.R., though. But she doesn’t say anything to anybody, not even when Lety discovers her computer is all messed up and she can’t get her information. More hand wringing ensues, lots of yelling and running around, finally Fernando calls systems to get Lety’s computer and get the info from it.

Lety starts crying her eyes out to Fernando and tells him that she doesn’t deserve the promotion he gave her. Why she thinks this when it wasn’t her fault is beyond me. She tries to quit more often than she gets fired. Fernando tells her he doesn’t have time for that kind of talk, he needs the info from her computer.

Paula Maria calls a friend at another company to see if he can fix Lety’s computer, the systems guy from the basement says it will take him a couple days. This is because a) he’s stupid, b) he’s corrupt and the axis of evil put him up to this, and c) he’s busy taking breaks and stuff like that. Fernando comes down to check up on him, the guy has the gall to tell him that he’s on his way to lunch. The president of the company! He’s lucky he didn’t get fired on the spot. With the guy from the other company as a backup plan, Fernando leans heavily on the systems guy and finally he gets what he wants. However…. while everyone is out of the room, the systems guy makes a copy of all the confidential information from her computer!

Eventually the whole thing comes unraveled, Fernando discovers Olarte’s involvement and fires him on the spot. He then goes to the systems guy and fires HIM too. He’s on a roll, kicking ass and taking names.

Back in the meeting room – Luigi Lombardi, el gran gay and Conceptos’s award winning director, emotionally tells everyone that he’s going to shoot a video for Benny Ibarra. I guess he’s really famous in Mexico, because everyone goes nuts at the news. So this sounds like something good is going to happen! I’m sure something will muck it up. Fernando arrives with the information he needed all along, finally, Lety follows a few minutes later. She says “buenas tardes” but no one answers, making her very nervous. Soon, however, it is her turn to explain the report, she manages to gain everyone’s rapt attention.

At the end of the meeting, Fernando proposes giving Lety more responsibilities within the company, due to her successful report, as well as due to the fact that Olarte got the boot earlier that day. Lety can’t believe it. I feel some more crying and daydreaming coming on.

Ariel the Little Mermaid finds J.R. after the meeting and says he thinks it was her that messed up Lety’s computer. She doesn’t say yes or no, but she’s a bad bluffer and he knows it to be true. He’ll put that info to use later. I’m still trying to figure out what his real job is. He doesn’t work at Conceptos, we see him in his office sometimes, he has a hot secretary who doesn’t do anything but transfer phone calls to him, he never says where he works or what he does, and he has nothing but free time to pursue his goal of world domination. Whoops, I mean his goal of ruining Fernando and taking over Conceptos. Maybe we’ll find out someday what he does.

Lety tells El Club De Las Feas that she’s taking over a lot of Olarte’s job. The familiar give and take of “did you get a raise?” “no Don Fernando must have forgotten about it.” The circle of life continues.

Fernando tells Omar to pretend he’s in love with J.R. so she won’t spend any time with Ariel the Little Mermaid, too much contact between the two makes him nervous. Fernando tries to keep all his affairs (both personal and company) private, but J.R. is bound to get a tidbit of info here and there and he doesn’t want Ariel the Little Mermaid to know ANYTHING.

Fernando meets with Lety, who tells him that the company is in some financial trouble. No duh. The place is overrun with idiots, how could it possibly be in good shape?

During a shoot for a bicycle commercial, Luigi ties his dog’s leash to a camera tripod. As expected, the dog pulls the camera over and breaks it. Luigi is beside himself, as only a gay stereotype can be. This was the nice 35mm camera. With that ruined, there is only a video camera to use. Luigi refuses to use it under any circumstance. I sense a high noon showdown with Fernando over this one, replacing the 35mm camera will be $$$$$$ expensive and there is no extra money these days.

Fernando invites Lety to accompany him and Omer to a big trade show/meeting/cocktail reception. She is overcome with emotion and tears up, later on that night she is at home dreaming once again about being Mrs. Fernando. Swoooooooooooooooon.

Labels: fea-e

El Club de Las Feas celebrates in the employee bathroom after Lety shyly tells them that Fernando called her his assistant. She has the exact same look on her face that your 12 year old niece has when telling her friends about some boy who touched her hand. In the midst of the celebration, Alicia oooops I mean Jessica Rabbit walks in. “Que paso??” with the o being like this – oooOOOooo? Like you would ask your kids who are pretending there isn’t any paint on the wall as you ask them “ok and what happened heeeere?” Las Feas tell Jessica Rabbit that Lety is the assistant to the president now, so she (J.R.) better watch her step. If they were guys instead of women, there would be a lot of chest bumping and “hold me back dude I swear hold me back” going on. J.R. laughs her fake fake laugh oh how I hate the fake laugh and says it can’t be true, Lety isn’t anybody important in the company, she’s just the leader of El Club. She is “La Reina de Las Feas.” HAhahaahahhaahahahahah as she leaves the room. Like the Joker after wrapping Batman and Robin with scotch tape and putting them over a goldfish bowl to finish them “once and for all!”

Jessica Rabbit runs off IMMEDIATELY to rat to Marcia about what Las Feas were saying about Lety. Here’s an Alborada flashback – there was one scene where Diego was whining to Dona Juana, she was telling him how stupid he was after he got in yet another screaming match with Luis, about how he was being immature to yell insults at Luis. “But he insulted me first!” he whiiiiiiiines. J.R. uses that exact same tone here. “They said she was the assistant to the preeeeesident Maaaarcia? Como se puede? COOOOOMMMOOOOO???” Somebody needs to have their bedtime bumped up about 30 minutes if they are going to be cranky like that!

Marcia calls a meeting con todo El Club de Las Feas and asks Lopez the finger licker to be present. She rips into them. They are chismosas (gossips), they don’t do any work, they waste time and money, they talk too much, etc etc etc and finally Fernando shows up. He cuts Marcia off, then tells Lopez to issue a memo announcing that Lety is now asistente de Presidencia! Marcia glares at him with those glassy unblinking eyes. Her eyes really shine, but I think that’s because they are marbles. If they were real eyes, she would have to blink every once in a while to keep them from drying up and falling out.

The next day Omar is hanging out and sees Ariel The Little Mermaid arrive and give a way too friendly greeting to Alicia and is jealous. Que macho these men. “I’m gonna screw whoever I want, but if you let someone say hello to you too nicely, I’m gonna be pissed. Just so you understand how it is.” Fernando tells Omar that he has to keep up his romance with Alicia to keep her away from The Little Mermaid, if she gets in with him she might give him information.

Lety is waiting for that damned Microbus to get home, it cruises right by without stopping. I think the Microbus company draws its employees from the same place that the DMV gets theirs. As she’s yelling at the bus as it disappears, Fernando pulls up in his sweet ride. I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of car he drives, but they never show the logo. I think it’s a BMW Z3 but I’m not sure. Something very much like that if not that. Anyway, he offers Lety a ride and says that she doesn’t need to take the bus, he’ll give her a ride home every single night. After her first little daydream, it’s easy to spot them now. Any time Fernando gets in close my wife and I look at each other “dream.” He asks what she’d like to listen to, she says she loooooooves Alejandro Fernandez. He says that’s his favorite too! Then they ride off to their castle where he’ll ravish her with no threat of repercussion from RoboPapa.

The sound of Fernando yelling “LETY!” snaps her out of it, he just asks if she’s all right. She says yes, then a model wanders by and Fernando’s attention is gone, like a cat who spots anything dangling anywhere. He offers the MODEL a ride, as they drive away he turns on the radio and tells the model how much he likes Alejandro Fernandez. Lety’s eyes shoot open “Tambien me gusta much Alejandro Fernandez……” but Fernando is gone.

Lety gets home somehow anyway and tells everyone, including the ever-present freeloader Tomas, that she is now officially the assistant to the president. They all want to know, “did you get a raise?” “uh no, but I’m sure he’ll take care of that later.” This proves to me that Lety has never held a job before. She gives him waaaaay too much credit. Who gives out money without being asked?

Marcia, the unblinking eye, hey that’s kind of like Sauron from The Lord of The Rings – his tower has this big red fiery eye that is referred to as “The Unblinking Eye.” So Marcia is Sauron. Well that might be WELL over the nerd tolerance of most of you so I’ll keep that to myself. Anyway Marcia is with Fernando’s parents complaining again about Lety. She regularly talks about how Fernando is a dumbass and is giving Lety so much responsibility, right to his parents! For some reason this doesn’t make Fernando’s mother feel strange, she agrees that Lety needs to go. Why? Who knows. The only reason ever given is that Sauron doesn’t like her. Ok, I thought I’d try Sauron once to see how it looked but it doesn’t quite work. I’ll go back to Marcia the Unblinking Eye. Later on, Fernando’s father tells Fernando that he is giving too much trust to Lety. She has a target on her back, watch out Lety.

Meanwhile, Lety is at home roping Tomas in to help her on yet another urgent, due tomorrow morning, business report for a meeting. Yawn. This is to keep the whole plot about Conceptos having money troubles moving along, but right now it’s all just snore on that end. I’m sure later it will mean something, for now bleah. Tomas, as usual, isn’t much help, he’s too busy giving little kissies to his LAMINATED picture of Jessica Rabbit. This guy is creep central, stalker, serial killer. I mean REALLY. What do you think he does when he’s home alone with that picture, hmmm? Never mind, forget I said that. Ugh. He rants and raves about her being with Omar, how can this be true? How can she be with him? Lety basically tells him “DUH you idiot he’s good looking and rich. Get over it. She’s a bitch anyway.”

Labels: fea-e

Paula Maria comes back to the table and gets Lety to snap out of her daydream. Yes folks, it was all a dream! The writers went to TV writing school and learned all the tricks. They have also mastered the completely misleading preview for tomorrows show, where they clip together unrelated scenes to make you think the Pope is visiting town, when in fact the next episode is about a picnic.

RoboPapa lays into Lety for coming home so late.

Alicia has lunch with Marcia the next day and fills her in on how Ariel, The Little Mermaid (I can’t get over him having the same name, I know, I know, I’m immature), humiliated her at their ‘date’ the other night. Later, Omar finds out about their date and in true macho fashion is pissed off that she went out with someone else. She assures him that he (Omar) is the only one for her. She is thrilled that her attempt to make him jealous worked so well. Omar, now that he is certain that his woman isn’t cheating on him, starts working on his excuse to get away from her so he can go be with some other woman. According to my wife, there is a ‘macho’ epidemic in Mexico, a real double standard. Basically, what I just described above. Men do whatever they want but the women better fall in line dammit. She’s happy with her woefully unmacho gringo husband, he writes novela recaps for cripes sake. But I digress….

Fernando tells Lety that the next morning he’s going to his club to practice for an equestrian event and there will be NO interruptions. No exceptions. De Ninguna Manera. So of course, in the morning, Lety gets a call from somebody or other that they need payment on something RIGHT THIS MINUTE or they will detonate the bomb that they hid in the Conceptos building. No not really, but some other dire circumstance. Of course Lety has to find Fernando to authorize some money transfer or loan request or something. Fernando being at the club, remember, and is NOT to be interrupted. She thinks for about .0001 second before deciding that she should go interrupt him. He turned off his cell phone, so she better go see him.

Lety finds Saimon and tells him she needs a ride. She chose him, I’m sure, due to that fact that he has a scooter and not a car, thereby giving us hope for some sweet motorcycle hair after the ride. He hippity hops and spins and does his Motown shuffle, and off they go.

As hoped, Lety has some awesome windblown hair when they arrive at the club. We see a scene from inside the club, apparently everyone has the day off. Fernando and Omar are both riding horses, Marcia and her sister and brother are lounging around watching. Back to the gate – the guard won’t let Lety and Saimon in, of course. Lety somehow convinces the guy to open the gate after telling him that if she doesn’t get in, some money doesn’t move, and eventually Fernando won’t be able to pay his club dues. She proceeds to scream “DON FERNANDOOOOOO” over and over as they ride through the club grounds. You can’t take Lety anywhere.

They finally see him riding his horse, she keeps yelling at him. He comes over with quite a sour look on his face, and rightly so. She explains everything, he says “oh ok good job” and signs the paper. Just then Marcia shows up and wants to punch Lety in the face but Fernando once again defends her and says she did the right thing. Ohhhhh Fernie my hero! He even, get this, he then invites her to join him for a lunch meeting with some clients in the club restaurant. Marcia storms off and Omar slinks off.

They have lunch with some people who want to do some business and Fernando introduces her as his ‘assistant.’ Lety starts talking some serious stuff. She manages to negotiate them into a corner, where they have to pay a bunch of the fees up front. Fernando is proud.

A funny thing in the restaurant: Lety orders the pasta ‘as you like it.’ The waiter says no no, as you like it means you can have it this way, or that way, or whatever, you know, as you like it. Lety says “oh! As you like it! That’s what I said. That one.” A very naco, Nuevo Rico kind of thing.

Fernando offers to give Lety a ride home, he has a little daydream about shoving her into the trunk so nobody sees him driving with such a fea but snaps out of it and lets her ride in front. What a guy.

Labels: fea-e

Lety, having claimed to have finished the business plan, is unable to provide it. Remember, the envelope with that CD was lost when she fell getting off the bus. Fernando is acting un poco loco with all that is going on, there is a meeting and he NEEDS those numbers. He asks both Lety and Alicia to get him something, neither of them can produce more than ‘uh uh well jeez uh….’

To make matters worse, Mama Padilla tells Lety that RoboPapa is on the way to Conceptos to have a word with Fernando. We can only hope that he keeps his ninja skills under wraps and truly intends to just talk. I don’t know if my brain can handle martial arts and Spanish all at the same time. Maybe to top it all off it could be in black and white, showing some other guy smoking a cigarette and talking about death, like a German film. Then the TV would explode.

RoboPapa shows up and asks for Fernando. Lety finds RoboPapa in the lobby and tries to head him off at the pass. She basically tells him to hit the bricks, he naturally assumes that she is ashamed of him. That’s not true, but it should be. “Si Papa, I would love to introduce my dreamy boss to my steam-powered father.” I don’t think so. Besides, at this moment Fernando has steam coming out of his own ears.

Lety runs him off and heads back upstairs. Fernando has had enough. He calmly tells her that she’s fired. I thought this was another dream sequence, but no, he really said it. It’s time to start a count of how many times Lety has been fired.

CANNED = 2 TIMES

She goes to her office and sniffles and cries. Meanwhile, somebody’s kids find the envelope with Lety’s CD in it. Everyone at this company has kids and perpetual babysitting issues. Paula Maria has a kid that has to hide under her desk a lot, I think he keeps getting kicked out of school. I imagine it’s from getting in fights about his clothes, she has him dressed like he’s going to golf school. Green pants and a polo shirt, and a matching green cap. He was probably tired of getting his ass kicked for wearing that stuff and fought back. Then Olarte and Marcia’s secretary has two kids who always don’t have anyone to watch them, so she sneaks them in and hides them in an empty office or something. These kids are the ones who found the envelope. They decide to try and find out who this Leticia Padilla is. Can they just put it in the mail cart or something? Nooooooo. They sneak around, avoiding everyone. If they keep avoiding everyone and not asking who Leticia is, how are they going to find out?

A package arrives via Saimon, this one for Ana Leticia Villaroel, sister to Marcia and Ariel. Finally the confusion between Ana Leticia and Leticia! Lety is told that there is an envelope for her, she is excited and rushes down and tears it open, turns out the envelope has a couple fake boobs in it, bra-stuffers. She is now despondent. Right then, though, the kids show up with the other envelope, Omar takes it from them and he and Lety run up to give it to Fernando. All ends well, with Lety again sniffling and crying.

Fernando has no recollection of firing Lety. “Really? Well since you got this report here you aren’t fired, forget about that.” I’d forget about it right after an APOLOGY. Lety is more forgiving though, she goes back to dreaming about being Mrs. Fernando.

Fernando does a quick reversal of his earlier firing of Lety, realizing now that she is vital to the company. He calls her in and tells her that, finishing with “tu eres la mujer que yo necesito,” you are the woman that I need. Omar overhears this last part and has a field day teasing Fernando about his new novia, once Lety leaves the room of course. He can offer nothing but “yeah yeah whatever Omar, good one, how old are you anyway?” or something along those lines.

Alicia tells Marcia that she didn’t do any of the work, Marcia is pissed. How can she have Alicia keep tabs on Fernando if she doesn’t keep her job?

Omar tells Fernando that Alicia was going to try and do that work, but that she asked him for help, and well, you know. That help resulted in low-flow showerhead hair for Alicia and them using the same soap. Fernando finally comes right out and asks Lety if Alicia really did that earlier report that she was so quick to take credit for. Lety says “if she did that, then she could have done this one too, right?” She grins smugly. Fernando smiles and says that yes, she could have. We’re all on the same page here. Lety smart, Alicia dumb. Fernando has big plans for Lety, she is going to be a big part of the company. Lety wants to just be a big part of Fernando’s bow-chicka-bow-bow but will settle for being important at work.

The next day Tomas is at the Padillas’ house freeloading some food and lets slip that while Lety does executive work, she’s techinically (and is paid like) a secretary. OOPS. Wow is it any wonder this guy hasn’t gotten any farther in life. He’s supposed to be smart, but his role in this novella so far is to be the buffoon.

RoboPapa’s steam engine gets pumping in the next gear, he starts yelling at Mama saying “how can this be?” Earth to RoboPapa – it’s not Mama’s fault. Helloooooooo. Anyway, he is going (AGAIN, this whole theme is getting old) down to Conceptos straight away to get her out of there. Nothing shows support for your daughter who should be working as an executive like showing up and treating her like she’s five. Nice work RoboPapa.

Mama and Tomas are no match for a lumbering, wheezy old man, he uses his Robo stiff arm to push them back and lurches out the door. Mama calls Lety on the phone to tell her what happened and to warn her that he’s on the way. “Hurricane Erasmo!!!! EEEeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!” Lety is too busy for the call, though, and cuts her off before she says that he’s on the way. I sense more running around like Jack Tripper and John Cleese again.

Meanwhile, the big meeting is called to order, now that the numbers have arrived. RoboPapa shows up and is about to barge in when he hears Fernando say to Olarte, “from now on, from this moment, you will report all the bank and treasury movements and transactions to la señorita Leticia Padilla.” RoboPapa beams and decides everything is fine. This guy has one brain cell. Maybe none. All this does is verify the problem that got him so pissed off in the first place. Lety does executive work but is getting ripped off in her paycheck. Well, tomorrow is another day. Another day, another visit to Conceptos by RoboPapa.

Later that night Lety writes in her journal that she’s giving up on love, nobody will ever love her, men would never want to meet someone ugly like her. Sniff sniff.

Alicia goes on a dinner date with Ariel that Marcia set her up with. She is supposed to meet him at 8:00, she shows up ten minutes late. He’s already eating. She asks him, basically, “what the hell???” He says she was late, so he ordered. I want to know what restaurant this is, because they have the best service of all time. In ten minutes he can order, be served, and be halfway through his dinner. That’s incredible. Anyway, Ariel is a complete and utter ass, Alicia tries to flirt a little and make nice, Ariel quickly tells her that they have nothing in common, she’s trash trying to act like she’s somebody, he really puts her down. I almost feel sorry for her. NOT. She gets pretty pissed, naturally, and says fine, if we have nothing in common I’ll just go. He says “well, we could still have sex.” She declines and leaves. Ariel should take lessons from Fernando, then he’d learn how to be smooooth with the ladies. And it wouldn’t hurt to not be so nasty ugly either, I’m sure.

The next day Paula Maria invites Lety out for a drink, an old boyfriend is in town and invited her out. He has a friend and she needs to bring someone for him. She reaches the end of her list and Lety is all that is left, she of course says she’ll go. Paula Maria’s date looks like the assistant manager at Main Street Used Cars. I’d say he’s about 50, with a very round shape and very average looks, wearing a cheap suit. I have no idea why she got so excited that he was in town. Maybe he’s rich. His buddy, Lety’s de facto date, is a younger guy (His trainee? The guy who washes the car after you buy it?) who does the now famous Lety Recoil. They go to the bar, Paula Maria and her date hit the dance floor, leaving Lety and Trainee at the table. Lety gamely tries to make conversation, she seems to be overcoming some of her shyness, but the guy would rather be anywhere else in the world but here. She eventually gives up and just sits there drinking. Careful Lety, that’s not ginger ale!

Fernando is finishing dinner with Marcia at her place. He suggest going out, it’s a Friday night and he wants to party. She wants to stay in. Finally she tells him “Fine, go ahead and go out.” She says it nicely, not bitchy. That should have been the enormous red flag. Your fiancée is telling you to ‘go ahead’ and go out on a Friday night without her. Oh Fernando have you learned nothing? You will pay for this in the end, I’m sure. It will be thrown back at you during the next 100 arguments and beyond, perhaps on Marcia’s deathbed. “Fernando I wouldn’t be dying if you hadn’t so selfishly gone out without me that time.”

Back to Lety at the bar – she is sitting there glumly as her date spends a really long time in the bathroom. Suddenly an angel appears – no wait, it’s Fernando, even better. He chose this bar to come to and cut a rug. He sees Lety and heads over to talk. Lety is of course beside herself with giddiness. They chat for a minute, and then Fernando invites her to dance. She dances like a horse. Well, so do I so I can’t criticize. Trainee shows up and demands to know who this guy is, and then tells Fernando that Lety is with him. Lety tells him that it’s her boss, and besides Trainee wasn’t talking to her for the last hour anyway. Trainee tells her to decide, him or me? Before she can answer, Fernando punches him in the face and knocks him down. Lety is almost in tears over this manly gesture. Fernando leans in to give her a kiss……….

BIENVENIDOS AL CLUB AL CLUB AL CLUB AL CLUB DE LAS FEAAAAAAAAAS

Yes, that was the end of that particular episode and a great place for me to stop for now. Back soon with more.

Labels: fea-e

I’m going to have to catch up quickly, my memory of some details is getting fuzzy being weeks behind. Let’s see what we can do to catch up.

Alicia tells Marcia of her plan to steal Lety’s business plan work and present it as her own. Marcia gets her devil look and agrees that this is a good idea. For some reason Marcia has started to be jealous of Lety and the fact that Fernando is nice to her. She has now reached the status of the stupidest woman of all time. She has caught him cheating with all sorts of hotties, now she’s up in arms about La Fea. She has real issues and needs to work on them, I think. I don’t even know what else to say about this.

I do have one other thing about Marcia – I think she’s a robot too. She never blinks. She has only a couple facial expressions, most famously the devil/dog baring teeth look. But most noticeably, SHE DOESN’T BLINK. I swear. I look really hard ever time she’s on camera. No blinking. Somebody needs to research and see if her real name is “model x4500” or something.

Paula Maria the receptionist gets the entire Club de Las Feas together to have a big cry about how her boyfriend dumped her. I guess this whole scene is to establish that she’s a single mom who has trouble with men. She’s still hot though, we are reminded, because as soon as she leaves and gets on the elevator, Omar (Vice-Horndog, to Fernando’s Horndog-in-Chief) immediately tries to move in on her in a manner that would look over the top in a porno, here it looks beyond ridiculous. Nevertheless, she swoons and acts a little like she’s having an orgasm just from Omar hitting on her. Really an uncomfortable scene.

Omar didn’t waste any time, next thing you know he’s repeating an earlier scene of being at a bar with some woman, with another woman to spare sitting there too, on the phone with Fernando trying to convince him to come out. Again, Fernando can’t go, as Marcia has managed to get her hooks into him for the evening. After Fernando gets off the phone, he starts making out with Marcia in his office (he is the president and you know what presidents do in their offices). Lety walks in on them and sees what they are doing, she goes and hides in her office and sniffles from sadness and jealousy. She wants Fernando to be putting little kisses on that nice moustache of hers. Bleah it made me shiver just to write that.

We now meet Ariel again, he arrives for the meeting and is introduced to Lety. He is speechless that this Fea is the secretary for the president of the company.

Alicia follows through on her plan to steal Lety’s work and pass it off as her own. She is really in charge of getting coffee and snacks, but when she waltzes in to the meeting with the business plans she told Lety she would ‘deliver’ for her, nobody bats an eye as she pretends like she did the whole thing. Everybody takes a quick look and Don Humberto comments on what a good job she did with it.

Lety drowns her sorrows in some food all alone, but the Club de Las Feas invites her to come eat with them, which improves her spirits a bit.
In the meeting, the pissing contest continues over Fernando getting to be the president. Ariel pouts and whines, Marcia finally yells at him that she voted against him because until now, he never showed the slightest bit of interest in the company. Ariel pouts some more. Something about this family – Marcia doesn’t blink, Ariel is unable to move his lips. They are stuck in pout.

Lety wants to say that the work was hers and not Alicia’s, but can’t figure out how to do it without being a whiner. I say be a whiner, but that’s me. She talks to her mom on the phone, she tells her that she is thinking of quitting before she gets fired. Why does she think she’ll get fired? Who knows. She worries a lot.

The employees throw a little retirement party for Don Humberto, he is flattered, so flattered in fact that he stays for a whole five minutes before bailing out.

Fernando asks Alicia to make another report for him since her first was so good, she stutters and stammers about how much time she needs for it, uh, well see, uh, etc. Fernando asks Lety if Alicia did in fact do that business plan or if it was Lety’s work. Again Lety says nothing, but this time looks smug, since she senses Alicia is about to hang herself. Alicia goes back to her desk and worries about what to do since she has no clue how to do the work Fernando asked for.

Fernando and Omar take a break from chasing tail to do some work. They discover that the original business plan that Fernando wrote up neglected to take into account some debt and interest. Here is where I have to suspend even more disbelief. I am an accountant by trade, it is IMPOSSIBLE to prepare a financial summary of a company and ‘overlook’ debt. It is a principle component of a company’s financial situation. Do you ever consider your personal financial situation and ‘forget’ the money you owe? “Dang I should be a millionaire, where does all my money go? OH YEAH – my mortgage, car, credit cards…….” So, two things are possible here – the accountant who prepared the information that Fernando used is stupid or crooked, or Fernando himself has absolutely no clue about this sort of thing. Both are very very possible. The finance guy, Olarte, is indeed an idiot. And Fernando would only care about debt if it had boobs. The logical thing to do here would be to come clean, but this is America after all! No wait - it’s Mexico, but apparently they have been paying attention. Rule number one is cover your ass. Usually the lying is to protect stock price or something, in this case they can’t come clean because Ariel would use it to push for a re-vote for the presidency.

Saimon the dapper messenger offers to give Paula Maria a ride home but she declines. Poor guy, he’s always around trying to win her over but she thinks he’s a clown. Obviously, then, at the end of the show they are sure to get together. That’s my guess. She DOES, however, quickly accept Omar’s offer of a ride, right in front of Saimon, He makes an awesome sniffle sniffle I’m not gonna cry face.

The next day Alicia decides to try and work an angle. She asks Omar for help on the work that Fernando assigned, knowing that she can never do it alone. She also wants to win Omar over to her side, that will help keep her in good with Fernando. He takes a look at her cleavage and her short skirt and readily accepts. Meanwhile, Lety and Tomas are at Lety’s house working on the same project, but in this case it will actually get done.

Lety confesses to her mother that she is only Fernando’s secretary, not his assistant. She must have been weak from the lack of sleep, she and Tomas stayed up half the night working. This Tomas guy sure gives a lot for free. It has every indication of him being hot for her so he helps her so much, but that’s not the case. He is in loooooooooove with Alicia, just from seeing her picture in a magazine. He cut out the picture and laminated it. Aaahhh – now I know. He’s always begging Lety to introduce him to Alicia, that’s why he is kissing up so much. Did you catch the part back there? He cut out Alicia’s picture and LAMINATED it. Stalker alert. Holy cow.

The scene at Alicia’s apartment – she is cooking spaghetti and Omar is openly ogling her. He has the constipated look again, the one where he is consumed by lust but really just looks like he needs to drink some coffee to get the system back in order. They talk about nothing and eat dinner. Omar is trying to get her to have more wine. And more. And a little more. It works. By the time Alicia sits down at the computer, Omar is nibbling on her neck. You can imagine the rest.

Lety gets the work done and puts it on CD to take it back to work. She takes the little microbus to work, it only slows down in front of Conceptos this day instead of actually stopping. Lety valiantly tries to do a Keanu Reeves in Speed style disembarkment while the bus is moving, but of course she takes a huge spill, trashing her stocking and her knee. The envelope containing the CD with the work slides away behind a large potted plant but Lety doesn’t notice. I see more Fawlty Towers in our future.

Fernando wants the work from Lety, she can’t find it and starts freaking out. Her lip and eye twitch are working overtime here. Lety was on the phone with her father when Fernando asks, so RoboPapa overhears Fernando speaking rather harshly with Lety. He is immediately pissed and is going to come down to her work to have a word with him. Don’t **** with RoboPapa, we have learned.

Meanwhile, Omar and Alicia are late late late for a meeting. Fernando is really steamed about it. Lety says with a grin “do you think they are together?” Fernando smiles like a 12 year old and says “I don’t know! Maybe! Do you think?” before snapping out of it and ordering Lety back to work. Omar and Alicia show up together shortly after, looking like they slept in their clothes. Fernando starts to pace back and forth and chews them out. He stops and sniffs them. “El Mismo Jabon!” Fernando the bloodhound has deduced that they used the same soap! Is your boss allowed to sniff you? I didn’t think so. The best part of this scene is seeing Alicia’s hair look limp, like everybody in that one episode of Seinfeld when they got the low-flow shower heads.

I’ll be back soon with the latest edition of Fawlty Conceptos, see you then.

Labels: fea-e

As we all suspected, Roman and Dork had no intentions of going out with Lety. Roman seems to think this whole idea of inviting her out, then standing her up, is the funniest joke ever. In truth, it is the dumbest joke ever. Beavis and Butthead could come up with a better plan.

Huh huh uh huh huh Hey Beavis – let’s like, call Daria and say we’ll be at the mall, and then, like, not go. Huh huh.

Hrnh heh heh hrnh Yeah it’s like, she’ll go, and then like, we won’t be there. Hrnh heh heh. That will RULE! Hrnh heh. FIRE FIRE FIRE!!

Predictably, the whole plan to go out falls apart. After successfully appealing her RoboPapa’s decision to lock her up forever, with her Mama’s help of course, Lety gets all dolled up in her Grandma’s finest dress and sits by the window waiting. Mama checks in occasionally to see why she’s still sitting at the door waiting, when are these Pendejos showing up to get her? Finally one of them has the brilliant idea to call Roman and see what the deal is. I usually reach this point in about 30 seconds, it took them about two hours. “Lety, there’s this thing. It’s called a telephone. Perhaps we should give it a try.” “Are you SURE Mama? I’m scared.” Lety calls Roman, who happens to be just sitting there staring at nothing when the phone rings.

At this point I started laughing hysterically and had to pause the show. My wife thought I was insane. But the shot of Roman sitting on the couch staring at nothing when his phone rings just KILLS me. Like he thought “I’ll play this awesome prank on this chick, then I’ll completely waste the evening sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing, and THEN, be dumb enough to answer the phone when she finally calls.” I don’t have any history of standing up dates, but I can only assume the process does not involve sitting by the phone waiting for the person you just blew off to call. What an idiot.

Roman answers, gives Lety some line about going to the store for his mom or something, and says he’ll be by at 9:00 to get her. Lety is excited all over again. Hours pass and nobody shows, Lety is very sad and Mama tries to comfort her, to no avail. Lety cries in her room and writes in her diary about how alone she feels. Mama tells Papa the whole deal, he is livid and swears vengeance on the souls of his ancestors, etc. Or something like that, he was wheezing a lot and he’s hard to understand. He’s like a super wheezy Mexican Captain Kirk. “I…… will find…… those kids and……. kill them.”

We get one quick show of Roman and Dork at some club, smoking and drinking with some hoochies. Dork asks Roman “shouldn’t we call her?” or something like that, Roman gives the “pfff give me a break” face and waves him off.

In the morning Lety tells Tomas what happened, he bowleggedly stomps off to talk some sense into those ruffians. He gets to their turf, the corner where they show how cool they are by having nothing to do and nowhere to go, and demands that they go see Lety and apologize. Roman pops him in the eye, somehow not breaking his Harry Caray glasses but giving him a shiner. Tomas slinks off.

Now it’s RoboPapa’s turn. When Tomas shows up with a black eye, RoboPapa gets out of him who the kids are that didn’t try to take advantage of his daughter. All men are evil and only want to hump Lety, but even worse are those who don’t even try. I guess. He won’t let her go out, but when some guys don’t take her out, he’s pissed. This guy has some serious issues. I really wish they would tell us something about what he does for a living, or show a clip of him coming into work one day to show everyone else in the office rolling their eyes and avoiding him. “oh jeez there he is, maybe he’ll leave me alone today, please God I’m begging you, I’ll come to church every week…….”

RoboPapa lurches off to where Roman and Dork hang out with their entourage and starts yelling at them (you……. kids……. desgraciados…… rrarrrrrgggghhhh….. wheeeeeeze…..). Roman answers with the equivalent of “screw you dude what are you gonna do about it” and RoboPapa turns into JET LI! He punches Roman in the face, then when Dork comes over to help out (following standard Ninja protocol by attacking only one at a time) RoboPapa grabs his shoulder and gives him a knee to the family jewels. Awesome! Some of the most atrociously choreographed fighting I’ve ever seen, but still a fantastic scene. Watching Dork keel over after RoboPapa kneed the air next to his left knee was thisclose to looking like the real thing. RoboPapa proudly shambles back towards his car as the gang of ruffians writhe in pain on the sidewalk. There may have been police in the area, but they were likely stunned by the fighting prowess of RoboPapa and were reluctant to get involved, lest in his rage RoboPapa kicked ALL their asses.

Lety goes to work and tells the whole story to Paula Maria, who sympathizes. “Yes Lety, while you are muy fea and I’m built like a centerfold, I feel your pain.” Regardless, it’s nice to see the ladies of Conceptos being nicer to her and becoming her friends. In fact, later that day Lety finally gets into El Club de Las Feas. They finally realized that ostracizing someone for being ugly was kind of ironic and invited her in.

When she finally gets upstairs to the office, Lety is thanked by Fernando for all her help in pulling the wool over Marcia’s eyes the day before in regards to Carla Laguna. Lety beams and loves him even more. Somehow her image of him is not tarnished by the fact that he just thanked her for helping him lie to his fiancée about another woman. Ahhhh what a man!

So the whole “Lety’s big night out with Roman and Dork” story was short and anti-climactic, with the exception of RoboPapa’s berserker rage the next day. Getting the next plotline started, Alicia happens to be listening at Lety’s door when she is on the phone with Mama, telling her that she’s going to surprise Fernando by working late to finish up a business plan for him that he needs for a big meeting the next day. Alicia decides that in the morning she’s going to intercept Lety and take the business plans from her, to then deliver to the meeting (along with coffee, tea, or me?) and take the credit for doing the plan. Also, I’m sure, she’ll wear some dress that would get her sent home from any office in the United States for being inappropriate for work.

More to come –
Chris

Labels: fea-e

Lety arrives in the office, but Fernando isn’t there. As she’s walking in, Saimon the courier walks in behind her. The two haven’t met. We saw Saimon earlier in the show, he delivered a letter or package to somebody. For some reason he wears a suit, then over that puts on a yellow slicker and a helmet. I suppose he doesn’t want to look like a hippie like most bike messengers, he’s trying to look fly for all the ladies at Conceptos. So, since he rolls in wearing a suit, Lety thinks he’s some other executive of the company, or perhaps an important visitor. Saimon, who listens more to the little devil on his right shoulder than the little angel on his left, seizes the opportunity to have some fun. Once he’s done convulsing in horror, like everyone does when first meeting La Medusa Lety.

Side note – I’ve noticed the for the most part, people act like they’ve gazed upon the face of satan when they first see Lety, but then 30 seconds later and forever after they are unaffected. Sure, they refer to “La Fea” in conversation, the other ladies keep discussing how ugly she is to make their pitiful little lives seem less hopeless, but really the whole ‘shockingly ugly’ thing seems to pass quickly. The main exception to this is Luigi. In an earlier scene, when Lety turns into Jack Tripper for a bit when finding and returning some CDs from the production area, Luigi buttonholed Fernando and said that Lety is banned from the studio. I don’t remember or didn’t quite understand what his reasoning was, but really I think he just doesn’t want her uglying up the place. Perhaps her Fea causes his Chakra to become misaligned or something.

Saimon plays like he’s a talent evaluator or something along those lines and starts talking to Lety like he’d like to put her in a commercial. He gives her a pen and instructs her how to hold it up like she’s selling it in a commercial. Soon he has her hopping around the office with the pen in her mouth like a goon. Mid-twirl, the door opens and Fernando enters. She almost twirls into him, giving her cause to have a seizure and offer her disculpes and all that and bow bow bow like she’s Japanese and scamper off to her office. Fernando softly reprimands Saimon, he wants to chew him out but really he thought the whole thing was funny so he just told him to take off.

We get into some real Fawlty Towers territory here, which continues along the same lines as Three’s Company. The show jumps genres a lot, though never dipping heavily into drama. Sometimes it’s a touching family drama, like a ‘very special episode, ‘ with RoboPapa completely detached from the real world and Mama Padilla loving him for it while telling him how wrong he is. “Viejo you don’t know what you’re talking about. Get over it. I love you, you’re so sweet. And insane. Kiss kiss kiss.” Then we have slapstick. Then we have “let’s laugh at the Feos.” Then occasionally we have cause to feel sad for Lety’s suffering, The Passion of the Fea.

A woman named Carla Laguna has arrived, looking for Fernando. She is apparently a former lover that Marcia is aware of. The bit plays out a bit like Carla didn’t know where Fernando has disappeared to until she saw the photo in the magazine announcing his engagement. What I don’t get is that Fernando is a big shot at this company, his dad owned part of it, was he really that hard to track down? Anyway, Carla gets out of a cab dressed horribly, there are better ways to have your boobs hang out, you don’t have to wear such a nasty outfit to do it. Carla is tall and has an awesome body, obviously she was a model on some previous project that Fernando managed to win over with his super smooth pickup lines. “Hi. You’re pretty. Uh how’s it going.” I guess he’s handsome, my wife says si como no, but maybe her tastes are different, because he’s pulling in ladies left and right with zero effort. So Carla comes in and demands to see Fernando, receptionist Paula Maria tries to stall her while she calls up to Fernando’s office. Lety answers the phone, this kicks off a long chain of people running around the building trying to find each other, phone calls back and forth, people just missing each other turning around corner, etc. Lety has made it her life’s mission to keep Fernando’s secrets, she goes out of her way to not let Marcia find out what’s going on. When speaking to Fernando, who for some reason (to make the scene work right) has decided to keep Marcia with him all day today, about Carla looking around for him, she keeps referring to the ‘personnel issue.’

Finally, I don’t even remember how, Marcia finds out that Carla is in the building. She storms down to the receptionist, Paula Maria tells her that Carla and Fernando left together. Indeed they did, they went to a restaurant, where surprisingly Fernando tells Carla to make like a tree and get out of here, he’s going to marry Marcia. I was stunned. This guy tries to have sex with models right in his own office building, but he leaves and goes to a restaurant with this ex-lover who is desperately trying to find some place to lose her clothes to tell her to take off.

Marcia finally tracks Fernando down to the audio/video place that Lety said he was going to, finally ending the entire charade. He acts casual. “What? I just left and came here. I don’t know this Carla of who you speak.” He almost gets to the point of denying that his name is Fernando when Marcia finally gives up and gets off the phone.

Marcia and Alicia storm into Lety’s office and demands his little black book that is actually big and brown. She says de ninguna manera. Con todo respecto, of course. Bow bow scrape scrape Dona Marcia etc etc. But she will not give up the goods. Lety then goes off to lunch or a break, she’s wiped out from being John Cleese all morning. When she returns, Marcia, Alicia, and Lopez the creepy HR guy are standing there waiting for her. Marcia gets her predatory smile going and snaps out that Lety is FIRED. Lopez, between licking his hand and wiping his shoulder and head YUCK (I’m disgusted by this every time, as well as his caterpillar eyebrows) and smiling, like he hated her all along and was soooo glad to send her on her way. Of course, while she’s in her office sniffling about it and picking up her stuff, Fernando returns and tells her to forget about it, he really needs her there and nobody has authority over him to hire or fire anyone. He tells her “Tu eres la mujer que yo necesito.” Omar hears the whole thing, then proceeds to needle Fernando mercilessly over his new ‘novia.’

Lety has now promoted Fernando to sainthood. Well, something along those lines, because she wants to get busy with him too, I suppose you don’t do that with saints. She goes back to her office and gets to acting like a 12 year old with a crush on Justin Timberlake. It’s almost embarrassing to watch. Get a grip woman!

Her spirits are high. On her way home, some local idiot boys around her age, who have nothing better to do than hang around and try and show how cool they are for having nothing to do and nowhere to go, decide to tease her. Roman, who Lety knows, introduces her to some other guy who he says “is dying to meet you.” The guy reacts predictably, cracking his neck as he lurches back when he sees her, but then gamely plays on. I can’t remember his name, so I’ll just call him Dork. Roman and Dork invite Lety to go out with them that night. Due to her new high spirits, she doesn’t see how ridiculous this is and agrees to go.

She goes home and tells her mom how she has a date. Mama thinks this is great, but Robopapa says de ninguna manera. Remember, the entire male population of Earth exists for one sole purpose – to get busy with Lety. So he says no. After lots of crying from Lety in her room, Mama goes to RoboPapa and convinces him to let her go out. Of course he insists that the boys have to come in and meet him first, etc etc.

Meanwhile, Marcia sinks deeper into insanity. Fernando shows up at her house to ‘talk’ (uh oh) and Marcia is dressed like a judge. She puts him through some mock trial for being a philanderer, he stammers a lot and it’s funny and strange at the same time. I’m not sure what happened, but soon she sentences him to play ‘see what’s under the judge’s robe.’ He decides to play.

That’s the end of the first week. My spring class ended and I have a few weeks before my summer class, so maybe I can catch up soon. I’m having a lot of fun, I didn’t realize how much I like to prattle on for pages and pages about nothing. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you soon.

Labels: fea-e

1. We have willing and able bloggers

2. We have readers

3. We don't have a novela we like

I too was horrified to hear that Barrera is so long. Maybe it will improve after taking the long leap into the future today - but what if it doesn't?

I love Chris's recaps of La Fea Mas Bella and hope he keeps it up - and maybe he'll even win some viewers - but I just can't watch this show. The whole idea of calling people ugly offends me mightily, I don't like bimbos, and since I strongly suspect that the "happy ending" is going to involve Lety taking off her glasses, getting cool clothes, and becoming foxy, what's the message really? I'd rather be rooting for somebody who actually IS smart and plain. I'm tired of miniskirts and big breasts.

How long is Peregrina going on? Maybe whatever follows it will be better, in which case I would happily jump ship. Or maybe they'll realize what a dog Barrera is and take its good time slot away.

Thoughts?

Labels: announcements, barrera, fea-e

Before I get back into the story, I have to put out a couple things I forgot to mention. Sylvia pointed out in the comments to my last post that the actress who plays Lety’s mother in the show is the real mother of the actress who plays Lety, which my wife also mentioned to me the first time Mama Padilla appeared on screen “Oye that’s her real mom!” Based completely on two people telling me that, I’m going to believe it.

While we’re on the subject of Lety’s parents, let’s talk about Papa Padilla. The Alborada recaps referred to Rafael as ‘the stuffed boy.’ In that spirit, Papa Padilla will be known as Papa the Robot. This guy looks like he was made from an erector set, then had Mr. Rogers’ clothes draped on. His voice sounds like gravelly voiced asthmatic. My wife tells me that the actor, Jose Jose (great name), was a raging alcoholic and that’s probably why he’s so messed up and can’t talk. So why we have someone who can’t talk in a TV show, I have no idea. He is also extremely one dimensional. “All men want to hump daughter….all men evil…..lock daughter in ivory tower….rrrarrrrgggghhhh.” Ok, not that last part, but he has a Frankenstein’s monster thing going on.

Lastly, Jean pointed something out that I can’t BELIEVE I didn’t mention. Lety’s spastic facial tics. Any time she’s nervous, which is most of the time, she gets this one eye squinting/blinking and one corner of her mouth twitching violently thing. Basically, she looks like she’s having some kind of seizure. When Fernando imitates her right in her face and the does the “what the hell?” gesture, it’s good comedy. I think the actress who plays Lety got the part due to her ability to make this seizure face. I try to imitate it and just can’t do it. There are always some rubber band ‘boinnnnggg’ sounds that accompany the face too, adding to the fun.

Back to the story -

Lety and Tomas are reading an article in a magazine called ‘Caras.’ It has a story about Conceptos and the people involved. As we get to each part of the article, a little flashback scenario is shown, this is still all part of providing some background for the story. One photo shows Fernando and Marcia, with a caption saying that they are getting married. We fade to a flashback of the day the picture was taken…. (there was no funny flashback music or anything, but I still can’t ever see a flashback on any show without thinking of Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World wiggling their hands and saying ‘doodle oodle oop doodle oodle oop’ when fading to a flashback, such as the time Wayne was recalling how he made out with Madonna.)

Fernando is with Marcia at a company party, it’s a nice sunny day. Fernando is hitting on the models present at the part any time Marcia is more than 2 feet away. This guy has balls. I’m not saying that in a good way, any self-respecting girlfriend would drop him like a hot potato. If Marcia was self-respecting, however, she wouldn’t be an interesting character and we’d be robbed of some good storylines. Asi es y asi sera.
Fernando sidles up to a model and drops the incredible line (I’m rolling my eyes, I’m not sure how to be sarcastic in print sometimes) “Hola Guapa!” Surprisingly, this gem of a pickup attempt works. Then again, this model might realize that hooking up with this guy will get her some steady work. Her opportunity is spoiled, however, when Marcia’s radar goes off and suddenly she’s right there at Fernando’s elbow. She gives the whole making a smiley face but showing her teeth like an angry animal routine, I haven’t seen a lot of soap operas or novellas but I’ve seen this look plenty of times. The model quickly runs away. A photographer approaches and takes a picture for the story being written for Caras, Marcia tells Fernando that ‘all his girlfriends’ are going to die when they see his picture with Marcia, since for some reason he hasn’t really told anyone about their engagement. Fernando senses a cold front, or perhaps Hurricane Marcia, on the horizon due to the look on Marcia’s face, so to calm her down he takes her by the arm, goes to the microphone someone was using to make announcements, and tells everyone that he and Marcia are getting married. Everyone is excited, etc, Fernando looks like he’s thinking “holy crap what did I just do.” (end flashback)

Lety’s parents are very proud of her for landing a job at such a prestigious place like Conceptos, but she lets them believe that she is the Assistant to the President, not just one of his secretaries. She plans to buy some new clothes, perhaps to look like simply a fashion victim, rather than a victim of a heartless Communist regime.

Lety happily trots off to work the next day, she rides the bus to work. I forget exactly where in the first couple weeks it happens, but RoboPapa Padilla trades in his sweet, but broken down, car for an extremely boring but reliable “newer” one. Newer, as in made after 1980. It looks like a late 80’s Chrysler LeBaron, something like that. All straight lines and corners. RoboPapa is worried that it cost too much (what kind of weak job does he have where he can’t afford a 20 year old used Chrysler?) but Lety, with her sweet new job, says she’ll help pay for it, she wants him to have a better car.

Lety arrives at work, everyone recoils as she passes again, and presents herself in Fernando’s office, ready for work. Fernando has cleaned out the storeroom, no windows, off the back of his office and put a desk in there for her. She’s the man behind the curtain, Alicia is the Great and Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We all know where the real work gets done.

Lety meets “El Club de Las Feas,” a group of women who work at Conceptos. They consist of a few secretaries, the cleaning woman, Luigi’s assistant, and the receptionist. They have given themselves that name, or perhaps Luigi named them that, I wasn’t able to clear that up and then forgot to ask my wife about it. Surrounded by models all the time, they have latched onto each other for support. The one member of the club that confuses me is Paula Maria the receptionist, played by Niurka. I guess she’s in this group because she’s the receptionist, but she’s really, well, hot. She wears little tiny skirts and looks good. So putting her in a group of Feas doesn’t make sense to me. She does have a 10 year old son by a guy who just up and disappeared after knocking her up, so I think it’s the whole single woman/kids/broken heart or just plain ugly that gets you into this club. The club isn’t openly welcoming of Lety at first, they are a bunch of gossipy hens, but in time they open up and become her friends.

Poor Lety – she’s so ugly that Fernando’s parents actually come in and have a meeting with him to discuss the fact that he hired her. She is referred to as “La Fea” throughout the entire conversation. Cripes, these people. Fernando does, however, defend Lety’s skills to his father and insists on keeping her.

Marcia is determined that Alicia get inside Fernando’s private zone, she urges Alicia to play dirty and do whatever she can to get rid of Lety. Right away, that task is made harder as Fernando gives Lety his personal phone book, which is not so little and brown, but still technically his ‘little black book.’ Alicia and Marcia seethe, maxing out their shared brain cell to see how to get their hands on that book. Why? Who knows. Again, if Fernando running around is such a problem, dump his ass. You’re hot and rich. Go find someone else.

Luigi has completed his latest masterpiece, so there is going to be a presentation of his newest ‘videoclip.’ Fernando and Omar head down to the models’ dressing room to hit on some chicks, and proceed to do just that as brazenly as possible. Fernando finds a girl he knew before and proceeds to make out with her right in front of everyone! Then, as I’ve said before, Fernando is a master of the smooth line. He tells the girl “with another kiss like that I’d have to marry you.” I’m sure that this girl, who is the type to make out with whoever in the dressing room, wants nothing more than to get married. This is the type of behavior exhibited by women looking to settle down. Right. Anyway, time’s up, so the models get going and Fernando and Omar leave. Omar, by the way, contributes mainly by looking at girls bodies and making faces like he’s constipated, I think it’s supposed to be uncontainable lust making him look that way but I think he just needs a box of prunes. Then he’ll be able to stop looking so pained.

Fernando sends Lety down to production to get some CDs that he needs for the show, of course these are vital and nobody remembered them. And instead of somebody who knows what they are and where they are, Lety gets sent. She trips and stumbles her way around, frightens some people along the way, and managed to find them. She comes back to the showroom with them and manages to come out the door right next to the film screen. The audience is watching Luigi’s video for…… get ready now music fans…. “El Club de Las Feas” by El Bando de Recodo. The song/video that plays at the end of each episode of the show. Yes, I know you’re all sad you missed this episode, I know how much you love that song. We have a Three’s Company type moment, lots of tripping, physical comedy, Fernando finally gets her out of the way and takes the CDs.



I’m almost at the end of the first week of recaps. I keep telling myself “just summarize to get up to date, you can channel Hemingway later.” But I can’t help myself. I’ll get caught up someday.

Labels: fea-e

I had fun putting that list of characters together, so I'll jump right in to some summaries. The show has been on for two weeks now, I'll try and catch you all up with what's going on in general, then as time goes on I can be more specific. It begins -

Note - there may be a couple of things out of order since I'm going mostly from memory here, but nothing that will change the story.

Lety comes home from another day of getting turned away from jobs due to being so ugly. Her friend Tomas is at her house, they have a discussion that fills us in on the burden of being Feos. We meet Sr. y Sra. Padilla, Lety's parents, who refer to each other as "Viejo" and "Vieja" (old man/old woman) but make it sounds nice, not insulting. Like I said, Papa Padilla is convinced that the whole world is just waiting to take sexual advantage of Lety.

We next see inside the offices of Conceptos, where Fernando is talking to his father Don Umberto, we learn from their conversation that Umberto is retiring and turning over the presidency of the company to Fernando. The stockholders voted on the new president, Fernando won by one vote, which happened to be cast by his fiancee, Marcia. Again, as I said before, Marcia is the daughter of Umberto's former partner, but her father died in a car accident I think, well at any rate some horrible accident. Marcia has a brother and a sister, the sister is named Ana Leticia (as soon as I heard this I knew there would be some name confusion written in, it only took until the second week of the show for this), and brother named Ariel. Ariel is a horrible bitter, ugly, whiny man who was Fernando's competition for the company presidency. This in spite of the fact that he only worked for Conceptos for a short time a long time ago. He's convinced, however, that Fernando does ALL his thinking with Little Fernando, which will drive the company into the ground, and his stock along with it. He fills the villian role nicely, in spite of being named after The Little Mermaid.

I don't remember specifically why Fernando is not keeping his father's secretary, or even keeping the secretary he had before being elected president, but whatever the reason was, it was contrived to lead us to the interview scene with Lety and Jessica Rabbit arriving simultaneously to interview for the job. The contrast couldn't be greater, JR is taller and has long blonde hair, a dress that starts about two inches above her navel and ends about two inches below, while Lety is dressed like one of the women waiting in line for radishes or cheese in a WWII-era photo from Russia. This is her interview look? I don't think it's her ugliness keeping her away from getting hired, it might be that she dresses like a bag lady, albeit a bag lady who found a couple quarters and washed her clothes.

Lopez (Personnel chief) and some other guy who I forget are performing the interview. It takes about three minutes, they recoil at the sight of Lety and then silently thank God the table is not a glass top and see-through as they openly ogle JR. In today's business environment, this guy Lopez would get fired in about five minutes, especially with him being in the Human Resources area to begin with. Lopez gives us the first taste of his unique tic - he licks his fingers and then brushes off his shoulder, no it doesn't look anywhere near as cool as when Jay-Z does it in his video for the song "brush your shoulders off", and then he uses the same spittle and dandruff/dust covered hand to smooth down the three hairs he has left on the top of his head. All in all, thoroughly disgusting. This is his trademark move I guess, it's what he does every time he leaves the room, sort of like snapping his fingers like a diva, but a little (very little) more manly. Anyway, I digress - they talk to the girls about their resumes, first they smile and let JR talk and just nod at whatever she says, then Lety tries to get in and they brush her off. Then they hire JR before Lety is even out of the room.

Lety heads home and commiserates with Tomas some more about being ugly and unemployed.

Lopez shows Fernando the resumes of the two women. Due to her struggles with getting a job, Lety stopped attaching her photo to her resume. Fernando is NOT pleased with Lopez having hired JR. Lopez says "I thought you liked the shapely ladies" with a little whistle and a hand gesture in the place of 'shapely ladies.' Fernando says "yes, but this (whistle/gesture) is the BEST FRIEND OF MY GIRLFRIEND." He's very concerned. Marcia, his fiancee, has obviously sent JR in as a spy to keep track of Fernando. He seems to have a girlfriend for every day of the week, in spite of the fact that his fiancee is rich, owns part of his company and is basically responsible for him having his sweet job, and also happens to be totally hot. Some men don't know how good they have it. (Personal side note - I know EXACTLY how good I have it!)
Well, on the other hand, Marcia is conniving and apparently a little dumb, since she is convinced that she can reform Fernando of his philandering ways.

Fernando confronts Marcia about it, Marcia manages to put him in a corner where he has no choice but to hire JR, not hiring her is basically an admission that he wants to have the freedom to run hoochies in and out of his office all day. Then he has an idea - he'll hire JR to sit out front and look pretty, and he'll also hire Lety (who he hasn't met yet) to take the little storeroom off of his office and do some real work. He was very impressed with her resume and is convinced that she'll do a great job.

Back at Lety's house, the phone rings, it's Lopez telling Lety to come back in, they want to talk to her again. She goes in, each person in the company, regardless of whether or not they've seen her before, manages to comedically recoil as they see her face. The funniest reaction is that of Luigi Lombardi, the in-house talent scout/photographer/videographer and all around 'light in the loafers' guy. He turns around and is face to face with Lety and says "Oh my God!" in English, with a great accent. The actor here is obviously not gay in real life, he plays the stereotypical gay creative type so well, I think a real gay actor wouldn't be so over the top. He's hilarious and a great character. Lety gets upstairs to Fernando's office and even though he recoils back into tripping on his desk when he sees her, he figures he can lock her in the back room and be ok. He hires her.

My lunch hour is almost over so I'll stop here for today. I didn't realize I was so verbose. Hopefully it's entertaining reading, I look forward to your comments. If you prefer something more short and to the point, please let me know. Otherwise, thanks for letting me prattle on. Back soon with more.

Chris

Labels: fea-e

Hello all - I'm going to take a stab at occasionally posting some La Fea recaps. Melinama said anything is better than nothing, so I'll give it a shot. Just a quick intro, I'm a gringo from IL, 34 years old, my formal Spanish education was in high school 20 years ago. However, I'm now married to a beautiful Mexican woman so my Spanish education has been re-started. Part of my homework is watching an hour of Spanish TV each night, it started with Alborada. My search for a little help with translation led me to the Alborada recaps, y la la la, here we are.
Just to get started, here are the main characters in the show -

Leticia (Lety) - The main character, the ugly duckling. Anyone with internet access (all of us, duh) can look up the actress and see that of course she's not so fea after all. The makeup people for the show did a pretty good job of making her look bad, but really even with this look she isn't as "fea, pero FEA" as the characters on the show like to say she is. However, the Groucho Marx eyebrows really help ugly her up. There is also a smear of what looks like ash above her lip to give her that nice moustache look. Anyway, Lety has a Master's degree in finance or business or something like that, she's sooo smart, etc etc, but nobody will hire her because she's so ugly. Apparently these employers all live in Spanish TV land where every woman looks like J Lo... Oh wait! They do! The show starts with Lety getting an interview with Conceptos, a big fashion photography/video studio (I think that's what they do). The company has models drifting through all the time, I think they are there for photo shoots and videos, things like that. The other person who shows up for the interview is...

Alicia- AKA Jessica Rabbit. Alicia is a standard hot dumb blonde, tongues are wagging from all the men when she's around. She gets hired for her looks and connections, Lety also gets hired for her skill. They were both hired by...

Fernando - Fernando is the president of Conceptos, his father previously ran the company and is retiring. He is getting married to Marcia. Fernando is a major league womanizer.

Marcia - Fernando's fiancee, partial owner of the company. Her father was Fernando's father's co-owner before dying in an accident.

Omar - VP of the company, but President of the Lusting After Alicia crew. A horrible influence on Fernando, Omar calls him daily from some bar where he always happens to have some extra babe sitting there pining away for Fernando.

Lety's Mom and Dad - Mom is nice and sweet, Dad is horribly over-protective and is convinced that Lety is 30 seconds away from getting mauled by horny guys at any given time. Being her father has made him blind to her plainness I guess.

Tomas - Lety's male counterpart and best friend. A huge nerd who is also highly educated but unemployable due to his horrible look.

This about covers the major players - I'll try and get some stories up soon and within those the minor players will be introduced. Also, I'm new at this, so I haven't figured out how to put pictures in yet. Hopefully you won't all get too impatient with my learning. See you soon!

Chris

Labels: fea-e, synopsis-cast

Hi,
We're getting a few requests for recaps of La Fea Mas Bella, is anybody who's watching it game to catch the fans up?

Labels: fea-e

La fea más bella could be translated as "The Ugly Duckling". It is an amusing store of love and triumph over adversity in which Lety, the heroine, shows intelligence, will power and a positive attitude in overcoming obstacles, developing professionally and finding true love.

Lety is modest, shy, romantic and intelligent, but not good looking. With her parents' help (Erasmo and Julieta) she has managed to study economics and has earned a graduate degree with honors in finance. Her only friend and confidant is Tomás, with whom she shares her troubles and her joys. They offer each other mutual support.

For Lety, being unattractive has never been an obstacle in her determination to get ahead. Sadly, she discovers that all her university achievements are not enough; she is rejected as an executive because of her looks. But she needs to work, and she accepts a job she is overqualified for — as a secretary at "Conceptos," a prominent fashion house.

"Conceptos" was founded by two good friends, Humberto Mendiola and Julián Villaroel. Soon afterwards, unfortunately, Mrs. and Mrs. Villaroel were killed in an accident, and Humberto and his wife Teresita (Fernando's parents) have taken over the upbringing of their orphaned children: Ariel, Marcia and Ana Leticia Villaroel, part heirs of the successful company.

Now that Humberto is about to retire, Ariel and Fernando are vying for the presidency of "Conceptos." Fernando is a young, brilliant and sophisticated executive who wins by the vote of only one stockholder, Marcia, his fiancée.

The project that Fernando presents to show his suitability for the post is ambitious, but not totally practical, and could risk the future of the business. Besides, the intelligent and arrogant Ariel watches him closely for any chance to wrest the coveted post from him.

Lety is competing with the beautiful Alicia Ferreira for the secretarial job. Alicia is very attractive, but frivolous and totally lacking in job experience. However, she is a close friend of Marcia, who needs her to keep an eye on her wayward fiancée.

Fernando refuses to be pressured, and expresses his preference for Lety. Lety is the best candidate, but Marcia insists on Alicia, since Lety does not have the looks for the job. Finally, both women are hired; Alicia, at triple Lety's salary, will work in public relations in the reception area, and Lety will have a tiny cubicle located in Fernando's own offices, managing the computer, the phones, the files, etc., and especially Fernando's schedule and private matters.

Lety, captivated by Fernando because of his defense of her against the others, becomes his unconditional ally in covering up his private pecadillos, which brings down the wrath of Marcia and Alicia.

Lety will endure mockery and disdain with the support of her fellow secretaries of "The Ugly Club." ("El Club de las Feas"): Irmita, the oldest and wisest; Sara, the skinny old maid; Paula María, a single mother; Lola, a woman abandoned by her husband; Martha, the fat girl, and Simón the messenger boy, unconditional friend of the girls of the Club. They all share funny adventures among the lights, the cameras, the gorgeous models and the glamour of the place.

But Lety's job at "Conceptos" has barely begun and, although she has her boss' complete trust, her future there is already in doubt, because she has secretly fallen in love with him. She will have to decide whether to continue supporting him by helping him manage very complicated financial matters.

Fernando, on the other hand, will begin to doubt her true feelings and her ambitions for power.

As we will see, there will be many surprises, and an unexpected change will turn the ugly duckling into a dream of beauty.

With a stellar cast and an atmosphere of fun, "La fea más bella" is refreshing in its positive approach to meeting challenges and overcoming obstacles.

Labels: fea-e, synopsis-cast