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Saturday, December 31, 2005

Alborada, telenovela recap, second installment

The telenovela "Alborada" is my constant companion weekday nights - it's on Univision at 9 pm. Here is a second recap; the first is here. Turn on the Spanish subtitles, as I do, and improve your language skills. But if for some reason you are NOT watching "Alborada," you better just skip right along to some other post.

We left Hipolita in a house of ill-repute, her hand being stroked suggestively by Count Diego, who has had her locked in and intends her to be the latest of his victims.

She escapes and goes to see the villainess Doña Juana. (That wouldn't have been my choice.)

Juana gives Hipolita a choice: go back to Panama (to jail, to your homosexual husband, and to your demonic mother-in-law) or go live at the convent - without your child. Hipolita chooses the convent. Her maid and son go back to Las Tunas to the home of Hipolita's wussy mother and brutal stepfather.

Due to her illegitimacy, Hipolita is made a servant at the convent. She asks to serve her own half-sister Catalina - who, we discover, is an angry and unwilling novice, recently bundled off to the nunnery to save the expense of a dowry.

I couldn't find a picture of Catalina (right) in her nun's outfit. You'll have to imagine the wimple.


Catalina is in love with the badly-coiffed and badly-moustached Father Cristobal, Luis's bosom buddy. Cristobal makes googly eyes at Catalina, too.

Shame on him! He's a priest!

Catalina hates her half-sister Hipolita for having stained the family honor by being born illegitimate.


Meanwhile, Luis's fussy hysterical wife Esperanza, who has been taking a potion to make her ready for pregnancy, still needs her husband to bed her, which he refuses to do, having been warned that another pregnancy will kill her. She's desperate because her readiness-potion (purchased from a cigar-smoking black voodoo lady in a tent) expires in a couple of days.

She therefore goes back to the cigar-smoking black voodoo lady in the tent. She buys a love potion and puts an extra-heavy dose in a glass of wine, asking Luis to come to her boudoir.

He comes, and they (Luis and Esperanza) have their usual unsatisfactory argument ("I want to have a baby" "But it will kill you to be pregnant again") and he leaves without having touched the wine. Or his wife.

Now, the evil Count Diego has already decided that HE will do the deed, if his cousin Luis won't. If Diego gets Esperanza pregnant, he has the double pleasure of cuckolding Luis and also making it impossible for the marriage to be annulled as Luis wants.

So, coming to Esperanza's boudoir with evil intent, Diego drinks the love potion and then ravishes her.

Later that night the potion almost kills Diego; he retches endlessly and the palace is in an uproar. Esperanza, though a quivering mess, cannily has her maid wash up the tainted glass.

Doña Juana falls apart sobbing over her drunken philandering retching wretch of a son. Her actual genuine sobbing shows our hero Don Luis (right) yet again that his supposed mother Juana loves his cousin Diego more than she loves him, her supposed son (but don't forget, Juana switched the babies at birth and Diego is her actual son...)

Diego recovers. Luis and Cristobal continue investigating the provenance of a locket Hipolita sold to raise a bit of cash.

Any questions?

You can find ALL my Alborada recaps listed in the right sidebar, just above the elephant!

to be continued...


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17 Comments:

At 9:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Im rich, why not you?

 
At 12:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, OMG!!! I luv u 4 writing this plot summary for Alborada!!!! I know that might sound kinda strange but i do!! I wanted to watch another novela with fernando and ernesto because they were in Amor Real (which I absolutely love!!!!) but i couldn't follow this one as i don't speak spanish and i don't know how to turn on the subtitles on my tv!!!! lol...anyways than u, thank u, thank u~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll keep checking this website again!!!!!! and again.. and again.....

 
At 9:04 AM, Blogger melinama said...

You're welcome. If I can keep watching, I will post a weekly summary each weekend.

 
At 8:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would be so grateful if you could!!!! I will keep watching too but I'll look to you for some clarification. Oh, by the way, my mom says Cristobal is a brother, not a priest because she heard him being called "Hermano." :)

 
At 8:54 PM, Blogger melinama said...

What's the difference between a "brother" and a "father" in the church? (I don't have any experience with this, so I thought they were more or less the same, sorry I got it wrong.)

 
At 9:29 PM, Blogger Essay said...

a "father" is an ordained priest, a "brother" isn't. at least, thats what i think it is, i've forgotten my catholic school education ^-^' anyway, thank you for this summary, i'm trying to follow the novela along for my spanish class and this defintely fills in some of the gaps I wasn't getting. Muchas gracias!

 
At 12:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is the difference between a brother and a priest?

A brother is a layman who commits himself to Christ by the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, who lives in religious community, and who works in nearly any job: teacher, cook, lawyer, etc. Brothers are not sacramental ministers.
Got the info here:
http://www.vocations.com/vocfaq.html#Brothers
and Thanks for the update en la novela.

 
At 8:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey deana so, you can watch the navelas dirctly from Mexico and not delayed like they are here? whats gonna happen next?

 
At 10:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good job with the recap! I also understood that Luis was concerned that his wife could be killed if it was discovered that she lied about the virgin Mary coming to her in a vision/dream because he suspects that she was lying. She is also is afraid of what will happen to her if it is discovered that she was lying.
About the "cheesy" clothes, they are period clothes designed to demonstrate social position during that period of time in Mexico. Anyway, Luis/Colunga looks great in his attire :)

Sarah in CT

 
At 11:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

HI! I wanted to clarify that Hipolita and her maid escaped her husband and mother in-law as soon as she found out that she was pregnant. Her mother in-law died and thinking Hipolita never conceived a child. Hipolita is not aware of her mother in-law's death, since she escaped before this occured. Hipolita and her maid worked in a whore house as maids this way her mother in-law never traced her. 3 years later Hipolita with her child and maid travel to mexico to find the father of her child.

 
At 12:57 PM, Blogger melinama said...

If the mother-in-law is dead, why did Hipolita keep saying she didn't want to be sent back to Panama to face her demon of a mother-in-law? Wasn't it Hipólita's GRANDMOTHER who died?

 
At 1:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Like I said before, The Mother-in-law died about 2-3 years after Hipolita escaped. Therefore Hipolita has no knowledge of her death and thinks she is still alive.And yes Hipolita's Grandmother died shortly after she got married. Her husband nor her mother-in-law knew that Hipolita was pregnant. Hipolita pretented to have her period by placing chicken blood on her sanitary rags.

 
At 10:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I missed Friday, January 13,2006 episode of Alborada. Does anyone out there know where I can get a copy of it.

 
At 5:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi all, I would like to know on what TV station you watch Alborada, I see it in the spanish channel and have talked to friends about it but they do not speak spanish and they would like to watch it. And a "Brother" in the cathilic church is some one that has started the pristhood and it will take him 8 years to become a prist. I used to be a brother or "fray" as we are colled in my country.

 
At 5:10 PM, Blogger melinama said...

I watch on Univision, with the Spanish subtitles turned on.

 
At 10:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi this is the first time i visit this page. I watch Alborada in Spanisch on Univision. I love it, though it is sometimes a little bit difficult to understand because my own language is Dutch and I learned Spanisch in school and lived on an island close to Venezuela. I love it that I can catch up on things though by reading all these comments in Englisch. Thank you all

 
At 1:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just wanted to know if Alborada is availible in Italian {dubbed}i'm in Australia and there are so many brillant Spanish and Mexican tv series i used to watch them through tarbs but that closed down,,can you offer any ideas...

 

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