Alborada, telenovela recap, fourth installment

Here's the Alborada recap for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Scroll to the bottom for previous episodes.

Wednesday opened with Luis's "mother" Doña Juana being told that Agustín - good-for-nothing aristocrat, Juana's former love, father to both Hipólita and Esperanza - is dead.

Juana is genuinely shocked; having Augustín killed was the evil Count Diego's plan, not hers.

She has to cancel her big party for the regidor, wasting all those delicious stuffed hummingbirds and gilded swans' tongues she had had prepared for the feast.

Everybody attend's Agustín's funeral. Gasco fences, for a pretty penny, the stuff he robbed out of Agustín's pocket when he murdered him on Count Diego's orders.

Esperanza, our hero's wife and our heroine Hipólita's half-sister, has now totally lost it. She is convinced God killed her father Agustín to punish her for her lies and adultery. She wants to confess, but her servant Mirtha convinces her out of it. Esperanza becomes catatonic with guilt and depression; she is sent back home to hang out with her brothers for a while.

Doña Juana now is starting to worry about her "nephew" (actually her son) Count Diego. She sees she has created a monster: she raised him with this lie about his parentage and included him in all her scheming. Now that Diego is a grown up drunken philanderer with a taste for being Count, he's inclined to kill anybody who endangers his false position.

Wednesday ended with a botched escape from the convent. Hipólita, who had previously refused Luis's and then Isabel's offers to spring her from this imprisonment, has decided instead to ask Martin, who has much less power (or sense) than the other two. At night she drags her heavy suitcase through the garden and Martin drops a rickety ladder into position and hoists suitcase and woman over the convent wall.

However, Luis had gotten wind of this and convinced his former prostitute Perla (who was leaving the convent in the morning anyway to go live in the house Luis bought her as a goodbye present) to delay Martin and Hipólita in their flight.

Luis, Marcos, and Cristóbal (disguised as a civilian) ride up on horseback just as Martin, Hipólita, and Perla are watching a bunch of soldiers galloping toward them from another direction. A ruckus begins. A soldier shoots Perla, and Martin kills him. Another soldier is wounded and there is much fleeing.

Thursday began with soldiers coming to arrest Luis for killing that officer, but Luis can't be found; he has taken all the fugitives to an almost deserted farm which had belonged to his dead "uncle" (who was actually his father), the previous Count of Guevara.

Hipólita is anguished and embarrassed that her botched escape has led to Perla's being wounded and all of them being chased by the law.

Back at the estate, Doña Juana is furious: "one is drunk and embroiled with prostitutes while the other kills an officer and steals a woman from a convent." Diego insists that Juana not intercede for Luis, hoping this time Luis will be jailed and maybe even removed from play permanently.

However, Luis's team - Cristóbal and the cute whiskey-voiced Aunt Isabel (who reassures Cristóbal that she has "a lot of friends and a lot of silver") - will make sure Luis gets sprung.

Doña Juana knows Luis is going to get out one way or the other. She warns Diego that people will get suspicious if Luis's "mother" and cousin do nothing to help in this hour of need.

In response, Diego gets mad and throws things on the floor.
Cristóbal, as an eye-witness, would actually be able to get Luis off the murder charge since he saw Martin shoot the fatal bullet. However, he would have to admit to being there! Friars are not supposed to help women escape a convent and brawl with soldiers. Well. Cristóbal takes some time out to talk to Catalina at the convent.

Catalina's mother is the wimpy Asunción and her father is the brutal Francisco.

Catalina's brother is Andrés, who is now a personal servant to Diego (meaning he has to drink the wine first in case it's poisoned). Andrés is generally found making goo-goo eyes at Isabel's new servant Marina. Andrés is also the one who - on Gasco's order - smothered Lázaro to death with a pillow because Lázaro was not dying fast enough of his putrefying wound.

Since Hipólita is Asuncion's illegitimate daughter (by the recently murdered Agustín), she is half-sister to Catalina. Catalina blames Hipólita for Catalina's "incarceration" in the convent, even though the actual reason she's been stowed there is: her (Catalina's) father the brutal Francisco was too cheap to give her a dowry and so nobody would marry her.

Cristóbal has been making goo-goo eyes at Catalina and vice-versa whenever they pass in the hall. Now he asks her if she's ever been in love. "Of course not, why do you ask?" "Because this life is not for you, you should have a husband at your side, and children." He offers to get her out. She asks, "have you ever done this for any other novice?" He hasn't. More goo-goo eyes.

Luis and his henchman Martin, purportedly on the same team, are doing that antler-bashing thing guys do because they both want Hipólita. Of course, Luis has all the money and power and besides, as it is inelegantly put, "he was there first."

Martin is getting madder and madder. Luis is way jealous that Hipólita seems to trust and like Martin more. However, her antipathy toward Luis (whom she sees as "meddling") is melting a bit. She even rests her head on his shoulder. Martin sees and fumes.

Luis tells Hipólita the recently assassinated Agustín was her father. When she realizes Agustín was also Luis's father-in-law, she says, "you and I are sort of relatives" and starts laughing/sobbing hysterically.

Asuncion (right) gets a letter, late, informing her that Agustín, the man who seduced her and left her pregnant with Hipólita, is dead. She cries.

Her brutal husband Francisco shouts: "So HE was the pig who boinked you? Why didn't you tell me? Do you realize how much money I could have gotten out of him if I'd known sooner?"

All obligations regarding Hipólita are now ended. That means Francisco can eject Hipólita's maid and Rafael (Hipólita's son by Luis), who are locked up at his place.

Aunt Isabel's new servant Marina (right) asks Isabel if she's ever been in love. Isabel: yes, I was once very much in love - with the previous Count of Guevara - "but he was engaged to another. He was very sexy -- and a lot like Luis!"

For a woman who usually figures out everyone's secrets, Isabel's being pretty dense about Luis's parentage.

There's a funny lunch al fresco at the hideout. Luis hisses at Martin: I'm tired of your macho machinations and stop up mooning over Hipólita!

Hipólita comes to lunch, saying that the wounded prostitute, Perla, is doing better.
Luis sends Martin away and Luis and Hipólita have a stilted conversation. Luis asks Hipólita if she loves her husband, and she asks him if he loves his wife, and then they go into the garden and she shouts self-pityingly that her life has been really bad: she was forced to marry an impotent man, and her demonic mother-in-law got her pregnant by a horrible stranger!

She says the baby is dead but Luis does not believe her. Luis asks, not at all casually, how she feels about the guy who boinked her in the dark, and she yells that she hates him, of course! (She still doesn't know it was Luis.)

Luis heaves his chest with anxious breaths and makes a frown line appear between his eyes. He is acting, see?

Friday: At the fugitives' hideout, Martin jealously shouts and stamps all over the place. Felipe (Martin's father) is furious with his obstinate son; they trade insults.

In an expository moment Don Luis looks fondly at a picture of his "uncle" (actually his father), musing, "he looked a lot like me, didn't he?"

At the convent, Catalina begs her mom Asunción: "if you love me, get me out of here." She admits to being in love. We know it's Friar Cristóbal...

Meanwhile, Juana is embarrassed that her high-society friends are confidently expecting her to get her "son" Luis out of trouble - which Diego has forbidden her to do. Diego says: "Tell them you're tired of dealing with his *&^$" and Juana replies, "mothers never tire of their sons' *&^%$ - and the proof is me with you."

Diego wants to try killing Luis again (third attempt) but this time Doña Juana demurs. Diego: "Are you developing affection for him?" Juana: "No, but I am afraid of Divine Justice. So far my hands are clean of blood, I don't want to stain them. I'm also afraid for YOUR soul." Diego snickers.

Cristobal and Isabel, team Luis, confer. Cristobal wants to go to the regidor and admit he was an eyewitness to the shootout and can testify that Luis is innocent.

Isabel points out they'll probably defrock him. He says he doesn't want to be a sacerdote any more. Nonetheless, Isabel prefers to buy the regidor off. Cristobal: "But Count Diego has already bought the regidor." Isabel: "I have much more money than Diego. I have more money than anybody knows."

Hipólita finally admits that Rafael is her son! Immediately Don Luis sends Felipe to Las Tuñas to fetch Rafael and the maid (Ada) and take them to Cristóbal's house.

Much as Luis wants Rafael and Adalgisa under his care, the brutal Francisco (Hipólita's stepfather) wants to be rid of them - he visits the estate to complain of these two good-for-nothing mouths he has to feed. This gives Diego an idea.

Diego orders Gasco to STEAL Rafael and hide him in his (Gasco's) house. My son Zed was amused at the idea of Gasco taking care of a three year old.

Diego has a creepy brown mask he wears when he launches his trickiest ideas; then he giggles.

Andrés (son of wimpy Asunción and brutal Francisco, brother to unwilling novice Catalina and half-brother to our heroine Hipolita) reveals to his father his state of utter confusion. Juana has asked Andrés to spy on Diego, Diego has asked Andrés to spy on I forget who, and Andrés is just not bright enough to handle all this intrigue. He's in way over his head. He tells his dad that Diego boasted of boinking a married woman. (That was Esperanza, Luis's wife!)

Martin, who had stomped out in a fury (people seek him unsuccessfully in the moonlight amongst trees and owls), shows up the next day in time to see Luis and Hipolita having an altercation. He leaps in and is promptly humiliated by Luis in serious antler bashing.

In a more tranquil moment - Luis, after putting his foot in it with Hipólita numerous times, asks her to accompany him on a pleasant excursion next day to a neighboring farm. As a peace offering. She agrees!

Lastly, Perla tells Martin that in the convent Hipólita had confessed to being in love with him (Martin). Martin is inflamed.

We viewers are told to tune in for a "Monday of Fire." I think there will be some kissing. Also, Luis will throw a stone into the water very angrily. I saw it in the preview.

All my Alborada recaps are listed in the right sidebar, just above the elephant. In order!

Amor Real
Entre el Amor y el Odio

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