Alborada, telenovela recap, third installment

So many people are coming here to read about Alborada - and the story is getting so complicated - I've decided not to wait till Saturday for the next installment. Here are Monday and Tuesday for you. Scroll to the bottom to find installments one and two. Corrections welcome.

MONDAY
First. Last week Felipe, our hero Don Luis's favorite henchman, stabbed Lázaro (evil henchman of Gasco, who is evil henchman of our villain Count Diego). Lázaro stabbed first!

The stabbing of Lázarao would not prove much of a crime were Lázaro's putrefying wound to heal, so in order to up the ante, evil Doña Juana and Diego send the evil Gasco to kill his very own henchman, the languishing Lázaro, stone dead. Then Felipe can be nailed as a murderer instead of just an assailant.

Gasco makes his new henchman, Andrés (brother of the unwilling novice Catalina and half-brother of our heroine Hipólita), smother Lázaro with a pillow. Whereupon Felipe is promptly arrested, infuriating Don Luis. "I love bothering my cousin" tee-hees the evil Count Diego.

Second. Remember how the evil Count Diego entered the boudoir of his cousin Luis's silly wife Esperanza last week? His plan: to get her pregnant. Diego slurped down the love potion intended for Luis and then ravished Luis's wife. Then he retched for the rest of the episode.

Monday Diego was feeling much better. He told Esperanza cheerfully: as soon as I get my strength back I'll boink you some more, thereby helping you have a son so you can comply with the Blessed Virgin's intent.

Esperanza is not very bright to begin with, and after concocting that Virgin Mary scam and ingesting fertility potions and then almost killing Diego and all, she's really losing it. She goes to Fray Alvaro, the head of the Inquisition (you really shouldn't mess with a guy like that), planning to nag him some more about Luis's "marital obligations." Instead she impulsively lies and tells the Grand Inquisitor that Luis has already boinked her!

So when Luis shows up for HIS appointment with the Grand Inquisitor, expecting to be scolded, the Inquisitor just says "good work, now wait a few months and see if it takes."

Luis is perplexed and angry but doesn't deny what Esperanza said, fearing she will get burnt at the stake or something if he gives her away. He goes home and yells a lot.

Miscellaneous:

• A new orphan girl named Marina shows up at the estate with her guardian, who can't afford to keep her. Sweet Aunt Isabel, whom I haven't talked about but who is very good at listening behind doors and who loves Don Luis to pieces - and who has a great whiskey voice - decides she'll take the girl on.
  
  
• I haven't mentioned the prostitute, Perla, who has been Don Luis's main source of, uh, comfort through the many years he has not been sleeping with his wife. Don Luis stowed Perla in the convent for a while; now he has bought her a house to compensate, I guess, for the fact that he's no longer going to be accepting her comfort.

TUESDAY
First. At the end of Monday's episode, Don Luis was indignantly shouting and loudly rapping his walking stick on the sheriff's table, insisting that his man, Felipe, be released from prison. This is the aristocrat's method of requesting justice. Felipe eventually gets sprung.

Second. Doña Juana tells her actual son (purported nephew) Count Diego that only Agustín, that libertine of a nobleman, could credibly blow the whistle on her cradle switcheroo. Diego therefore sends his henchman, Gasco, to the town, San Luis, where Agustín lives, to kill him.

Agustín strolls tipsily down the street, taking leave of a friend using Scarlett O'Hara's words: "Tomorrow will be another day." Not for you, Agustín... Gasco implements a successful stabbing. He robs a few coins etc. as he leaves so generic "thieves" will be blamed for the murder.

Third. Meanwhile, coincidentally, Cristóbal (in mufti) and Don Luis also go to San Luis. Their mission: to track down the original purchaser of Hipólita's medallion.

Just as they discover the medallion was made for Agustín, an extra bursts in and announces that the self-same Agustín is dead. Don't feel too bad - he was a licentious old philanderer who even tried to put the moves on his daughter Hipólita! (True, he didn't know he was her dad, but on the other hand. He was old enough to be her father.)

Remember, the now-deceased Agustín is (was) father of that silly poison-pushing vision-concocting adulteress Esperanza as well as our poor bastard heroine Hipólita. They are half-sisters!

Miscellaneous:

• Back at the estate, Doña Juana and many henchpeople are arranging for a lavish party tomorrow night, in honor of the new regidor (a judicial bureaucrat). While Juana is too busy to notice, her son (purported nephew) Count Diego drags his cousin Luis's silly wife Esperanza (see previous paragraph) into his study and boinks her under the table.
  
  
• Luis's Aunt Isabel is, I think, sister of the previous Count. She is wealthy enough to be immune to Juana's machinations. Isabel, who loves Luis to death and has a wonderful whiskey voice, seems to figure out everybody's secrets, but uses them for good.
  
  Isabel went, for instance, to the convent, telling Hipólita "just say the word and I'll spring you." She revealed that she knew Hipólita had a child. Isabel wanted to help but Hipólita was too scared of Juana to say yes.
  
  Isabel also figured out Esperanza was lying when she told the Grand Inquisitor her husband Luis had finally "complied with his marital obligations." Only Esperanza's maid Mirtha knows Esperanza's lie is cover for the boinking with Count Diego and its possible outcome (pregnancy).
  
  Aunt Isabel, hungry for more information, shows her new servant, the orphaned Marina, how one sweetly sucks up to people in order to extract secrets. "Didn't your guardian teach you anything?" After a few pointers, Marina is dispatched to make friends with Mirtha, the "clever mulatta" who is Esperanza's henchwoman.
  
  
• Tuesday ends with Luis perplexed: why was his "mother" Juana so adamant that nobody know Agustín was Hipólita's father? Why did Hipólita's arrival in town terrify the dragon lady so?

You can find ALL my Alborada recaps listed in the sidebar on the right, just above the elephant! Here are the first few, though:
Alborada part one
Alborada part two
Alborada part four

Amor Real
Entre el Amor y el Odio

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