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Saturday, February 11, 2006

Telenovela Alborada, #15

This is one in a series of recaps of the Univision telenovela Alborada.
In order to read the whole post, you must now click "read the rest" at the bottom of this summary! If you are new, please visit the recaps in ORDER - see the bottom of this post for information.

Friday: Luis tells Felipe, as they ride through pretty countryside, that if he had met Antonio under other circumstances, he would have liked him. He's not happy, though, thinking of Antonio trying to make babies with Hipólita. "I know he's her husband and has boinking rights, but I was FIRST in her life..." This makes me like Luis less.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST!

Having found out that her daughter is alive, Victoria is determined to go out right away and find her "or I'll feel like a jailed tiger all night." Her mom Sara tries to stop her - "it's one thing to be impetuous in a god-forsaken podunk, but here in the city it's dangerous to attract attention." Victoria visits Doña Elvira's house with a trumped up story; she discovers that Elvira took this adopted daughter - named Marina - to the Guevara Palace in order to have one less mouth to feed. Elvira planned to give Marina to Luis to be his very own whore, but he didn't want her, so Doña Isabel took her on.

Later Victoria fumes to her mother Sara: "My daughter, a whore?" "Isabel's a good woman, maybe Marina is safe with her." Victoria wants to swoop right over there and take Marina (whose name used to be Sofía) away, but Sara reminds her: "Many years may have passed, but the hatred of our race endures. If people find out she's a Jew, it will go badly with us."

Cristóbal is hoping Luis and Felipe get back from the beach soon enough to be his seconds in the duel. Catalina is wretched, blaming herself for Cristóbal's imminent death by sword. "It's the worst day of my life, I should never have left the convent." The brutal Francisco is very uninterested to hear that his stepdaughter Hipólita is near death, he only wants to hear how his blackmailing scheme is going. "Juana wants to see you tomorrow."

Juana rants to her sister-in-law Isabel that Diego has lost his mind, gets crazier every day. Isabel: "He acts like he's king of the world, caray, caray!, he's turned into a demon." Juana gets tearful and this makes Isabel feel tender and want to help - can the two of them, working together, stop the duel?

However, when in a lapse of logic Juana proposes that the best thing would be for Isabel to forgive the promissory note - "we'd pay you a little on it, of course!" Isabel draws away saying: "Don't try to blackmail me - pay me the money or give me the palace!"

The midwife tells Esperanza she, and the unborn baby, are out of the woods. The bleeding has stopped. But she must be peaceful, eat well, get plenty of rest. [Good advice for all of us - Ed.] Mirtha wants to go back to the cigar-smoking gypsy and get some healing potion but Esperanza says no.

Gasca's ransom note arrives. He wrote it with his left hand so nobody would recognize his handwriting. Juana, condescendingly: "I didn't even know you COULD write!" Gasca, Modesta and the baby sneak out through the kitchen and go off to Valverdes. A guy in a cape that great shouldn't have to carry suitcases, it spoils the whole effect. Juana, dressed like Lady Macbeth, waves goodbye in the dark.

RAFAEL MADE SOUNDS IN THIS SCENE!

Juana is going kind of soft on Rafael. "I'd like to have a REAL grandson of my own, by Diego, but I fear it's impossible. The only real one is you, Rafael. You look so much like my brother (the former Count). I'm beginning to love you too much."

In the fields, Luis is staring at the campfire and passing his hand over it. Felipe says: "Ever since I met you, you've been fascinated by fire." "Yes, it's something I can't control and don't understand - a mixture of attraction and fear." "Maybe it's related to that SCAR ON YOUR LEG." "Yes, my mother told me that scar was from an accident when I was playing with Diego." Or maybe, he muses, he's fascinated by the stories of his aunt and uncle (really his parents) dying in that fire way back when...

Ramon and the mute (the first kidnappers, who took Hipólita to the beach) are grumbling about being sent by Gasca ("I don't like that guy") to find Sara, La Poderosa. They run, coincidentally, into Sara's daughter Victoria who reminds them it's their fault the beach settlement was abandoned. They are invited to tell their story to Sara the next day.

Catalina and her brother Andrés talk about Marina, who loves Andrés. In case you've forgotten, Marina was raped by the demonic Diego when she went to his chambers to protect this very Andrés! Who now says: "Could I be with a woman who's been with another man? No, she's no longer the one for me."

Perla overheard this and says: "That's men for you, they'll sleep with whomever, but then they only want to marry holy virgins!" (It's true that Diego took Andrés to the brothel.)

Catalina's father, who's always going on about honor, comes through the courtyard and, seeing Perla for the first time, gives her a lingering and lascivious look which she returns. Blech!

Marcos urges Cristóbal to call for a pistol duel, since Diego is so good with swords. Pondering the kidnapping of Rafael, they muse that, if those were just delinquents in soldier suits, then Sara may know of them. They resolve to visit her.

Francisco buttonholes Cristóbal yet again and yammers on about his daughter's honor being compromised. "Who'll want to marry her after this?" Cristóbal should have said: "Who would marry a daughter with an awful father like you?" I want something REALLY BAD to happen to Francisco.

Luis finally gets home. "Welcome back sir, your true love Hipólita has been injured onto death and your son has been kidnapped." Hipólita continues to groan, "Who are you? Who am I? Where am I?"

I post the new update every Wednesday and Saturday morning. All Alborada recaps are now listed in the sidebar to the right - below the small picture of Modesta and Doña Juana, just above the elephant. Click on the numbers (ONE TWO THREE ... ETC) to find them!

Amor Real
Entre el Amor y el Odio


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11 Comments:

At 2:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't want Alborada to end - I want some immediate happiness for some of the characters - but, what will we all do when it's over?

 
At 1:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're wonderful for doing this. I rush to your website twice a week to read you. I am nominally conversant in Spanish and watch the show nightly with my Spanish-speaking northern New Mexico husband, but we still miss quite a bit. So thanks for all the clarification you give us. Great work!

 
At 2:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was grossed out to watch Perla giving eyes to Francisco right after she had tried to justify herself/occupation to Catalina. She said she was sold as a child to the bordello and that she was much like Catalina's friend Marina... An innocent that was taken advantage of. Then she gave eyes to that abusive pig Francisco and asked who he was! She showed that she isnt just some innocent victim but a willing participant in being a whore.

Granted I cant imagine how awful that was for many women of that time to be turned into whores just because they were orphaned. But Perla was given an opportunity to make a new life and she is choosing to keep her old ways.

Great story! Thank you for doing the recap! Its fun to read your notes and then read others posts on this incredible telenovela.

 
At 6:01 PM, Blogger Jean said...

Great job as usual, Melinama.
It's not kind but when Esperanza is crying and wailing, she looks like a frog.

In this month's edition of People en Español on a page called, Lo Último (the Latest), there is a picture of Antonio with the headline, "Batting for the other team" and it says that, "As was demonstrated at the Golden Globe awards, confronting homosexual characters is the order of the day and not to be left behind, even the telenovela Alborada includes a character described as 'afeminado.'

Has anyone noticed how Antonio is always touching his hair? Is this supposed to be part of his 'afeminado' characteristics or is he just afraid his wig is going to fall off? It's rather irritating.

 
At 2:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the recaps - my Spanish isn't good enough to follow a lot of what's going on.

The name Alborada - you say it's a poetic word for dawn. Could this refer to Aurora, Luis's real mother?

 
At 8:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes njmotmot, maybe we should call her EspeRANA? I was going to mention Antonio's hair too. He's driving me crazy because I keep waiting for him to scooch that lacquered rug off to one side!

 
At 10:52 PM, Blogger Jean said...

Very good, Sylvia!

 
At 11:02 PM, Blogger Jean said...

On Monday's episode, Isabel referred to Diego as having, "mucho ruido y pocas nueces." Literally, this means, "a lot of noise and few nuts." Such an interesting expression called for investigation. My Spanish teacher said that it comes from the noise made in breaking open a nut shell and then you find that there's no nut inside or a bad one. All flash and no substance we might say. Interestingly, this phrase is used as the spanish title of Shakespeare's play, Much Ado about Nothing.

 
At 9:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love this story, but I have a question, do any of you think Diego will end up having some kind of occult relationship with Antonio? Diego is capable of anything and have you seen the way Antonio looks at him? hmmmm...

 
At 2:15 PM, Blogger melinama said...

I agree that Diego has made some VERY SUGGESTIVE comments towards Antonio and given him some of what "Television Without Pity" calls "gayest look(s) of the episode" BUT I think he's doing it just out of a general perversity - to see if he can (so to speak) get a rise out of Antonio, and maybe he'd like a little sexual excitement of a new kind anyway...

 
At 1:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read in TV y Novelas magazine that Rafael is the nephew of the actress who plays Catalina.

 

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