Telenovela Alborada, #17
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.
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.
The amnesia plotline has swamped our story, which has slowed to a crawl. Actually, I heard the show's producers decided to pick up the out-takes from the cutting-room floor and splice them back in, to pad the series and make it last longer!
I hope Hipólita gets her memory back soon. Her cheerful ignorance and tedious unanswered questions - met with flustered, incompetent lying - are getting on my nerves.
I'm enjoying Diego more and more. He's cutting loose and it's fun to watch.
Wednesday: Luis doesn't like the lies his "mother" is feeding poor amnesiac Hipólita. He says he's learned that lying is bad. He confronts Juana about the kidnapping of Rafael - she vehemently denies having had anything to do with it. Luis later tells Felipe, "I can't accuse my mother of everything! She couldn't be this perverse!"
Luis tells his mother he's been to see La Poderosa, tzarina of the Cuencas delinquents, Sara de Oviedo. Juana recognizes the name, staggers from shock, and flashes back to the same scene of the Oviedos being burned at the stake for being Jews that we saw weeks ago. She asks Gasca to keep tabs on the daughter, Victoria.
Diego tells his "aunt" Juana: "I think it was you who stole Rafael. Don't you think I can have sons? I am going to marry - I'll marry a rich widow who has already born sons. Rafael will be the next Count over my dead body." Actually, isn't that always how the next guy gets to be Count? They are rarely impeached or voted out of office...
Having said this about marrying a widow, Diego eyes the ripe and mature Victoria thoughtfully as she walks past in her lowcut cdress.
Everybody notices that Modesta, who is never more than four feet away from Juana, is absent. Every time you see Juana hugging a stuffed lamb, she is saying: "Without Modesta, I am completely alone."
Felipe tells his wife Carmela, who is again ranting about how Martin's death is Hipólita's fault: "Maybe God will send us another son." Start over again with diapers? No way! Make do with the enchilada-eating Marcos!
Gasca is a double agent, being asked to spy by both Juana and Diego. Ramon, Gasca's henchman, is also a double agent, being asked to spy by Gasca and also by Sara. Gasca, thinking he recognizes Victoria, asks Ramon to find out if she is a Jew, if her mother has a scar and knows Ignacio, etc. Ramon holds out his hand and Gasca gives him an advance, saying "With money, a dog dances."
Another ugly scene with Esperanza, still sobbing gasping and seething with rage about Hipólita. Juana's threats - which now include selling Mirtha to a bordello if Esperanza doesn't come clean - result in Esperanza telling about the gypsy potions and about Diego getting the love filtrate meant for Luis. Juana again threatens her with Fray Alvaro of the Inquisition.
Esperanza whines to Juana, "You never liked me, did you?" "No." "Then why did you marry me to your son?" "I needed a different solution." Hmm? A clue! But a clue to what?
Antonio, in a flaming salmon coat, comes to visit Hipólita, who arranges her bandages prettily prior to his arrival. He tells her he and she were on the verge of getting engaged when she left Panama. He says he wants her to leave this house and go to a hotel, then go back to Panama with him and marry him. "Why don't you want me to be here?" "I'm afraid Luis will get between us. We're humble people who run freely through the fields (?? can you see Antonio running through a field?), while they are dissolute, hypocritical aristocrats."
Cristobal takes Hipólita's bandages off and lets her out of bed. He tells her God must have intended for her to lose her memory. Indeed, this memory-free Hipólita is pretty darn happy. Maybe I should try it.
The duel thing grinds slowly along. Antonio and Rodrigo will be seconds for Diego, Luis and Felipe for Cristóbal. It will be in the garden, pistols, first thing tomorrow. It took an amazing amount of time for them to work that out. They all posture and squint at each other with macho hostility; Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man" called this look "snake eyes."
Victoria extemporizes to Isabel and Marina: she made a deathbed promise to Marina's mother to take care of her, and therefore she wants Marina to leave with her. Victoria comes off, understandably, as a little weird and anxious. She blurts, "Marina's mother was very rich, with her money you can afford lots of servants, whatever." Isabel: "If she was rich, why did she abandon Marina?" "She wasn't abandoned, she was stolen away!"
Marina is frightened by Victoria's vehemence and clings to Isabel, who in turn is indignant. She says Victoria will have to prove she's legit.
Catalina and Asuncion visit Hipólita. Hugs all round, and a feeble little turn around the garden. Diego approaches and flirts with Hipólita. Luis tries to break it up. It's Cristóbal, however, who defuses the situation by telling Hipólita it's time for her to go back to bed. Luis then actually begs Diego to tell if he was the one who robbed the child. Diego says: "I didn't, but what if I had?" "I'd kill you right now."
Thursday: Amnesia, yadda yadda yadda. Felipe tells Hipólita she may be better off without her memory ("Why? What happened to me? I can't remember!") - he wishes he could forget his son was murdered.
Isabel is perplexed when Luis says: "Mother does not remember Victoria." Little Victoria was a fixture, constantly running around the palace, when Sara used to visit Luis's "aunt" (mother) Aurora.
Isabel had not known that Sara was burned, but is intrigued that her burning happened around the time of the big fire.
Luis is delighted when Isabel tells him of the 60,000 gold pesos owed to her by Juana - and that the Palace could be payment for that debt - but is dismayed to hear Isabel has bargained the money away merely to keep Diego silent. She says, "Oh, what's a few pesos, I already have a lot anyway. And you are my only blood relative, son of my brother, I want you should be happy and have kids and carry on the family name."
Luis finds out that Gasca was gone from the palace at the time of Rafael's abduction.
Juana is falling apart without Modesta - she even cries. Are the writers trying to rehabilitate Juana? Is she going to turn out to be a softy of a penitent granny? Say it ain't so! I want her to go out hissing and snarling and have something huge fall on her and squish her!!
Victoria, back at Sara's house, sobs in indignation and despair while telling her mother that Marina doesn't want to come with her. She begs for help and after a lot of begging Sara agrees to meet Isabel (in order to corroborate Victoria's story and give her cred) in the town center at some vague time in the future.
You know how slow this story is moving? It's still yesterday! Both yesterday and today the duel is "tomorrow." Diego practices shooting but his hand shakes (he should lay off the booze before a duel). Cristóbal, on the other hand, easily smashes each bottle his guys set up on the hay bales. Cristóbal's sister in the convent cries and says she is worried and that instead of getting shot to death he should marry and have babies - he's all she has in the world (besides her congregation and God).
Catalina also cries and says she is worried. Cristobal looks at her with love and joy, holds her hand, and says "but we never got to talk about uh, uh, uh -- that book you borrowed."
Luis goes to see the Regidor, who tells him, as he tells everybody: sorry but we're doing all we can. He says Diego also came to see him - about the travelers' documents, which were stolen at the same time as little Rafael. And by the way, the borders are closed and there's a revolution. Luis couldn't care less.
Antonio asks Andrés (still extremely fetching in his waiter outfit) if his father, Francisco, would like to run the vanilla plantation. He calls it "fruit" - friends, is vanilla a fruit, or is this an example of Antonio's ignorance about his investment? Andrés says he'll ask, but that he himself would like to give it a go!
Francisco and Perla give each other smoldering, meaningful looks and go off to the park to be private. Antonio and Andrés were watching. At the park Francisco pumps Perla for info about Luis and Esperanza. He offers to get her a job at a casino.
Sara's spy Higinio tells her that none of "ours" performed the abduction. The perps had uniforms, nice horses, and good firearms. Either it was a gang from out of town, or it really was real guards! He says the head of the guards is very corrupt and would sell his own mother for three pennies.
Esperanza is still clutching her womb and still seething about Hipólita. Mirtha futilely suggests that Esperanza rest as the midwife recommended.
Hipólita's flashback dreams are starting to leak into her waking life. She asks Ada if there is another important man in her life besides Antonio, perhaps Luis? Ada runs away to avoid answering.
Francisco is disdainful when he sees Andrés working at his humble but decent tasks. ("If you'd had guts, you'd have a lot of money as I now do.") Francisco has told his wife that when Catalina marries Cristóbal they'll all be able to go on living for free at the Palacio de Lara and with the blackmail money he'll be able to start a business. He loftily tells Andrés he'll let him work at the business even though Andrés did not help with the blackmailing. Asuncion cries for the shame of it all.
The episode ends with Luis asking God to give Rafael back, with really awful singing in the background.
Friday: Marcos tells Andrés he should swallow his pride and go find Marina - "Don't be a fool, look for her! It doesn't matter if a woman is a whore or a virgin, what matters is if she's good. Look at Esperanza, what a disaster SHE is!"
Juana tells scores of servants, all lined up, that they can't tell Hipólita anything, and also can't tell anybody else anything, should they ask. Thus it is and thus it shall be!
Antonio tells Diego one shouldn't drink so much before the duel. Diego is sad, he has no friends. "I'm rich and powerful and completely alone." "Maybe if you were nicer people would like you." "My life is a constant struggle against Luis. HE has people. All I have is a murderer who stays because I pay him a lot. I like you and Rodrigo, but you're leaving. Poor me."
Isabel reviews with Hipólita how spoiled Diego is and that Luis's "mother" has never been nice to Luis, only to Diego. She then lets slip that, among other misfortunes, Luis has a disappeared son! Oops!
Higinio tells Luis: "None of our lowlifes did the kidnapping. It had to have been somebody with a lot of money to bribe so many real live soldiers!" Luis immediately looks up towards his mother's room and then runs up there and busts in. Juana confuses him totally with a combination of loud denials and crying. Then she frantically produces Gasca's ransom note, which she's been holding for days. She has to answer Luis's questions with a lot of last-minute lame lies. She's in quite a state. [Magnificent scene for this actress.]
"You deserve to be happy, somebody in this family should be happy, your cousin is an utter disaster, you don't understand how hard I've tried to control him." Juana cries and acts like a human being which upsets Luis and causes him to give her an awkward hug! Dang, they ARE rehabilitating her!
Luis reassures Aunt Isabel that she's done him a favor by telling Hipólita about the disappeared Rafael. Luis goes to visit Hipólita - she lets him in even though her chaperone is absent. He tells her the mother of his disappeared son is ... "lost." Good answer. Nice scene. Ada runs off to the laundry to avoid telling Hipólita who the mother of the disappeared infant was!
Felipe finds the ransom note fishy. Since when have kidnappers known how to write letters? And why are the letters all deformed? (Remember, Gasca craftily wrote it with his left hand.) And why did they ask for so little money? Luis is determined to go deliver the money alone.
Mirtha tells Esperanza of the upcoming duel - Esperanza can't decide if it would be good or bad if Diego died...
Ramon and the mute scale a wall to break into Perla's deserted house. These guys are oddly fastidious, complaining about the dust! Despite the dust, they decide to hole up there. Ramon says they are in a "lio arcadio" between La Poderosa and Gasca. (Anybody know what that is?) (Update: perhaps as has been suggested in the comments he really meant "we are in a big ## mess, Arcadio." Tripped up by a missing comma!)
They flip a coin - heads, they'll go with Sara, tails, Gasca. The mute catches it and says it goes to Sara. But Ramon decides they should investigate more and see which side their bread will be best buttered on...
It's the dark before dawn. Everybody prays. Felipe and Luis ride ceremoniously to Cristól's house; stiff, manly hugs all round. As they leave, Catalina cries behind a houseplant. Antonio and Rodrigo go get Diego. Everybody looks really, really spiffy in their black outfits.
Juana defensively tells Gasca she had to give the ransom note to Luis and that Luis himself wants to hand over the money to the kidnapper. Gasca: "But Luis will take the guy by the neck and ask where his son is, and there won't be time to bring Rafael back here. Better I should write another note, saying not Luis, but somebody else should deliver the money." "Good, do it right now." "Your paper is too elegant, better I should do it back at the guardhouse." "And have you found out anything about Sara?" "It's not easy, she's protected by an army of low-lifes. And why do you want to know, anyway?" "I don't pay you to ask questions! You're no white dove, Gasca, you have a long tail to get stepped on! You may think we're in the same situation, but the difference is that my nephew is the Count and I, I am Doña Juana, don't you forget it."
Everybody prays and then dresses in black for the duel. The ladies watch from the landing. Cristóbal gets the first shot. He and Diego stand back-to-back in the center of the bridge and take ten steps away from each other. They turn. Cristóbal intentionally shoots straight up into the air. One could hope Diego would do the same, but instead he shoots Cristóbal in the chest. Applause from Diego's team; choruses of "no puede ser" from the peanut gallery.
Luis lunges at Diego, saying he's a pig and that garbage like him doesn't deserve to be count (hmm, that doesn't sound as good in English as it did in Spanish). Felipe pulls Luis off and the guy who was presiding says "Now now, no off-the-cuff killing right after we've just had a nice duel in proper style."
Juana prays to the Virgin: "You bore a nice boy, but I bore a Lucifer. I'm tired of fighting. Forgive my sins and deliver me from so much evil."
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
Technorati Tags: Telenovela, Alborada, Novela, Summary, Plot
Wednesday: Luis doesn't like the lies his "mother" is feeding poor amnesiac Hipólita. He says he's learned that lying is bad. He confronts Juana about the kidnapping of Rafael - she vehemently denies having had anything to do with it. Luis later tells Felipe, "I can't accuse my mother of everything! She couldn't be this perverse!"
Luis tells his mother he's been to see La Poderosa, tzarina of the Cuencas delinquents, Sara de Oviedo. Juana recognizes the name, staggers from shock, and flashes back to the same scene of the Oviedos being burned at the stake for being Jews that we saw weeks ago. She asks Gasca to keep tabs on the daughter, Victoria.
Diego tells his "aunt" Juana: "I think it was you who stole Rafael. Don't you think I can have sons? I am going to marry - I'll marry a rich widow who has already born sons. Rafael will be the next Count over my dead body." Actually, isn't that always how the next guy gets to be Count? They are rarely impeached or voted out of office...
Having said this about marrying a widow, Diego eyes the ripe and mature Victoria thoughtfully as she walks past in her lowcut cdress.
Everybody notices that Modesta, who is never more than four feet away from Juana, is absent. Every time you see Juana hugging a stuffed lamb, she is saying: "Without Modesta, I am completely alone."
Felipe tells his wife Carmela, who is again ranting about how Martin's death is Hipólita's fault: "Maybe God will send us another son." Start over again with diapers? No way! Make do with the enchilada-eating Marcos!
Gasca is a double agent, being asked to spy by both Juana and Diego. Ramon, Gasca's henchman, is also a double agent, being asked to spy by Gasca and also by Sara. Gasca, thinking he recognizes Victoria, asks Ramon to find out if she is a Jew, if her mother has a scar and knows Ignacio, etc. Ramon holds out his hand and Gasca gives him an advance, saying "With money, a dog dances."
Another ugly scene with Esperanza, still sobbing gasping and seething with rage about Hipólita. Juana's threats - which now include selling Mirtha to a bordello if Esperanza doesn't come clean - result in Esperanza telling about the gypsy potions and about Diego getting the love filtrate meant for Luis. Juana again threatens her with Fray Alvaro of the Inquisition.
Esperanza whines to Juana, "You never liked me, did you?" "No." "Then why did you marry me to your son?" "I needed a different solution." Hmm? A clue! But a clue to what?
Antonio, in a flaming salmon coat, comes to visit Hipólita, who arranges her bandages prettily prior to his arrival. He tells her he and she were on the verge of getting engaged when she left Panama. He says he wants her to leave this house and go to a hotel, then go back to Panama with him and marry him. "Why don't you want me to be here?" "I'm afraid Luis will get between us. We're humble people who run freely through the fields (?? can you see Antonio running through a field?), while they are dissolute, hypocritical aristocrats."
Cristobal takes Hipólita's bandages off and lets her out of bed. He tells her God must have intended for her to lose her memory. Indeed, this memory-free Hipólita is pretty darn happy. Maybe I should try it.
The duel thing grinds slowly along. Antonio and Rodrigo will be seconds for Diego, Luis and Felipe for Cristóbal. It will be in the garden, pistols, first thing tomorrow. It took an amazing amount of time for them to work that out. They all posture and squint at each other with macho hostility; Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man" called this look "snake eyes."
Victoria extemporizes to Isabel and Marina: she made a deathbed promise to Marina's mother to take care of her, and therefore she wants Marina to leave with her. Victoria comes off, understandably, as a little weird and anxious. She blurts, "Marina's mother was very rich, with her money you can afford lots of servants, whatever." Isabel: "If she was rich, why did she abandon Marina?" "She wasn't abandoned, she was stolen away!"
Marina is frightened by Victoria's vehemence and clings to Isabel, who in turn is indignant. She says Victoria will have to prove she's legit.
Catalina and Asuncion visit Hipólita. Hugs all round, and a feeble little turn around the garden. Diego approaches and flirts with Hipólita. Luis tries to break it up. It's Cristóbal, however, who defuses the situation by telling Hipólita it's time for her to go back to bed. Luis then actually begs Diego to tell if he was the one who robbed the child. Diego says: "I didn't, but what if I had?" "I'd kill you right now."
Thursday: Amnesia, yadda yadda yadda. Felipe tells Hipólita she may be better off without her memory ("Why? What happened to me? I can't remember!") - he wishes he could forget his son was murdered.
Isabel is perplexed when Luis says: "Mother does not remember Victoria." Little Victoria was a fixture, constantly running around the palace, when Sara used to visit Luis's "aunt" (mother) Aurora.
Isabel had not known that Sara was burned, but is intrigued that her burning happened around the time of the big fire.
Luis is delighted when Isabel tells him of the 60,000 gold pesos owed to her by Juana - and that the Palace could be payment for that debt - but is dismayed to hear Isabel has bargained the money away merely to keep Diego silent. She says, "Oh, what's a few pesos, I already have a lot anyway. And you are my only blood relative, son of my brother, I want you should be happy and have kids and carry on the family name."
Luis finds out that Gasca was gone from the palace at the time of Rafael's abduction.
Juana is falling apart without Modesta - she even cries. Are the writers trying to rehabilitate Juana? Is she going to turn out to be a softy of a penitent granny? Say it ain't so! I want her to go out hissing and snarling and have something huge fall on her and squish her!!
Victoria, back at Sara's house, sobs in indignation and despair while telling her mother that Marina doesn't want to come with her. She begs for help and after a lot of begging Sara agrees to meet Isabel (in order to corroborate Victoria's story and give her cred) in the town center at some vague time in the future.
You know how slow this story is moving? It's still yesterday! Both yesterday and today the duel is "tomorrow." Diego practices shooting but his hand shakes (he should lay off the booze before a duel). Cristóbal, on the other hand, easily smashes each bottle his guys set up on the hay bales. Cristóbal's sister in the convent cries and says she is worried and that instead of getting shot to death he should marry and have babies - he's all she has in the world (besides her congregation and God).
Catalina also cries and says she is worried. Cristobal looks at her with love and joy, holds her hand, and says "but we never got to talk about uh, uh, uh -- that book you borrowed."
Luis goes to see the Regidor, who tells him, as he tells everybody: sorry but we're doing all we can. He says Diego also came to see him - about the travelers' documents, which were stolen at the same time as little Rafael. And by the way, the borders are closed and there's a revolution. Luis couldn't care less.
Antonio asks Andrés (still extremely fetching in his waiter outfit) if his father, Francisco, would like to run the vanilla plantation. He calls it "fruit" - friends, is vanilla a fruit, or is this an example of Antonio's ignorance about his investment? Andrés says he'll ask, but that he himself would like to give it a go!
Francisco and Perla give each other smoldering, meaningful looks and go off to the park to be private. Antonio and Andrés were watching. At the park Francisco pumps Perla for info about Luis and Esperanza. He offers to get her a job at a casino.
Sara's spy Higinio tells her that none of "ours" performed the abduction. The perps had uniforms, nice horses, and good firearms. Either it was a gang from out of town, or it really was real guards! He says the head of the guards is very corrupt and would sell his own mother for three pennies.
Esperanza is still clutching her womb and still seething about Hipólita. Mirtha futilely suggests that Esperanza rest as the midwife recommended.
Hipólita's flashback dreams are starting to leak into her waking life. She asks Ada if there is another important man in her life besides Antonio, perhaps Luis? Ada runs away to avoid answering.
Francisco is disdainful when he sees Andrés working at his humble but decent tasks. ("If you'd had guts, you'd have a lot of money as I now do.") Francisco has told his wife that when Catalina marries Cristóbal they'll all be able to go on living for free at the Palacio de Lara and with the blackmail money he'll be able to start a business. He loftily tells Andrés he'll let him work at the business even though Andrés did not help with the blackmailing. Asuncion cries for the shame of it all.
The episode ends with Luis asking God to give Rafael back, with really awful singing in the background.
Friday: Marcos tells Andrés he should swallow his pride and go find Marina - "Don't be a fool, look for her! It doesn't matter if a woman is a whore or a virgin, what matters is if she's good. Look at Esperanza, what a disaster SHE is!"
Juana tells scores of servants, all lined up, that they can't tell Hipólita anything, and also can't tell anybody else anything, should they ask. Thus it is and thus it shall be!
Antonio tells Diego one shouldn't drink so much before the duel. Diego is sad, he has no friends. "I'm rich and powerful and completely alone." "Maybe if you were nicer people would like you." "My life is a constant struggle against Luis. HE has people. All I have is a murderer who stays because I pay him a lot. I like you and Rodrigo, but you're leaving. Poor me."
Isabel reviews with Hipólita how spoiled Diego is and that Luis's "mother" has never been nice to Luis, only to Diego. She then lets slip that, among other misfortunes, Luis has a disappeared son! Oops!
Higinio tells Luis: "None of our lowlifes did the kidnapping. It had to have been somebody with a lot of money to bribe so many real live soldiers!" Luis immediately looks up towards his mother's room and then runs up there and busts in. Juana confuses him totally with a combination of loud denials and crying. Then she frantically produces Gasca's ransom note, which she's been holding for days. She has to answer Luis's questions with a lot of last-minute lame lies. She's in quite a state. [Magnificent scene for this actress.]
"You deserve to be happy, somebody in this family should be happy, your cousin is an utter disaster, you don't understand how hard I've tried to control him." Juana cries and acts like a human being which upsets Luis and causes him to give her an awkward hug! Dang, they ARE rehabilitating her!
Luis reassures Aunt Isabel that she's done him a favor by telling Hipólita about the disappeared Rafael. Luis goes to visit Hipólita - she lets him in even though her chaperone is absent. He tells her the mother of his disappeared son is ... "lost." Good answer. Nice scene. Ada runs off to the laundry to avoid telling Hipólita who the mother of the disappeared infant was!
Felipe finds the ransom note fishy. Since when have kidnappers known how to write letters? And why are the letters all deformed? (Remember, Gasca craftily wrote it with his left hand.) And why did they ask for so little money? Luis is determined to go deliver the money alone.
Mirtha tells Esperanza of the upcoming duel - Esperanza can't decide if it would be good or bad if Diego died...
Ramon and the mute scale a wall to break into Perla's deserted house. These guys are oddly fastidious, complaining about the dust! Despite the dust, they decide to hole up there. Ramon says they are in a "lio arcadio" between La Poderosa and Gasca. (Anybody know what that is?) (Update: perhaps as has been suggested in the comments he really meant "we are in a big ## mess, Arcadio." Tripped up by a missing comma!)
They flip a coin - heads, they'll go with Sara, tails, Gasca. The mute catches it and says it goes to Sara. But Ramon decides they should investigate more and see which side their bread will be best buttered on...
It's the dark before dawn. Everybody prays. Felipe and Luis ride ceremoniously to Cristól's house; stiff, manly hugs all round. As they leave, Catalina cries behind a houseplant. Antonio and Rodrigo go get Diego. Everybody looks really, really spiffy in their black outfits.
Juana defensively tells Gasca she had to give the ransom note to Luis and that Luis himself wants to hand over the money to the kidnapper. Gasca: "But Luis will take the guy by the neck and ask where his son is, and there won't be time to bring Rafael back here. Better I should write another note, saying not Luis, but somebody else should deliver the money." "Good, do it right now." "Your paper is too elegant, better I should do it back at the guardhouse." "And have you found out anything about Sara?" "It's not easy, she's protected by an army of low-lifes. And why do you want to know, anyway?" "I don't pay you to ask questions! You're no white dove, Gasca, you have a long tail to get stepped on! You may think we're in the same situation, but the difference is that my nephew is the Count and I, I am Doña Juana, don't you forget it."
Everybody prays and then dresses in black for the duel. The ladies watch from the landing. Cristóbal gets the first shot. He and Diego stand back-to-back in the center of the bridge and take ten steps away from each other. They turn. Cristóbal intentionally shoots straight up into the air. One could hope Diego would do the same, but instead he shoots Cristóbal in the chest. Applause from Diego's team; choruses of "no puede ser" from the peanut gallery.
Luis lunges at Diego, saying he's a pig and that garbage like him doesn't deserve to be count (hmm, that doesn't sound as good in English as it did in Spanish). Felipe pulls Luis off and the guy who was presiding says "Now now, no off-the-cuff killing right after we've just had a nice duel in proper style."
Juana prays to the Virgin: "You bore a nice boy, but I bore a Lucifer. I'm tired of fighting. Forgive my sins and deliver me from so much evil."
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.
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.
Amor Real
Entre el Amor y el Odio
Technorati Tags: Telenovela, Alborada, Novela, Summary, Plot
by melinama @ 12:07 AM
37 comments
A few of my daughter
Melina's great posts:
37 Comments:
Is the mutes name Arcadio? I've heard that used as a name... and one dictionary had "lío" meaning "f**ked up mess"! It also had f-ing mess, mess, mix-up and intrigue as other definitions but knowing those two they were using the most vulgar meaning.
You're probably right, Ruth - and I've updated the paragraph.
Anybody - I'm collecting AWFUL DEATHS FOR TELENOVELA VILLAINS for a future post. Also satisfying comeuppances. I know y'all have seen other novelas - would you please either post the ones you remember here, or mail them to me at jane@mappamundi.com? THANKS! Melinama...
Hi Melinama: Horrible deaths and satisfying comuppances of villians - great idea. Here are the ones that come to mind:
Gata Salvaje- (my first telenovela) one evil character (I think her name was Eduarda) was eaten by alligators. (this novela took place in Miami). The other villian, Patricio, tried to kill himself by jumping off a building but he didn't pick a high enough building. He survived but was completely paralyzed. It's not clear whether he is aware of what has happened to him but it is suggested that he is and they just end the novela with him that way being cared for as a penance by this mother who abandoned him as an infant on a beach.
Velo de Novia: (this started out as a great telenovela that got totally messed up when they killed everyone off in the middle and basically started with a new cast.) Azael, a doctor who was a homicidal maniac, is finally arrested. He tries to escape from prison by getting his evil daughter, Raquela, to give him a drug that makes him appear to be dead (shades of Romeo and Juliet here). She screws it up, gives him the wrong drug or something. She thinks he is actually dead and then he wakes up in his coffin unable to move or speak and I think he is cremated.
Raquela (who was extemely vain about her beauty and haughty about her social position) gets sent to prison with her aunt (who is currently playing Victoria in Alborada). Raquela is horribly burned and disfigured when trying to kill someone else in prison. She doesn't die but being hideous and in prison with common criminals is pretty bad.
Ricarda, the socially prominent mother of the male lead Jose Manuel, is so upset that her son is going to marry a mere costuera (seamstress) that she shoots and kills him at his wedding. She then goes insane, is put in a sanatorium, tries to kill another inmate by setting her room on fire and is burned to death when her room is set on fire in turn.
Of course, you've already done Entre el Amor y el Odio, which had two great deaths - the leper and and the horribly burned Napoleon impersonator.
I might remember more.
I have a vague memory of the pharoh in TEN COMMANDMENTS always saying something very similar to Juana's "Asi es y asi sera." Does anyone else remember this or am I the oldest one in this foro?
Was Marcel the Napoleon impersonator? In his mask? Or was it somebody else? I forget...
More, more!
AWFUL ENDINGS for villians--but in this case, not death--- brings to mind RUBI's fall from the top of the staircase resulting in her living out her days with a totally deformed, hard-to-look-at face and body. Because of her beguiling beauty, she was able to bewitch everyone, good and bad so the ending was pretty satisfying---except, of course, for the fact that her daughter then carried out her evil doings many years later.
Second example was the fate of Efrain, villanous son of Rebecca in INOCENTE DE TI, who ends up a quadrapalegic and cannot speak, communicate, or move and must live in this state for the rest of his life---this after unspeakable complicity in his Mom's crimes.
His mom, Rebecca ends up in an insane asylum and her lovely roommates smother her to death with a pillow, which is the way she killed her sister, her servant and one other (?).
Oh- another good example was the death of Leonardo, the vilano horible in Clase 406 (2003?) who died in the middle of the desert--no food, no water, no one anywhere nor would there ever be anyone who could find him. He stumbles around for days, several episodes--and that was glorious to watch.
Amazing how I can't remember what I went upstairs to retrieve, but I can remember how LEONARDO died in the desert 4 years ago in a telenovela!
Yes, I checked some websites. In Entre el Amor y el Odio, Marcial was obsessed with Napoleon. He had the doll, etc.
While Ricarda in Velo de Novia, defintely goes insane and is sent to the nuthouse and dies, I may have confused how she dies with another novela called Rebeca. In Rebeca, the evil housekeeper, murderess and practicer of black magic, Sara, goes insane and is sent to a sanitorium where she is burned to death in her padded cell - a fitting end since many years earlier, she killed the wife of her employer by setting her house on fire. I found photos of Sara's end on the web but I can't find out exactly how Ricarda died.
Esperanza whines to Juana, "You never liked me, did you?" "No." "Then why did you marry me to your son?" "I needed a different solution." Hmm? A clue! But a clue to what?
It's really not a clue to anything new. I just think that she would've found another way to keep Esperanza's father from spilling the beans about Diego not being the real count instead of agreeing to marry the obscenely gorgeous Luis with his but ugly annoying daughter.
Just to make you all a little jealous with this news...I just read in the most recent edition of TV Y Novelas (coming out of Mexico), that the magazine held a contest during the filming of ALBORADA and the winners got a free flight to the Mexican town where they were filming, got to BE EXTRAS in the telenovela (wearing those marvellous costumes and jewelry) and got to meet, dine with and HUG fernando colunga and some of the other main characters. They showed photos of winners with some of the characters.. In one photo, Colunga had his arm around this random contest-winning young 20 something female who said she practically fainted (for real) when she saw him.
Elizabeth: I think you are right about what Juana is referring to - blackmail by Esperanza's father. This is clearer if you translate the verb as 'should have. ' Juana responded to Esperanza's question as follows, "Por imbecile. Porque debí buscar otra solución." My 501 Spanish Verbs book says that 'deber' should be used to express a moral obligation - something you ought to do but may or may not actually do. So Juana's answer could be translated as, "Because I'm an idiot. I should have looked for another solution (to Augustin's blackmail demands)."
- No criticism intended to Melinama's tremendous effort in summarizing all the episodes of Alborada.
Melinama. I know you've heard it many times, but your recaps serves as my twice-weekly therapy. I laugh out loud! Thanks again for all that you do. It is greatly appreciated!! (and thanks to all of you who expand on historical, political, social, an linguistic issues/references.
A gigantic DITTO for the appreciation which Carole just expressed, Melinama, et al!!!! Daily I look forward to the insightful and comical recaps, and the comradery of "our group." Furthermore, I'm coming out of hiding from anonymous to Bridget. Glad to join you!
By the way,Carole, thanks for the tidbit about the Alborada contest. That was very interesting and exciting.
Like carole, Bridget and many others I come here everyday and really enjoy hearing what everyone has to say! I feel so lucky to have found this forum... Thank you melinama and everyone!!
Here are a couple awful endings:
Apuesta Por Un Amor: This had several "bad guys" but Álvaro was the worst. Álvaro, the rapist, murderer and drunk got his come-uppance when, in the end, they all found out that he was behind all the evil that had been done and sent him to jail where he was rapped then had his eyes gouged out by a fellow inmate. Gross and disturbing but deserved, imho!
Amarte Es Mi Pecado: Isaura, who had her step-daughters baby traded for a dead baby so she'd think it was dead and therefore Isaura could use her to make money (if you saw the scene of her with the dead baby you know what an awesome actriss Yadhira Carillo is, that was a really hard scene to watch) This was my first novella and I didn't understand much Spanish so I missed a lot of the plot. But in the end Isaura ended up stuck in the back of a semi-truck with all the money she stoll and extorted, unable to get out and, though we didn't see her die, it is presumed that she died in the back of the truck... probably from the heat an maybe lack of oxygen.
Which brings me to a question... in the few novelas I've seen the good guys always win. Have their ever been any novelas where the bad guy wins out???
Because I have nothing to do today and you can never learn enough about cochineal (our friends the dried bugs that live on cactus, were used a dye and were exported by Diego and Luis), click on the link below to see a garment from our period that was actually made of fabric dyed with cochineal.
http://web.mac.com/njmotmot
Alas, it's been a while since I've seen any telenovelas from start to finish, and since they were in Mexico, I hope I'm not ruining them for folks if they ever show them in Univision:
In "El Maleficio," the main character, Enrique de Martino, practices the black arts and murders many both through witchcraft and more traditional methods like hitmen and electrocution. He finally gets his come-uppance when his house literally burns down while he's trying to offer his new wife's son, a natural born medium, as an ally to the demon he serves. The boy is rescued by his dad and Enrique dies as his house implodes.
In "La Venganza," which was more or less re-made into "Mari Mar" starring Thalia, the main character (Maria in the original, Mari Mar in the remake) is poor and ends up marrying the guy from the big house. His sister-in-law disaproves of this and frames our lead by claiming she stole her bracelet, even though she herself dropped it into a mud pile on Maria's doorstep and told her she should "pick it up with her teeth so her hands wouldn't tarnish it." Maria goes to jail and her little hut is burned out with her grandfather in it. Maria eventually meets up with her birth father (who is, as is the case in many soaps with missing parents, a millionaire) and buys the big hacienda next door and buys off her former in-laws' old debts and then asks her old sister-in-law to lift the IOUs with HER teeth from a mud puddle she's had her gardner stirring all day! At the end she chickens out though, but the look on the villainess' face is priceless.
As for Ruth's question about "bad guys wining," I can only think of some endings lefts as enigma's. In "El Maleficio," after the house implodes and burns down, the portrait of the evil ancestor who DeMartino uses to contact the demon survives the fire and it's eyes light up in red, as he usually did when something evil was about to happen.
In "Cuna de Lobos," the Larios family is full of evil intrigue as led by the family matriarch who wears a patch on her eye to match all her outfits. We later find out she never really lost her eye, but just pretended to keep her stepson, who had accidentally poked her in the eye with a top allegedly poking her eye out, raked with guilt and totally traumatized. The novela starts with the death of her husband (who she herself poisoned) and the will stating that her son cannot receive his inheritance until he produces a child. We then find out his wife, Vilma, is unnable to conceive. He and mom plot to stage a fake wedding to an employee from their company, the one who found dad dead, and impregnating her, then having her killed by the nurse who helped deliver the baby. The woman survives, eventually marries the stepson and gets her baby back. The child was originally named "Edgar" after Vilma's dad (and they all call him "el pequeno Edgar" or Little Edgar), but when his mom got him back she named him "Braulio" after HER dad. At the very end, little Braulio and his younger half-brother are running through the mansion and sneak into grandma's old room. Braulio grabs one of her old patches and when his brother asks "Braulio, what are you doing," he turns to him wearing the eye patch and says "I am not Braulio, I am Little Edgar." It's pretty eerie.
That's my two cents. Sorry if the information is a little lacking, but it's been a few years! Thanks for the updates. They help me catch up on all I miss!
Margarita
I missed most of _La Virgen Esposa_, but my husband and I caught the last few episodes. One of the villains is in a shoot out with the hero and heroine. They are dangerously close to a sheer cliff. At one point (as nearly as we can remember) the bad guy either lost his own gun or threw it down melodramatically. He then picked up a *rock*, rather than the gun staggered forward with murder in his eyes...and fell over the cliff.
My husband's pet phrase for an act of sheer mindboggling stupidity is now "Bringing a rock to a gun fight."
Teka:
That was priceless, I'm going to try to remember and use that phrase.
I think Fernando Colunga is so hot!
I just finished watching "AMOR REAL" DVD (only $12.00 from amazon.com)(marathon--over 5 hours) it's a little chopped up, but you get the jist of it all. What an actor. I hope he reads these blogs co's he deserves all the praises. It doesn't hurt that he is pleasing to the eye.
I also am glad we have this forum to go to, to vent, complain & put our two cents in.
The awful music you heard in the background of hursday's "capítulo" is none other than Cesar Franck's setting of "Panis Angelicus" again, again sung by a lugubrious the bass, but this time with a weak soprano singing the "echo" usually sung by a choir. I have always been fascinated by the fact that it is impossible for a character to pray in a "novela" without some kind of religious music chiming in, usually Schubert's Ave Maria. I don't know why they didn't use it here. Composed in 1825 it's much closer to the time period in question than the Panis Angelicus (1872). As soon as somebody kneels down, though, I think to myself: "Cue sappy sentimental religious music".
Catalina
Is there another historical telenovela scheduled to follow "Alborada"? What is the title?
Under the category, Life Imitates Art, when chatting with my Spanish teacher, I found myself saying, "Sí, sí" just like Luis does.
Jean. I have started saying "ay caray, caray"---to myself, of course, because it does sound a little outdated to me!
This doesn't involve death of villians but is an example of the incredible silliness of "novelas" in death scenes. In her summary of Entre el Amor y el Odio, Melinama mentioned that even after being shot and falling off a tall building, characters could still speak their last words.
Well, in Velo de Novia, the original plot involved a heart transplant. José Manuel, a popular bicycle racer, is engaged to the evil Raquela but falls in love with her saintly sister, Ángeles. Meanwhile, he is loved by afar by Andrea who is poor and has a heart condition. Ángeles is injured in an auto accident and is declared BRAIN DEAD.This enables her heart to be transplanted into Andrea. In the hospital, I don't think Ángeles even had a bandage on her head, only the tasteful nasal oxygen tube. In spite of being brain dead, she is nevertheless able to speak with José Manuel and bid him a tender farewell before sort of staring vacantly into space. It was moving but really silly.
Carole, do also do the sort of blowing thing that Isabel does when she says: ' ay, caray, caray'? ;-)
Jean, no But I think that breathing is what keeps Isabel's blood pressure down.
According to an article in La Opinion Digital dated Feb. 13, Carla Estrada, the producer of Alborada would love to do another period novela but no new project will be finished before 2007. After Alborada ends in Mexico this week, Estrada is going to, "relax and read a lot to see if can find a 'historia' that is convincing and meets the expectations of the people who have given me the opportunity to grow."
So to respond to Anonymous, I don't know what will follow Alborada but it won't be a historical production by Carla Estrada.
Thanks so much for doing this. I don't speak Spanish but watch because the story is enjoyable and just watching Fernando Colunga is a pleasure. If only I were a few years younger.
Without you I would be totally lost. Thanks again.
PS: You're right. They are redeeming Juana and making Diego more off the wall. However, I think those things will enliven the story. With Juana against Diego, what will he do now? Kill Luis? He'll have to try sooner or later. Or more in his style have Luis murdered. Just keep me updated-will you.
Shannon
Juana is great. I do hope they do not change her. What is the original name of this historical novel and who was the writer?
Marite
Someone requested way back when that we stop using ANONYMOUS and use our real names or even a fake name--that way we can at least address a specific person's comments or questions.
I'm simply tired of how they depict the women on the novela. It first commenced with Hipolita being somewhat strong and independent, but as the novela progresses she beomes the stereotypical female- submissive, constantly crying, dependent on men to solve her dilemma. I understand the time period but we need a strong female character. One who is willing to actually fight for herself, and stand up for herself. The only female characters in this novela who are strong are Luis' mother (who also happens to be somewhat of a vilan) and the female pirate (forgot her name) who is not a bad person but in hidding. The image of females in novela's has become sickening, they are always depicted as vulnerable in some way and in need of male help. I think this has got to change.
Karen. Have you watched any of the modern novelas? Though they often their fair share of emotionally and physically abusive men, there are plenty of independent and strong female characters.
Seeing so many weak women is simply the price we pay for watching these marvellous period pieces! I agree it gets annoying and at times we want to scream at them, but they, after all, simply victims of their era and their culture.
Want to Thank You for doing this! This is our first novella and we know little spanish so we pick and pray our way thru! Your recaps fills in the nuances we miss!
About Juana being redeemed I really don't see it like that. I think she sees herself in him. A realization that is upseting but not enough to stop her machinations!
Earlier when the clothes were mention someone said they thought they were of the Napoleonic era according to info on this site: http://www.geocities.com/wredmoon2001/alb.html that is correct. The dresses are influnced by Jospehine and there were 200 made for Lucero(Hipolita) 35 suits for Fernando.
It is a fan site but has good info. BTW it is in spanish.
Thanks BW for the link to that site. It has a lot of stuff about the production that I was interested in.
I really love this novela they even used the old type of spanish like when Isabel told diego"yo te limpie el fundillo( butt)"
and other spanish words only use during that era.
Just to make you all a little jealous with this news...I just read in the most recent edition of TV Y Novelas (coming out of Mexico), that the magazine held a contest during the filming of ALBORADA and the winners got a free flight to the Mexican town where they were filming, got to BE EXTRAS in the telenovela (wearing those marvellous costumes and jewelry) and got to meet, dine with and HUG fernando colunga and some of the other main characters.
I understand the time period but we need a strong female character. One who is willing to actually fight for herself, and stand up for herself. The only female characters in this novela who are strong are Luis' mother (who also happens to be somewhat of a vilan) and the female pirate (forgot her name) who is not a bad person but in hidding
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