Telenovela Alborada, #26

This is a recap of the Univision telenovela Alborada. In order to read the whole post, you click "read the rest" at the bottom of this summary!

If you are new, please visit the recaps in ORDER - they are listed to the right under a picture of Doña Juana and Modesta. See the bottom of this post for more information.

Monday: Cristóbal is dosing the recently-shot Luis with laudanum while Luis's rescuers, those ragamuffin nogoodniks Ramon and the mute Arcadio - the very same ones who do Gasca's dirty work and who kidnapped Hipolita to the beach so many episodes ago - are waiting for Cristóbal in the other room, fingering his expensive stuff and wondering how much it's worth.

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• Cristóbal asks about their finding of Luis, but they haven't much to tell. He gives them a big bag of money to keep quiet, but Ramon says what they need most is jobs - they're broke, Perla doesn't want them, their lives have gotten very dangerous. Cristóbal heaves a big sigh and tells them to come back in the morning. Soon everybody in the entire world will either be living or working at Cristóbal's palace.
  
  Aurelio says R & A are "a pair of murderers." Cristóbal: "Poverty and ignorance put people on wrong paths, and besides thanks to them Luis didn't die in the street. In the morning, find them any old thing to do, but make sure they bathe first, and give them uniforms. As long as they work for me, they'll keep their mouths closed."
  
  With their new bag of money Ramon and Arcadio go drinking. It sounds like Ramon would like to rob Cristóbal blind but Arcadio grunts that the people at the Palacio Lara are too nice to rob. Just then Gasca comes up and asks what they've learned about Victoria and Sara. They say that kind of meddling is proving too dangerous and they could end up dead.
  
  
• Rodrigo is finally leaving for Panama. His buddy Antonio asks him to send a letter as soon as he gets home, and to go to the bank and make sure some of Antonio's funds are being sent to him in Mexico. "Are you tapped out?" "No, but ... well, if I need money I can get a loan." "From Diego?" "Nah, he's too ... strange."
  
  Ada tells Hipolita she wishes they, too, were going back to Panama. Hipólita says it's too risky, and Antonio doesn't know if his property has been appropriated by the revolution. At least here he has the vanilla plantation... "Would you rather stay or go?" "Don't ask me that."
  
  
• Isabel hears Luis has gone on a voyage! She seeks out Juana, who's sitting in the garden telling Modesta: "You can't imagine how much I'd have given for Diego to be like Luis." Luis's disappearance is news to all. Isabel blames Luis's leaving on Juana's harsh revelation - that he was just a collected baby plucked out of a stage coach over the corpses of his anonymous parents.
  
  Marcos tells Isabel - who's smoking like a chimney these days - that he thinks Gasca shot Luis.
  
  
• Everybody thinks it's odd that Luis would go on a henchman-free vacation. "He never travels alone." The henchmen, meanwhile, are fuming with indigation that they're under Luis's gag order and quite unable to help him in any way.
  
  
• Isabel and Juana and entourage arrive at Lara, observed by Francisco, who becomes curious and orders his wife to find out from Catalina what's going on.
  
  Catalina buckles and tells - but orders Asunción not to tell Francisco! When Francisco subsequently asks Asunción what she's discovered, she puts him off, tells him to find out himself if he's so curious. He stalks out. Look at that! She showed a little backbone!!!
  
  
• Ramon and Arcadio look hysterical in their newly styled hairdos and fancy duds, knickers and kneesocks. We see them doing useless jobs.
  
  
• Antonio urges Andrés to forgive Marina for having been raped. When Antonio reminds him, once again: "We all commit errors -- well, haven't you?" Andrés looks down at his hands creepily - remember when he suffocated that guy on Gasca's orders?
  
  
• At the palace, Gasca grabs Marina and shakes her, ordering her to tell what she knows about Sara and Victoria. Marcos strides up in a fury and orders Gasca to stop. Gasca says, "Don't meddle, I'll have you fired."
  
  Marcos, unintimidated, proposes a duel - pistols or fists. Gasca says pistols would be too easy so they start having a girly fight with silly punching in the bushes. Gasca growls. Isabel bustles in and hits Gasca with her umbrella. Then Juana strolls in. Isabel tells her to fire Gasca: "I don't want to see him around the palace, he displeases me profoundly."
  
  
• So then Gasca goes to Diego to report on his supposedly successful murder of Luis. "Did you do it?" "Yes, with my pistol I dropped him in the dirt." "Why hasn't anybody been here to tell us [about the dead body of Luis]?" Gasca gives an explanation I didn't quite get but then Isabel comes in with her note and both boys go blank. Is it astonishment? Who can say?
  
  Gasca asks a favor: "Get rid of Marcos. I represent your authority and he defies me." Diego fingers a busted-up place on Marcos's face and asks, "Did he do that?" A rueful yes is the response.
  
  
• Luis, lying nobly wounded in bed, asks for Hipólita and Rafael to visit. She gets the message and rushes to see him. When she arrives at Lara, Ramon and Arcadio, carrying a carpet, do a quick about-face to avoid being seen by the woman they kidnapped.
  
  Hipolita goes into Luis's room, and tells his sleeping form, "You can't go, you can't abandon us, you are my rock, Rafael and I need you, I love you with all my soul." She leans down and kisses his sleeping lips except then he opens his eyes happily and says, "I heard you. I'll never abandon you, in fact as soon as I get out of here I'm going to steal you and Rafael away. It's a sacred promise."
  
  
• Felipe and Marcos are antsy to see Luis and help him; Cristóbal convinces them to try and lead their normal lives.
  
  
• Antonio tells Hipolita he's going out to do some business with Malaquias. She calls Diego a nefasto (disaster) and Antonio agrees. "Then why is he your friend?" "At least he's sincere, not like those people around here who lie all the time." She looks a little guilty...
  
  She rhetorically wonders to Ada: "How can Antonio not have noticed how awful Diego is?" In a quick change of subject she then says: "If Luis won't give me up, then I won't give him up either. I'll go with him the minute he asks." "That's what you say now, because he's hurt and you feel sorry for him, but later when you have a cooler head you won't go."

Tuesday: I watched this with Zed and we talked a bit while we watched so you may catch more errors than usual ...

• Esperanza's sister and brother visit her lonely grave in the outback. The sister wants to go home. Santiago wants to wait and say goodbye to Luis, "but if he hasn't come back by tomorrow we'll leave." They agree they don't want to see Diego, "how did he dare say he was sent by the Virgin?" "I hate to leave her here..."
  
  On their way back, it's gridlock in the plaza. Santiago gets out to see why their carriage has stopped; providentially, the guy he asks happens to be wearing the dead Agustín's tie pin! Agustín, you remember, was father to Santiago and to Esperanza and to this other sister, and also was father to Hipólita. He was murdered by Gasca a few months ago because he knew inconvenient things (e.g. that Juana had switched babies). Gasca had then taken a few trinkets off his corpse and sold them to a guy in a tavern one night.
  
  Santiago starts shouting about the tie pin and a mild ruckus ensues. Felipe arrives; the two of them send Santiago's sister back to the Palace and go to the guards' commandant with the tie-pin guy.
  
  Tie-pin guy says huffily, "When one buys something, how would one ascertain it had been stolen?" He says he bought it off Tomas "the Sevillano." The captain says he'll investigate.
  
  Felipe whispers to Santiago that the two of them should try to get to the Sevillano before the guards do. So they go to Sara's hideout and ask of her yet another favor... Sara does know the Sevillano. Armed with the description of the other jewels Santiago describes, Higinio takes them to the Sevillano's house, tells them to wait outside, and instantly returns with the information that the jewels (and the tie pin) were sold to the Sevillano by - Amilcar Gasca! Ta-da!
  
  The guards come riding up to arrest Tomas, but Felipe and Santiago already have what they need. Santiago asks, "who was that veiled woman?" Felipe says: "She controls la hampa (the underworld) in the city."
  
  Higinio leaves them, saying "They'll take him to jail, but the commandant is corrupt and so he'll be out soon." Higinio also thinks Gasca will never get jail time for murder because he works for the Count of Guevara. It's an unfair world.
  
  It's agreed to keep this little episode from Diego and Juana. "Gasca is their dog and they'd help him escape."
  
  
• Back at Antonio's house little Rafael is finally starting to talk. As he says "Papa papa" Hipólita gets all mushy dreaming about living on a farm or ranch with Luis and watching him teach Rafael to ride a horse and grow "handsome and strong" like his father. Ada says it's just a dream and the only way it's gonna happen is if Antonio falls off his horse and dies. "Don't say that. Anyway, what's wrong with dreaming, for a moment I was in another world and I was happy."
  
  
• Juana asks Diego why he didn't come down to the dining hall. "I didn't feel well." "You felt well enough to go out partying." They discuss the story of Luis going on a trip, Diego says "We're finally rid of him." Juana says the marriage contract (I still haven't seen the fat widow) will be ready next day, Diego drily says he wants to be presentable for his intended. Juana: "Then don't get drunk, and why don't you spend some time with your daughters, you never even look at them."
  
  She leaves. Enters Gasca, who's been discreetly asking around to see if a homicide was reported last night. "Nobody found a body in the street where I shot him." Diego is on his chamber pot (throne, really) grunting away as Gasca speculates about the "voyage" theory. Gasca then reminds Diego to fire Marcos as promised.
  
  
• Isabel is incredulous. She has a hard time swallowing the "voyage" story: "Luis wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to me! He wouldn't abandon me to this zozobra!" I guess she's referring to Diego or maybe the whole Guevara family mess.
  
  

  Zozobrar: capsize, founder.

  
  
• Marina wants to go visit Catalina but Isabel wants to stay at the palace in case Luis comes back. While saying Marina should also visit her mother, she realizes she has nobody to send with Marina: "I own a palace and I have no flunkies at my disposal. Wait, I know ... MARCOS!"
  
  Then Luis's servant comes in and is surprised to hear Luis has gone on a voyage - if he did indeed go on a trip, he left without any of his clothes and also without his horse! That's the last straw, Isabel decides to ask Cristóbal about all this.
  
  
• Gasca sees Marcos, still on the grounds, and shouts, "What are you doing here? Diego fired you!" "I told you, I don't take orders from Diego!" "Well, Luis is gone and may not be coming back."
  
  Words lead to swords and the two are whacking away at each other when Juana swoops in shouting "STOP IT!" Marcos stops, but Gasca takes one last swipe and slashes Marcos. "Coward, I told you to stop!" "Oh, I didn't hear you." (I think there's a comic in Gasca waiting to come out. Let's see what his next gig after Alborada turns out to be...)
  
  Gasca is again demanding of Juana that Marcos be fired. Isabel suddenly swoops in and says, "No, it's you, you're fired. ... Juana, don't make me... don't make me..." So Juana tells Gasca he's fired! "What are you waiting for! Get out of here!" Juana staggers away leaning heavily on Modesta's shoulder, which is on a level with Juana's waist.
  
  Juana is mortified that, now that the Palace belongs to Isabel, she has to carry out Isabel's orders. "I feel like I hate her." Modesta says: "Just pretend. She's sentimental ... choose your words right and she'll be eating out of your hands." Juana coughs weakly.
  
  
• At the Palacio de Lara, Isabel sweeps past Ramon and Arcadio, dressed in their fine livery getting a sweeping lesson. (They'll get the hang of those brooms yet.) Cristóbal, whom Luis has instructed thusly: "Try not to tell her," is helpless before Isabel's barrage of logic and misery and soon she is rushing into Luis's sickroom.
  
  "Calm down, Doña Isabel." "Luis, if you ever call me Doña again it's the last time you'll see me. I'm your aunt. You can pretend to the whole world you're on a voyage, but why lie to me? Who did this?" "I don't know, he took me by surprise. I need a pause from the world, time to think... " "No, there's nothing to think about. I put the palace in your name, as you are: Luis Manrique." She says his mom, uh, Juana loves him and is repentant and is "very bad." "Her health?" "Everything! ... Make me happy - don't you see how I love you - for years you've been all I have - don't take away my illusion..." sad! sweet!
  
  
• Catalina's little "deception" goes down as planned. Hipolita tells Andrés, who is working on the books ("Accounting is the only good thing my father ever taught me"), that Marina is waiting and that, even if he won't accept the marriage proposal, he should at least hear her out. The lovebirds start with a stilted little dialogue from the first day of Spanish 101 and then Marina tells him a story: "My parents lived in the capitol, they were well-educated and decent, one day my mother was out, delinquents came and killed my father and stole me away..."
  
  Soon she is talking about the rape: "When I came to the palace to live, I swear, I didn't want to be anybody's lover - I wanted to stay with Isabel - but Gasca told me he would have her thrown out, and you too, if I didn't comply ... " She sobs as she describes the scene and Andrés cries too. "I wanted you to be first," she says, "I love you with all my soul... but I understand a gentleman has the right to have a decent woman..." Antonio walks through and says "don't mind me, carry on..."
  
  
• He seems mildly amused that with all her problems Hipólita is taking the time to be a matchmaker. They agree the youngsters love each other and that "talking is the way to clear things up." Antonio says: "I have infinite affection for you - I want to give you and Rafael security, tranquility, a decent respectable life, as you haven't yet had. Trust me, I promise you won't be sorry."
  
  There was no particular outcome to the Andrés/Marina conversation. That will have to wait for another capitulo. Hipólita tells Antonio she is sad for them, and they talk about regret etc., and then he grandly offers to take her out to dinner. "I'd take you to the opera or theater but here, there's only that restaurant at the hostel."
  
  
• Felipe goes home to find his wife Carmela fussing fulsomely over the wounded Marcos, who is trying to escape her attentions. (This reminds me of the C. S. Lewis quote I read yesterday in About Last Night: "She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can always tell the others by their hunted expression.")
  
  Marcos describes his altercation with Gasca and relates Gasca's taunt -- that Luis wouldn't be coming back. "Then Gasca was the shooter!" Felipe and Marcos agree.
  
  
• Meanwhile, at the hamba hideout Victoria is hyperventilating about Gasca having been the murderer of Agustín. Sara wants to get Gasca but plans to do it by having Commandant Pardo [corrupt and therefore amenable to her persuasion] come visit for a productive exchange of ideas. Victoria would rather just murder Gasca herself. Her mom keeps saying, "don't stain your hands with blood."
  
  
• Luis is getting a bit petulant in bed, he's moaning and groaning loudly, and whining that he wants Hipólita there, right now. C & C remind him she's a married woman and can't just bounce over whenever she likes. He wants Catalina to go fetch Hipólita for him, but Cristóbal says his wife should not have to do that. "She'll come tomorrow! ... Have you thought about who did this?" "It must have been a desperado or a fuereño..."
  
  

  Fuereño: My dictionary actually says, "Some guy from out of town."

  
  
• Isabel accompanies Marina on her visit to her mother Victoria and her grand-mother Sara and recounts some of the mountains of problems she's afflicted with - chief among them, that Luis turns out not to be Juana's son and therefore not Isabel's nephew. This episode ended very abruptly! Was some editor not watching the clock carefully enough?

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!

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