Telenovela Alborada, #32

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: Remember Luis's sulking face when he saw Hipólita outside the church? Rafael ran to him (perhaps there is a trainer just outside the frame holding up a cookie for him, as they do with the circus seals) and after a hug, Luis strode past.

Ada, ever helpful, and also being the one who caused this problem, now says unnecessarily: "Did you see that? He doesn't want to have anything to do with you!..."

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Ada continues: "Why were they going to church?" "I have to talk to him, did you see his face, it was as if he hated me." "I could explain..." "No, I have to do it." They worry about the two hired guns ("those monkeys") lounging around outside, speculating that Antonio hired them to make sure Luis doesn't get in.

Isabel is back at the palace. She marvels that Diego, that engendro, is her nephew...

Engendro: freak, malformed creature, monster.

... she bustles to the back where Juana and Modesta are working on the wedding. [It just occurred to me that in Alborada-world, there is no risk to an outdoor wedding, because it never rains. Has it ever rained once during this series? Guess they didn't want to wreck the nice clothes. Or maybe it really never, ever rains.]

First Isabel exclaims: "How painted up you are, Juana!" Juana mumbles "I just did it for a whim" though we know she is covering for the ravages of her fatal illness. Isabel continues: "It's to hide your shame! You said my nephew was in my brother's coffin, but it's not true. And you [gestures to Diego] I can't believe you're my nephew..." she goes on in this vein until once again Juana faints conveniently. Diego carries her inside, desperately saying in trembling voice, "Answer me, mamita!"

Felipe knows Luis is being a baby, refusing to talk to Hipólita.

Hipólita takes Ada (did Ada always use that Castillian soft c or has she recently developed this affectation?) to see Felipe, who is not home. This gives Hipólita the opportunity to tell Carmela how sorry she is about Martin. She apologizes, Carmela absolves her, they hug, it's sweet.

The doctor attending Juana holds out the blood she has coughed up on a handkerchief and says it's a bad sign and there isn't much time left. He will give her laudanum - even though it frightens her, it's better than pain. She forbids the doctor to tell anybody. He tells everybody she must avoid frights and quarrels. Good luck with that one!

Diego refuses to postpone his wedding and Isabel is jumping out of her skin with fury. "I'm tired of biting my tongue! It turns my stomach that you're my nephew!" The none-too-bright servants, overhearing this, puzzle briefly.

Isabel tells Luis that only he is her nephew, she rejects that worm Diego.

Luis's response to everything: SULK SULK SULK. He can't get his mind off the possibility that his girlfriend slept with her husband.

At Antonio's house, Hipólita is telling Catalina she's afraid Luis will take Rafael away. They agree Cristóbal should work on Luis and get him to see Hipólita and hear her out. "Where?" "At my house (Lara), where else?" They hope to meet at Marina and Andrés's wedding.

Antonio gets home and receives a report on Hipólita's comings and goings from his housekeeper, who is now evidently also his spy.

Finding Hipólita whispering with Catalina, Antonio scolds her saying something like: "When I catch the two of you with your heads together like two escolapias pilladas (naughty charity school pupils?) that's an indecent conversation... (???) ... and it's improper for your sister to come here carrying gossip about Luis."

They start in on their usual argument and she says: "Don't dare threaten to hit me again or I'll leave and I don't care about the gossip it will cause." "You're never going to leave this house!" "Are you going to wall me up with stones and mud? Or are you going to send me to an insane asylum as your mother threatened?" "Don't say bad stuff about mother!" "Why not, you're growing more like her all the time!" "Don't say I'm like her, I'm not my mother!" He repeats this many times hitting things and having a splendid tantrum. TILT TILT TILT.

OK, yet one more discussion with Luis, Felipe and Cristóbal about the baby switching thing. Cristóbal insists on proof, a witness. Luis says Sara was a witness. He spins out the speech he could give at Diego's wedding the next day, explaining the whole story including the non-existent baby bones and naming himself Count of Guevara. Cristóbal says, "Please don't do this. You wouldn't, would you?" "Give me three cups of wine and you betcha I'll do it." Luis goes on about his fascination with fire and the images of fire, screaming, etc. in his head... Felipe says his leg-burn is surely from the fire on the chalano.

Carmela wheedles the tomb/babybones story out of Marcos as he eats her fine enchiladas. She traded: she'll tell about Hipólita's visit only after he spills about Camargo. They are a mutual admiration society.

Cristóbal tells the team: Juana has cancer and Diego has syphilis. They remember: advanced syphilis can affect the mind...

Modesta and Diego are in Juana's chamber trying to figure out a believable story. He yells at her, and Juana yells at him, "Don't talk to Modesta that way! Remember she saved you from the Gasca disaster." "Well, ok, but you two are going to have to come up with something more credible than this." Juana: "I'm too tired to think." Modesta: "Hasn't anything occurred to YOU, Diego?" "To me? No way, it's the two of you who plan everything and you'd better come up with something, because I'm not postponing my wedding and I'm not renouncing my title." He stalks out. Juana suggests that they tell the truth and beg for forgivenness. Modesta says Diego will not accept that as a solution.

Felipe gets home and Carmela flies into his arms. He's momentarily annoyed that Marcos spilled the beans, but he gets over it quickly, she runs him a bath, he gives her a real kissy kissy, and they go off to the bath together.

Catalina asks Cristóbal to intercede with Luis, which he's happy to do. He says, you are my remanso ...

Remanso: Pool Remanso de paz = haven of peace.

Victoria has sent Mirtha to accompany Marina in the streets. They visit Isabel, who's dressing in black for her brother's service (his remains will be re-buried at the cathedral). She says if they dress in mourning they can come, too. Isabel leaves. Mirtha says sadly that Isabel hates her, even though she had just been "following orders." She suddenly gets down on her knees and begs to be Marina's personal servant, promising to obey Marina as faithfully as she had obeyed Esperanza. Mirtha sobs, Marina is flustered.

Finally, Modesta lies smoothly to Isabel: the nephew's little tiny body must have been stolen from the tomb by somebody for some reason, she speculates. Isabel doesn't buy it and leaves muttering about lies, Caray Caray! Modesta goes into Juana's darkened bedroom, blesses her tenderly, and kneels by her bed in tears.

Tuesday: I figured, what with all the horses and carriages and extras, there would be a little less talking today and I would get a rest.

• First crowd scene: our team is once again dressed in mourning as the remains of Leopold (Isabel's brother, Juana's husband) are put in a niche at the cathedral.
  
  Juana felt too ill to attend. She's got laudanum, though.
  
  
• Diego comes to see Juana, saying "I'm very worried." One might think he was worried about his mother's health, but no: "I'm afraid Luis will say something at the wedding." It's decided they need to invent something to keep Luis quiet for a few days, after that, well, who knows. Diego: "We're on the edge of a precipice, mother. If Luis does something, what will become of me? You should never have switched us. They may kill me and it will be your fault." Way to go, keeping worries away from your dying mother.
  
  
• Cristóbal reminds Luis that when Hipólita was furious after finding out he, Luis, was the mystery boinker of Santa Rita, she nevertheless let Luis have his say. He now owes her nothing less. He agrees and they tentatively set up a meet for Felipe's house the following day after the weddings.
  
  Luis asks, "Even if we had proof (of the baby-switching), what would I do? Go to the Inquisition and rat out Juana, now that she's about to die? I don't have the heart..." Felipe is indignant: "What about Diego! Do you want him strutting around when you're the real count? Not to mention he's tried to kill you three times!" He can't denounce Diego, though, without pulling down Juana, and she's in deeper, because Diego could pretend he was an innocent victim.
  
  
• Francisco nags at Catalina: "Why did Isabel move her brother's bones after so many years?" "I don't know." "Yes, you do, Cristóbal tells you everything." "He hasn't give me permission to tell you." Just then (handily) Cristóbal walks in and reluctantly tells Francisco about the baby-switching. Asuncion makes her mouth into a perfect, perfect O of astonishment. (I know Asuncion's dentist, who moved here from Mexico City and sings in the choir I direct. I'm just saying.)
  
  
• At Antonio's home, Hipólita reluctantly thanks him for the new dress and jewels - some of his money from Santa Rita finally arrives. He tells her that at Diego's wedding, if they see Luis she can only greet him as befits a distant acquaintance.
  
  
• Then Antonio hies himself to Perla's and gives her a necklace of honking big pearls: "It's a play on your name," he says. It's a present for giving him a healthy son. They say they love each other and kiss.
  
  
• Juana summons Luis and tells him another bogus version of the baby switching story which he doesn't come close to believing. (It included Juana's own son getting some contagious sickness and being carried off by Modesta to her home village where she incinerated his remains as "is our custom there.")
  
  
• Felipe stews to Marcos about Diego getting away with stuff. Marcos finally remembers Epifanio, the old dude they met when they, fugitives after the nunnery-escape fiasco, went to get food. He had obdurately addressed Luis as Carlos and proudly told them it had been he, Epifanio, to whom Carlos and Aurora had handed their son before they burned. And he said the baby had a burned leg. And Luis has a burned leg and Diego doesn't. Can we stop with this yet?
  
  
• Asunción can't believe Juana would do such a dastardly cradle-switching, but Francisco says: "That woman has no soul and no law. And Diego is a lout. Those two are capable of anything! I'd like to see them humiliated and condemned to the gallows! I'd like to see them lose everything!"
  
  To distract him, Asunción asks about the hacienda, which he likes. He says they will be leaving for their new life there directly after the wedding. She says she'd like to stay a few more days with Catalina,"I have no friends in Cuencas and I get lonely." "No way! If you stay here, who will serve me? Your place is at my side."
  
  
• Finally, Diego and his bride emerge from the cathedral and he throws money so people say "Long Live Count Diego." I think they won't get their wish.
  
  Perla to her friend: "Hey, that bride is ugly. Why did he marry her?" Perla sulks upon seeing Antonio with Hipólita (who is also sulking). Perla and her friend hatch some plot I did not understand. Maybe you can fill me in.
  
  
• Finally, Andrés and his bride emerge from a smaller church, kiss a lot, Sara is not wearing her veil and in fact drops it to the ground and steps on it, a nice touch.
  
  
• Hipólita and Antonio dance without pleasure. Diego feels up his bride. Felipe arrives to tell Luis: the scar on your leg is the proof we need." Luis dresses slowly so we can see how ripped he is.
  
  
• Modern music with synthesizer, sung by a wooden man, does not enliven Diego's marriage.
  
  
• A very flexible woman in red spandex and veils doesn't do much for Andrés and Marina's, either.
  
  
• Luis shows up in his best duds at Diego's reception. Shifty eyes and a hissing intake of breath from Juana and Diego. Juana whispers, "I beg you not to be imprudent." "It's your son who's imprudent." Luis doesn't make waves. Hipólita hyperventilates to see him. The Regidor's wife, ever avid for gossip, asks how things were in the capitol, and asks if he plans to move there. He laughs and spreads his arms: "No way, this is my house." Get it?

New updates Wednesday and Saturday. The list of Alborada recaps is to the right - below the picture of Modesta and Doña Juana, just above the elephant. Click on the numbers in order!

You can buy (cheap) souvenir cards I painted in honor of our Alborada adventure
Amor Real
Entre el Amor y el Odio
"Telenovela villains meet lurid, dreadful deaths"

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