I am SO obsessed with my Mexican telenovela,
(translation: "The Stepmother"), which airs every week night at 9:00pm on Univision! Back in the middle of March I had a visitor from Connecticut staying with me and at 9:00pm each night he wanted to watch
, a novela that was having its finale that Friday. Within that week I became hooked on the show and regretted that I hadn't started watching it sooner.
After my visitor returned to Connecticut he told me that the following week a new novela would be starting and that it would be a good one. I decided to watch this one from the beginning and decide if it was worth sticking with. Let me tell you, it is.
From the moment the opening theme started playing I knew that this show was going to be as stylish and campy as "Dynasty" during its heyday. I haven't missed a single episode, no matter what else is on at the same time. That's what the VCR is for.
I took a couple Spanish courses in high school and was very good at reading and writing the language, but I could never construct complex sentences or understand when people were speaking rapidly. Conjugating verbs and using the correct tense (past, present, future, etc.) was out of the question, too. Plus, knowing a lot of Italian and some Portuguese has turned all of those languages into a Latin jumble for me. But now, after watching a couple months of this show (with the closed-captions turned on, so I can read as well as listen) I can understand what's being said in just about every sentence.
Twenty years ago, poor María Fernández Acuña, a former secretary, was married to wealthy Esteban San Román and they had two children together: young Hector and little Estrella.While vacationing in Aruba with Esteban and a group of his friends, María entered a hotel room and found her good friend, Patricia Ibáñez, lying dead on the floor. María inadvertently picked up the gun, getting her fingerprints on the weapon.
Many of the "friends" on this trip were also Esteban's business associates. One of them, Servando Maldonado, later lied under oath and testified that he had seen María murder Patricia. Servando was in love with María, his best friend's wife, and helped to get her convicted because he was so bitter about never being able to have her to himself.
It's later revealed that every one of their traveling companions had motive and opportunity to kill Patricia.
It turns out that, unbeknownst to María, her dear friend Patricia was quite a bitch, and was not really María's true friend at all.
María was supposed to spend the rest of her life in prison, but a lawyer named Luciano, who had fallen in love with her, helped to obtain her release after these twenty years had passed. María decides to return to Mexico City, reclaim her children (now grown), and get revenge on her faithless husband for abandoning her and not believing in her innocence.
After María was first incarcerated, Esteban decided to tell his young children that their mother died. He placed a painting of a mysterious woman over the hearth in the salon of their home and raised the children to believe that this was a portrait of their sainted mother. A third child joined the family soon after María's imprisonment. The sickly Ángel was raised to believe that he was the son of Esteban and the mystery woman in the painting, but he was actually the son of one of Esteban's aunts, either Alba or Carmela (another mystery), and was fathered by Esteban's attorney, Demetrio. Demetrio is married to Daniela, the aunt of Ana Rosa, who at the beginning of the show was Esteban's fiancee.
It also turns out that Demetrio had previously been married to Daniela's sister, Sofia. Sofia was Ana Rosa's mother who went loca and died under mysterious circumstances, leaving Ana Rosa in Daniela and Demetrio's care. Demetrio did quite a bit more than just care for the young adolescent, though.
Confused yet?
Esteban's children, especially Hector and Estrella, were VERY opposed to his engagement to Ana Rosa, not wanting her or any other woman as a stepmother or to take the place of the perfect imaginary mother whom Esteban's lies had conjured up for them.
Upon her release, María returned to Mexico City and learned that her children have believed that their mother has been dead for these twenty years. Esteban tried to convince her that it would be better for her to pretend to be someone else than for them to find out that their mother was alive and that she'd spent the last couple decades in prison for having committed murder.
Complicating matters even further is Patricia and Arturo's son, Leonel Ibáñez, whom Esteban practically raised as a son and who also works at Empresas San Román (San Román Industries). Leonel is immediately smitten with María, not knowing that she was the one who supposedly murdered his mother; however, Leonel has his own admirer: Lupita, a secretary at Empresas San Román.
Hector and Estrella could sense right away that there was something between their father and María, so they both harbored an instant dislike for the woman, not realizing that she was their real mother. Ironically, the only one of the San Román siblings to treat her with civility was Ángel, the only one that wasn't her child. Hector and Estrella end up hating María even more after they start to suspect that this odious woman must have been having an affair with their father back when their angelic mother was still alive. María convinces Esteban to dump Ana Rosa and marry her (María) so that she can be near her children and try to win their love.
Throughout all of this, María still wanted to clear her name by discovering who Patricia's real killer was. At one point she gathered all of her prime suspects under on roof, at the house that Patricia and her husband Arturo owned out in the country. Leonel could never bring himself to spend any time there because he found it too painful, but he was more than happy to allow the object of his affection, María, to use it for a quiet get-away.
Instead of relaxing, though, María summoned Esteban, his aunts Carmela and Alba, Demetrio and Daniela, Servando, and the cartoonishly wicked Bruno and Fabiola out to the estate for a confrontation. She was hoping that by scaring some of the more superstitious attendees (Carmela and Servando) into thinking that Patricia's ghost was nearby that perhaps someone might confess.
Each guest, except for Esteban, ended up taking María aside to accuse one of their other friends of being the true assassin. So, ultimately, María didn't get any closer to the truth, even after the group was trapped in that house for a couple days due to a torrential storm that washed out the access road.
The only thing that María really learned at the time, after having found Patricia's diary, was the truth about how Patricia really felt about her. It turns out that Patricia, just like Fabiola and Daniela, wanted Esteban for herself. (Note: Alba has since confessed to Padre Belisario that she too is in love with Esteban, her own nephew!) It broke María's heart to discover that a friendship that she treasured was just a lie and that the woman whose death she has mourned all of these years was really her secret enemy.
As of last night's episode, María was hopeful that Servando, who is on his deathbed and wants to assuage his guilty conscience, would tell her who the actual murderer is. Last week he confessed to Padre Belisario, but the priest is bound by the sanctity of the confessional.
There's also a bunch of peripheral characters, some of whom are often used as comic relief, especially Rufino Sanchez, known as "El Pulpo" ("the Octopus"), an unfortunate artist whose evil son Carlos (who is trying to get Estrella to marry him so he can enjoy the wealth of the San Román clan) has turned his back on him because he's ashamed of his father's poverty. Pulpo actually turns out to be Servando's stepbrother and he stands to inherit the old guy's vast fortune and position as a major stockholder at Empresas San Román. If Carlos knew about this he would certainly treat his poor father better. Both María and Pulpo are lucky enough to have the support of friends Da Vinci, Da Vinci's wife Socorro, and their children Greco (Carlos's rival for Estrella's heart) and Lupita (the secretary who is in love with Leonel). Pulpo's girlfriend Fanny and the flamboyant Duquesa de Walterrama y San Calixto, a local restaurant owner, also provide support.
Socorro befriended María right away. Esteban quickly realized that he was still in love with his long lost wife. Padre Belisario is always around to offer comfort. Also, María's best friend from prison, Vivian, was released and came to stay with her, lending her fierce support. María's son Hector was immediately entranced by Vivian, but at first he couldn't bring himself to get involved with a friend of the woman that he despises (his own mother) so he tried to convince himself that Vivian must be as bad as María.
I could probably go on and on explaining the intricacies of the plot, but I was just going to outline the plot in a nutshell. It's already turning out to be more like the size of a coconut shell. Suffice it to say that the cast is first-rate and the production values of the show are top-notch; much better than I would have expected. It's a good thing that telenovelas usually only last for around six months. At least I know that I'll be seeing how this all plays out and wraps up within a few more months.