From el Gobernador to monje mendicidade: Fernando becomes a beggar monkThere may be hope for Fernando, formerly el Gobernador and now a beggar monk, as Zorro moves into the últimos capítulos phase. Fernando has committed a lot of sins. So, as someone at the Caray, Caray! blog suggested, he probably has to die saving the life of Don Alfonso, María Pía's new true love. Or something similar.
Aaron the Exorcist converted him, apparently with more lasting effect last time. He baptized Fernando and gave him a brown robe and cowl. María Pía has now seen him in town, though she's trying to pretend it was an hallucination.
Aaron himself, sad to say, didn't survive his final exorcism, as we saw this week. We don't know if the exorcism was successful but Aaron the Exorcist wound up strangled to death.
Xenameralda undergoes the ancient Amazon sword passing ritualThe Amazon storyline continued through the week. This is one of the most inspired things they've done in this telenovela. Esmeralda's new Amazon sisters trained her to be Xenameralda with swordfighting, archery, wrestling, and endurance running. One scene has them playing a game in a shallow creek that involved tossing what looks like a leather basketball back and forth.
They also dropped in hints that Xenameralda and the Spanish-speaking Amazon Vanya may have, uh, a bit more than a simple warrior-sister relationship. But I don't think they'll go there. Then again, I never saw the Amazon story line coming, either.
In any case, the stage now seems to be set for the end-game. The Queen's masquerade ball is going to be a major event, that's probably going to bring both Sara Kalí and Xenameralda before the Queen simultaneously and set off the final set of conflicts between the Duque Jacobo-Montero-Pizarro villains and the Zorro-Alejandro-Queen-gitano-Indian-Amazon-Brotherhood alliance. Who knows where Fernando the Beggar Monk will fall in the final showdown?
Diego and Xenameralda are the main hero and heroine, so it's a given that in the end they will get together with their previous marriages finally annuled (or ended by the til-death-do-us-part clause) and their son Baby Zorro safe with the two of them.
Amazons at play: basketball in the streamFor Diego, the big question is whether his Zorro identity becomes public knowledge or not. It could go either way. Things are looking a bit dicey since Mariángel/Mangle's old boyfriend Santiago Michelena, who knew Diego back in the Old Country blabbed to Mangle about Diego being the best swordfighter in Spain, probably in all Europe. It's unclear how they measured such things. But Mangle now suspects Diego's Zorro and so does Santiago. El Comandante Montero isn't convinced but he sees that it might be a way to destroy the De la Vegas. With all the excitement recently, plotting and murdering and all, he's apparently forgotten that he tried that once already. It ended with Diego free, safe and sound, Diego interrupting Montero's church wedding with Xenameralda while a decoy Zorro was seen out in the streets, and Alejandro raising an army against him. But Montero is a hopeful guy, it seems.
I'm guessing it will turn out the same way again, though the De la Vegas will all learn about his secret identity and get a tour of the Zorro Cave. Of course, now that the Queen is appointing Alejandro as the new Governador, just and wise rule will undoubtedly prevail en Los Ángeles and there may be no further need for Zorro's swashbuckling. Maybe he can migrate to San Diego.
Kamba has no complaints about the AmazonsDiego/Zorro will play a big role in the political upheaval that Sara Kalí and Xenameralda are planning separately, of course. The big question on the end-game is whether the current Queen will abdicate in favor of her cousin Sara Kalí. I'll say she will probably offer to do so, but Sara Kalí will decline the throne in exchange for being made Duchess of Gitano Affairs and sail back to Spain with the gitanos.
The big question for Xenameralda is whether she carries out her campaign of vengeance on Fernando, Montero, and Mangle. Since she thinks Pizarro personally murdered Baby Zorro, she probably wants to kill him, too. My prediction is that she'll get to bash Montero and Pizarro around with her newly-acquired Amazon Xena skills. She'll probably slap Mangle around a bit, too, maybe threaten to make her the Amazons' toilet-cleaning slave, or something. But even in her Xenameralda mode, she's just not the revenge-killing type. So the villains are likely to meet their fates in other ways. (See opening paragraph for my Fernando prediction.)
She only has eyes for him: Mangle and Olmos making outZorro may wind up killing Montero to save the life of Baby Zorro, who Montero will no doubt threaten at some point. But I'm going to guess that Pizarro will finally say, "You've given me my last asthma attack, scumbag", and shoot him. Pizarro will have to go down and they'll probably let Tobías do it in the end.
Almudena will die soon because we've had two prophetic Regina/Toypurnia dreams from her and one Regina vision from Yumalai, induced by Búfala Blanca's peace pipe. Búfala Blanca also warned Yumalai against trying to change fate by saving Almudena. So Almudena's just not long for the Zorro world at this point. She'll probably come out of her coma long enough to tell Yumalai she's knows it was Mangle instead of Yumalai poisoning her.
After Almudena's gone, the way will be clear for Yumalai to move into the Wife #1 position for Alejandro and they'll seal the deal with a church wedding. I'm guessing Alejandro won't try to do another Big Love multiple-wife arrangement with Yumalai because, hey, would you want Yumalai angry at you over something like that?
Diego and Bernardo don't have so much luck with the Amazons: Diego catches an Amazon arrow with his handMangle has to go down, too. But first, we get to see her make love with Olmos (well, we get to see the covers heaving, anyway) and then Selenia's love spell will wear off and she'll be enraged at Olmos. Hopefully, Diego finds them in bed just like Almudena and Fernando found him in bed with Mangle when Mangle pulled her "honey trap" on him.
The Mangle/Olmos blowup afterward will be what brings out the details about Baby Zorro really being Xenameralda's baby instead of Mangle's horned-and-fanged offspring. And Yumalai is going to be real upset when she learns that Mangle has murdered her madrina, not to mention trying to frame her for it. So I'm guessing Mangle is going to wind up with one of Yumalai's arrows in her heart.
Bernardo will recover, of course. I was hoping for a Bernardo-Yumalai union, but that's obviously not going to happen. But surely Xenameralda's
That would give all three of the main men at the hacienda wild women for wives: Alejandro-Yumalai, Diego-Xenameralda and Benardo-Vanya. And with Vanya staying on the hacienda, she and Xenameralda could ... oh, never mind. (But, hey, Alejandro's Big Love arrangement with Yumalai wasn't exactly standard practice then, either, was it?)
Sara Kalí ponders her end game meeting with her cousin the Queen and thwarting el Duque JacoboKamba will go back to live with the Amazons, for sure. He clearly enjoys their company and already has a couple of girlfriends there. They practice their own version of Big Love. Kamba knows a good thing when he sees it.
García will wind up as el Comandante nuevo under el Governador Alejandro. Maybe he'll marry Laisha and keep her in California while the rest of the gitanos head back to Europe. At this point, I'm sure they'd be relieved to be rid of her.
And Padre Tomás can settle in to doing regular Mass and administrative duties for the convent. And he can preside over monthly meetings of the Cofradía (Brotherhood), where the guys can sit around and drink wine and reminisce about the good old days when they saved the Spanish Empire from the evil designs of el Duque Jacobo.
Tags: zorro, zorro telenovela
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