Domenica Montero episodes 12-14-1/2

 Domenica Montero episode 12, 13, part of 14.

This is a from-memory, out of order, possibly not completely accurate English language recap of the telenovela Domenica Montero.

This blog is meant to be a supplement to the telenovela blog Caray Caray.

We return to the Laguna or body of water where Domenica has decided to take a dip. She took her top off and is peacefully swimming when she sees that “uncomfortable neighbor” (vecino incómodo) Luis Fernando in the water too! She accuses him of spying on her, he protests too much, says he’s rather kiss her horse. This prompts her to impulsively kiss him, a kiss he most definitely and enthusiastically reciprocates.

Then all of a sudden Domenica comes to her senses, says “what am I doing?” and “This is not me!” as Luis looks at her with a stunned, deer-in-the-headlights expression. She says “Go!” and he says “Why?” to which she replies that she doesn’t have a top on and she can’t get out of the water without being seen. He finally seems to come to himself, and almost sheepishly, like a scolded schoolboy, retreats with a meek, “sorry” and “I’m going” (“Voy!”) and swims off. 

He dresses but hangs around near the water. He watches Domenica dress (her back to him) from a distance. As she sees him still there, she awkwardly waits as he approaches. He says that now that they’re dressed maybe they can talk calmly. She doesn’t really want to, but does offer an apology for the kiss, which she says was somehow still his fault. This time, he semi-impulsively kisses her, explaining that he “needs to know if what he’s feeling is real.” She initially responds enthusiastically, then abruptly pulls away, making a quick escape. 

She’s distracted and pensive back at the house when the others are talking about how they lost donors for the orphanage; this is where she says that she won’t be having kids since that would require her trusting a man, and that won’t be happening. The orphanage kids will be her heirs.

This triggers Tia to get upset. She doesn’t understand Domenica. She complains about this later to Nana, who says there’s lots of ways to have kids. “Yes, well…” Tia says, “it’s not the same if it’s not your own blood.” to which Nana takes offense, saying she didn’t gave blood kids but she cared for and raised Domenica like her own kid. Nana walks off in a huff leaving Tia feeling like an idiot.

There’s a scene where Prudencio’s granddaughter brings him lunch as he is out in the field - his favorite salsa. It’s a sweet moment where she makes it clear that she forgives him and loves him, he says the same, and they hug. 

Domenica has a zoom video call with her orphans. They beg her to tell them a story, she’s unprepared, so invents a story that echoes just what happened with her and Luis - he is a beast, she is a mermaid, and he finds her in a Laguna but the mermaid is not sure she can trust him because she’s been hurt before. The kids are lapping up the story.

Mercedes is troubled about something and confides in Prudencio - she worries about her unfaithful husband’s other kid and what happened to him. Husband wanted her to take care of the kid when baby momma died, but Mercedes refused. She never found out what happened to the kid. Prudencio asks gently, “Do you want me to help you find this kid?” She says no, she’ll carry the guilt herself. Her fear is that Luis will never forgive her for “abandoning” his half-brother (to which I think, if there was any “abandoning,” it was the unfaithful husband who did it), and she knows Luis would look for the half brother, and she fears the half brother in turn would want revenge - no, she thinks, better to carry this guilt on her own.

Kiara is trying to capture the attention of the doctorcito Luis, so she visits his hacienda and is present when he returns, distracted, from the Laguna/kissing episode with Domenica. His mom asks if something bad happened, he says no, not bad … and is clearly discombobulated.

During Kiara’s visit, she paints herself to be selfless and self-sacrificing and describes Domenica as selfish and heartless - “but I adore my cousin.” Luis listens carefully to all that Kiara says. Kiara hints that she’s like to get to know the countryside, and Mercedes quickly volunteers Luis to give her a tour. He seems not super enthusiastic but is gentlemanly and they do the rounds. When they get to the Laguna (or whatever body of water), Kiara would like to take a swim, but Luis isn’t up for that. Kiara tricks him and pulls him into the water - fully clothed - so when they return back from the tour, they’re both wet.

Pedro visits Domenica - to thank her for the back pay (which she repeats that he earned), but also to ask her to be his witness for the business contract he’s going to sign with Luis. She is shocked and feels concerned that Pedro’s investing his earnings with Luis.

Just at this moment Luis returns Kiara to Domenica’s hacienda, and Domenica sees them look seemingly very cozy together riding on his horse. Domenica is obviously jealous, but also upset after learning that Pedro is now Luis’s socio, thinking Luis is just taking advantage of him. She comes out to confront and fight with Luis once again.  

Domenica is really bent out of shape about Luis’s apparent friendliness with Kiara; she later “forbids” Kiara to have anything to do with him, which of course makes her look super jealous. Kiara isn’t having it and says so, later Tia gets really offended at how Domenica talked to Kiara. Domenica concedes she was out of line, says she already apologized to Kiara, but for some reason this time Tia is not mollified and seriously talks about how she and Kiara maybe should make their own way now and leave. Domenica looks very shocked by this; “please don’t go” she says. She’s always had Tia around and needs her.

I’m going to summarize things kind of out of order and a little faster, because these episodes are very content-dense and full of important details!

Genero is always talking about Domenica as his “mare” and his “hembra” (female) but never to her face - he’s lusting after her, while simultaneously knocking boots with Kiara on multiple occasions. He assumes he’ll “tame” her and get control of all her lands and brags to his socios (presidente municipal and Gabriel) that he’ll be calling the shots soon enough.

There’s a scene in some sort of government building or lawyer’s office, where Pedro signs the contract with Luis. He signs with a fingerprint. Domenica is his witness and carefully reviews the contract, and is impressed by how fair it is; in fact, it is in Pedro’s favor.

There’s a scene earlier in ep 12 when Domenica returns from the fateful swim where she kisses the “beastly” neighbor. She’s wearing this fitted top vest thing that only someone with her figure can pull off - the top few buttons come undone and when Genero sees her, his eyes get big, his jaw slacks, and his neck retracts like a turtle going into its shell. Domenica wants to know what he’s looking at; he says well your buttons aren’t done right, one can’t help but look! She fixes her buttons and yells, “Stop with your stupid crap!” and takes off in disgust. Genero privately opines that Domenica is worth two - no, three - Kiaras!

There’s also a rumor that gets out (borne somehow, I think, from the drunken night in the cantina where the cruel song was sung about Domenica’s misfortune). Someone jumps to the conclusion that Cute Lawyer is Domenica’s boyfriend, and Genero doesn’t like hearing that at all. 

 

During these various episodes, Domenica is able to befriend Bartolo’s daughter Rosita, and also Gabriel’s daughter Maria. It looks like Bartolo’s wife has also warmed to Domenica, and is very friendly.

It appears that Rosita has also developed a very sweet, age-appropriate crush on Gabriel’s youngest son (Lalo I think) who takes after his sister Maria and wants to focus on education and not on being a nasty brute like his older brother Osvaldo.

Domenica has some good conversations with Maria, who wants to study and have a career, but knows it isn’t an option for women in the backwards, misogynistic pueblo. She looks at Domenica as a heroine, and Domenica promises that the can communicate through email, because Maria risks retaliation (possible beating?) if her dad knows she’s friendly with Domenica.

Pedro is starting to blossom as a socio of a hacienda - he dresses better, is getting lessons on reading and writing, and turns out to be very knowledgeable on hacienda matters, particularly growing crops, and has good ideas and suggestions. He thinks they should grow a crop of beans north of the Laguna (for various reasons), but this region is under dispute with Domenica. (They decide to grow the crops there anyway.)

El presidente municipal takes it upon himself to arrange to get a very authentic-looking deed made of Domenica’s property, with the boundaries conveniently changed to give Domenica the Laguna and the lands north of that. It cost him a lot of effort and hopefully will make things easier as they take advantage of Domenica and her land. Presidente municipal also says that he made sure that no conflicting documents (with the legit boundaries) still exist.

Genaro presents the doctored deed to Domenica with great pride - she is thrilled! It’s legit! This settles it! Cute lawyer is confused because he was just looking for the deed at the capital and found nothing. Genaro has some explanation and cute lawyer seems to accept it.

 

The end of episode 12 has Domenica and her people crashing a nice celebratory dinner for Pedro at Luis’s hacienda, presenting the deed triumphantly. 

Luis isn’t having it; he has a deed too. He shows it, and Godfather is confused, because they both look equally legit. Domenica is stubborn and confident that she’s right and wants to get things settled legally as soon as possible. In private later, Godfather tells her that things can get bogged down and take forever to settle; often land records in el campo are loosey-goosey and hard to pin down. Domenica didn’t realize this and feels chagrined that she was so confident before.

Luis isn’t having it - talking about this with his mom after - he is sure his dad was perfectly honest and his deed is legit. Mercedes seems to look uncertain when Luis talks about his dad’s honestly, so he asks her why - and she finally confesses that Luis’s dad had an affair, which is why she didn’t want to come back to his hacienda, because it carries so many bad memories. Luis is shocked at his dad’s betrayal and very supportive of Mercedes.

During one of these episodes there is this really sweet scene where Pedro tells Prudencio that he knows Prudencio has been surreptitiously making sure Pedro had enough to eat through the years - I think by giving his granddaughter money to give him food - and now that Pedro is a socio he wants to return the favor and help Prudencio out (I think he thinks Prudencio is slowing down because of age). Prudencio is very touched to learn that Pedro always knew what he was doing, but insists that no thanks is necessary. 

During episode 13 Tia decides she wants to get to that money she and Kiara have, just to see how much there is, etc, since she wants to start a business with that money. Godfather finds out that the bank account is empty. Tia freaks out. Godfather looks at the actual account online to see what’s going on, and it is obvious that the account wasn’t hacked or anything - 6 million pesos were transferred to Max, presumably by Kiara! It is very clear!

Tia rips into Kiara when she sees her; Kiara insists that she was scammed by Max too - he convinced her he could invest it or get her better interest or something, and she believed him. Tia asks why didn’t Kiara consult her first? Kiara just starts screaming that it’s clear that she’s a screw-up and failure, and runs out to escape on a horse - even though she can’t ride well - making everyone think she’s planning on doing herself in. 

Tia is distraught and falls for this obvious manipulation, and everyone goes out to look for Kiara.

Kiara’s fine. It’s all an act. She’s on some country road and purposely rolls in a mud puddle and scratches herself (and later hits her head with a rock) to look like she had an accident. Luis, of course, is the one who finds her, apparently unconscious, and brings her back to the hacienda. 

Episode 13 ends around this time, but I’m not promising to get everything in order, so there’s going to be some bleeding over between episodes.

Genero asks his buddy Roque (I think that’s the name) to appeal to Pedro to get a job at Luis’s hacienda in order to spy. Long story short, Pedro doesn’t fall for it. He knows Roque is Genero’s friend. When that scheme fails, Genero then punches Roque really hard and says he’s fired - Roque will have no other options but to work for Luis and if they think he’s injured and fired, they’ll have pity on him.

This does work, because when Roque goes to Luis for treatment, it turns out Roque is actually pretty badly hurt (almost broke a bone?) and Luis needs more workers. Luis encourages Roque to press charges but of course Roque refuses. 

Later (either in episode 13 or early 14?) Domenica confesses in private to Nana about her kiss with Luis. She said time stood still when he kissed her and she’s confused about how to take it all in. Nana reminds her that there’s only a short step between love and hate.

Nieves is shamelessly eavesdropping to all of this, eyes wide, neck craned, and quickly tells her uncle the gossip. The patrona kissed doctorcito and liked it! This sets him in a tailspin. 

I’m not sure of the timeline here; I know that Genero got super drunk and whined to his corrupt socios about his hembra going with an “otro.” He and Kiara had a big fight where she denigrated him and said she had eyes for the doctorcito, to which he replied, dream on, he and your cousin have a thing.

During the later parts of these episodes we see more of Cute Lawyer; he’s going to help Domenica set up a public women’s center in town, to help the women and possibly get them education and support? Anyway, she knows her name is poison in town, so the idea is floated that the center can be put in the name of Kiara, because everyone likes her better and will likely accept the center.

When Cute Lawyer and Domenica are in town to arrange things for the women’s center, they see Kiara with Luis’s family in front of a church. (It’s the mass for Luis’s unborn kid; Kiara invited herself along.) Domenica and Cute Lawyer, both being nosy and tacky I guess, slip in the back of the church and hear that it’s a service for Luis’s dead wife and child. She feels SUPER bad that she ever trivialized his pain (in the past, during their arguments, she kind of compared her pain with whatever unspecified thing he said he had gone through). After the service, instead of quietly slipping out before she can be seen (which I fully expected was the most appropriate, but what do I know), she approaches him to offer a sincere, tearful apology. At first he just wants her to go, but then he asks that everyone leave so they can talk privately. 

They clear the air - she thought Luis had fed Gabriel the idea for the cruel song but no - he would never do that and in fact punched Gabriel for it. The start to get closer to each other, with moistened eyes, more romantic - and I’m thinking, this is the memorial service for his dead baby and kind of for his dead wife - can’t this wait? But oh well - she tells him she ran away from their kiss because she was afraid she was going to fall in love again after vowing she never would. They are so close to kissing (again, at his kid’s memorial service?!) but are interrupted by Kiara, I think.

During this time, the rest of the group is waiting outside the church and Cute Lawyer introduces himself. Suddenly two neighborhood gossips come up to talk smack about Prudencio’s granddaughter being a cualquiera (hussy) and saying that Osvaldo’s mom saw it all. Prudencio’s granddaughter denies it and is upset, but Cute Lawyer saves the day by telling these ladies that unless they have proof, what they’re doing can be subject to a lawsuit, a fine, possibly jail, and oh yeah, he’s a lawyer. The ladies quickly leave and Prudencio takes the opportunity to introduce his very lovely granddaughter to Cute Lawyer and I don’t think that scene was put in there for no reason.

The gossips quickly report back to Gabriel’s wife what happened with Cute Lawyer and they’re all nervous. Who knew there could be consequences for being vile, toxic gossips?