Plot: Senor Basilio is still in Los Angeles, and quite unhappy about it. He's being a sulky baby, basically, even refusing to honor his promise to come to luncheon at Senorita Moneta's hacienda when Diego comes to get him. Until, that is, Diego mentions Moneta's father is interested in buying royal bonds. So off they go, and the experience, unfortunately, improves Basilio's opinion of the area. The haciendas are impressive, and the wealth of their owners even more so. As Don Cornelio, Alejandro, and the others buy the bonds, the pile of wealth on Basilio's table grows. At first, he planned merely to take a small "commission", but swiftly changes his plans.
Instead, he plans to send large chests filled with a gourd of water and a cup on one side, and a bunch of gunpowder on the other. In between, a loaded pistol. While the chests are on the ship back to Spain, the rolling of the waves will cause the gourd to spill into the cup, weighing it down, until it draws the string tied to the trigger and the gun fires into the gunpowder, blowing up the ship, and causing everyone to assume the gold and jewels were lost. Of course, Basilio immediately wrecks the plan by publicly asking Diego if he knows of any haciendas in the area for sale, which seems awfully suspicious for a humble servant of the king. Soon enough, the wagon departs, with three chests. But Bernardo tells Diego he saw six chests. Basilio and Mendoza have both left to go. . . somewhere, so our heroes enter his office, and Bernardo distracts the guard while Diego sneaks into Basilio's room. He finds the other chests, but can't pick their locks.
Diego and Bernardo both dress as Zorro, and while Bernardo leads the lancers guarding the wagon on a merry chase, Diego catches up to the wagon. While he's trying to settle the horses, the hitch breaks and the wagon goes flying off a cliff. All the shaking triggered Basilio's Rube Goldberg device and the chests explode. Even so, that night Basilio receives a note telling him the chests were safely loaded on the ship. He and Mendoza rush to ogle their stolen gold, only to find rocks and dirt inside the chests, as well as the mark of Zorro.
Quote of the Episode: Diego - 'He is the arrogant jackass, isn't he?' Alejandro - 'You insult the jackass.'
Times Zorro marks a "Z": 3 (13 overall). One on the inside of the lid to each chest.
Other: Basilio is really bad at subterfuge. Maybe not surprising, considering how poorly he hid his disdain up to then. I guess he's not used to anyone calling him on acting like a pouty child, so he doesn't realize how obvious he is.
Alejandro mentioned that California is more loyal to the King than many of Spain's other colonies. I can't help shaking my head a little at him throwing the other colonies under the bus (to the extent Basilio would even care, which he doesn't), while wondering which colonies he meant. I also wonder if he means the Spanish or native inhabitants of those colonies, because you can't fault the people who were already there when the Spanish arrived for not giving a damn about Spain.
Basilio's also got his eyes on Moneta, and judging by the preview of next week's episode, I think he's going to take a page from Monastario's book and try to win her hand by threatening her father. I don't expect it to go any better for him than it did the Capitan.
At the very start of the episode, Diego rides upon Garcia crossing the square, Reyes right on his heels. Which is frustrating Garcia, who asks the corporal to walk on one side of him or the other, but to stop following him. I thought that was going somewhere, possibly referring to Basilio blaming Garcia for the humiliation Basilio suffered last week, but it never came up again.
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4 comments:
Something must be wrong with your "Times Zorro marks a "Z"" count: right now it reads "1 (9 overall)" in episode 2x26, "0 (8 overall)" in episode 2x27 and "3 (13 overall)" in episode 2x28.
"Diego and Bernardo both dress as Zorro": their plan here is similar to episode 1x16, but in that episode they were both wearing a full Zorro costume, while here Bernardo is only wearing Zorro's hat, cape and gloves; I guess they didn't bother having Bernardo wear the mask and full costume because he would only be seen from his back and from a big distance. Also, in episode 1x16 Bernardo's horse looked identical to Tornado, unlike here.
Yeah, I screwed up my count somewhere in the last month or so. I need to go back over my notes and figure out where precisely. Hopefully I'll get fixed in the next day or two.
That's a good point about Bernardo not wearing a mask. I guess they figured he could lose the lancers easily enough, although I remember thinking at the time that maybe he should be on Tornado, since Zorro only had to chase down a wagon ostensibly carrying a heavy load of gold (really some water and gunpowder, but he doesn't know that at the moment).
"That's a good point about Bernardo not wearing a mask. I guess they figured he could lose the lancers easily enough": indeed, it makes sense here for Bernardo to be without a mask, unlike in episode 1x26, where Figueroa could see Zorro talking to Bernardo (did they know Figueroa would get killed later?). Or in episode 1x32, where Zorro and Bernardo (undisguised) were riding together near the tavern. It's also interesting to note that in 1x32 Bernardo was later caught thieving (still undisguised) and in the next episode he was dressing as Zorro instead for a similar mission.
OK, I found where things got off trac, back during the arc with Uncle Estevan. Dangers of typing these things up a week in advance, I don't always double-check the episode that's going up that day before I type the next week's recap.
About Bernardo frequently hanging out with Zorro in public, are most of those at night? They could figure there aren't many people out, and that most people will focus on Zorro, rather than the person next to him. Still seems needlessly dodgy, since they obviously have a spare costume. Though I guess there would be times where it would be helpful to have Bernardo clothed so that people won't immediately chase after him, since apparently almost no one think anything of him being around.
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