AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE, A MYSTERY AND HEARTBREAK

image courtesy of serials.ru

image courtesy of serials.ru

My misgivings about CATALINA Y SEBASTIAN increased after I saw the opening credits; Sebastian Mendoza (SERGIO BASANEZ) and Catalina Negrete (SILVIA NAVARRO) - looking handsome and beautiful (Silvia looking like an angel with her wavy honey blonde hair, yet I still remember the curls she later wore in CUANDO SEAS MIA) respectively as they both get dressed for their wedding but Catalina looking so sad; her eyes full of tears and (to my dismay) not allowing Sebastian to kiss her at the end of the ceremony and running out of the church.
I totally dislike Carmelo (ALBERTO MAYAGOITA) already; he’s so creepy the way he watched the wedding ceremony from where he sat & as for Catalina’s parents and brother, disgustingly smug. (by the way, it’s really isn’t going to be easy putting in these posts from now on, due to the present strike by the oil tanker workers, so you’ll all have to bear with me pls!)
EPISODES 1 TO FIVE

On the first week (this week), we were treated to 6 familiar faces (mostly from the just concluded LA HIJA DE JARDINERO-THE GARDENER’S DAUGHTER); SERGIO KLEINER, (who played Antonio Ordonez) whose role is Catalina’s loving yet ambitious and conniving father, KENIA GAZCON (Marissa) who is Sylvia, the rich woman who Eduardo, dumps Catalina for, ALEJANDRA LAZCANO (Vanessa) plays Sebastian’s accommodating sister and Eduardo’s friend suspiciously looks like that gold digging idiot, Miguel in CUANDO SEAS MIA.
We meet Catalina’s family, the Negretes, who are in a financial crisis, caused by their stupid habit of following a life style the can ill afford and pretending to be rich, most especially Catalina’s shallow momsie, Adela, (CLAUDIA ISLAS). Catalina is the only member of the family with any common sense and wishes to contribute but is not allowed to take a job, her best friend, Alicia, is regarded as ‘white trash’ and her precious boyfriend, a gym instructor, ‘that ugly Eduardo’ by her parents and brother, Ricardo who collaborate to marry her off to a widowed millionaire Gustavo is acquainted with, Lupe Mendoza, who just happens to be Sebastian’s father, to solve their financial crisis.
At the same time, the Mendoza family are also introduced- Don Lupe (FIDEL GARRIGA) and his pretty daughter Martina, who welcome home Sebastian, just returning from Columbia having finished his studies. We also see who promises to be a thorn in Sebastian’s flesh (as well as his chief nemesis), “Creepy Carmelo”, the foreman, who is clearly not happy at Sebastian’s return, scorning everyone’s enthusiastic welcome, yet denying that he was jealous of Sebastian as well as talking/hinting about the “yet-to-be-confirmed-but-I-don’t-think-it’s- true” rumour that he’s Don Lupe’s bastard son. Then there’s Ms. Antoinette (REGINA TORNE), who it turns out is full of hate towards her neighbour, Don Lupe for refusing to return her love after the death of Sebastian and Martina’s mummy, Matilda, who allegedly was an opportunist who left behind a mysterious letter, its contents, Rufina (the Mendoza housekeeper) and Josepha (Antoinette’s maid) suspect holds the key to Sebastian, Carmelo and Lupe’s past and future; they are also certain that a local woman who had raised Carmelo(Petra) has the letter and knows what was written in it.(I myself have racked and racked my brains and cant figure out what the secret is.)
On haring about her parents’ plan to marry her off to “some old millionaire”, Catalina and Eduardo(CHRISTIAN CATALDI )agree to elope and marry secretly but while about to park the car outside her father’s place of work, she literally ran into Sebastian, who is immediately caught under her spell (just like in CUANDO SEAS MIA at his grandfather’s funeral where he played Diego and she, Paloma) and wastes no time at all asking her out; which she reluctantly accepts but insisted she already had a boyfriend, however her father Gustavo lies to him later on that she was “merely testing him”. The same boyfriend Eduardo, unknown to her, was cheating on her with another woman called Sylvia, (KENIA GAZCON in the familiar role of a rich woman in love with a man half her age) who is determined to marry him before she got “too wrinkled” (personally I thought she was beautiful) and Eduardo, to his friend Luis’ disgust, decides to choose Sylvia’s money over Catalina’s love.
Sebastian informs his father about Catalina over the phone, declaring, ‘I won’t accept any woman for a wife that isn’t Catalina’ which drives Don Lupe to immediately instruct “Creepy Carmelo” to hire a private investigator to investigate Catalina and her family as he wasn’t going to allow a gold digger to mock his son. Sebastian’s ‘girlfriend’ is food for gossip round the town and soon hits the ears of Amelia, Martina’s best friend (and a stupid fool with big boobs, double chin and a personality to match) who is outraged as she was in love (or so she thinks) with Sebastian, while Antoinette wonders if she could use the yet unknown Catalina to wreck her revenge on Don Lupe.
Sebastian gets a hint about the Negretes’ financial state when they are about to be thrown out of their home and kindly pays their rent arrears (to Catalina’s gratitude/humiliation) and gets furious at both Amelia and Lupe’s actions; Amelia told Gustavo she was Sebastian’s girlfriend(which she hotly denied afterwards) and Lupe for having his Catalina investigated.
Luis (at Eduardo’s request) tells Alicia that Eduardo had another woman, Alicia in turn tells Catalina, who of course doesn’t believe it until she finds Sylvia with Eduardo at his apartment. Determined to make her hate him and have a clean break, he tells her, ‘I left you for money’, which makes her realise that her precious relationship with him was over. (MEN!)
Catalina informs her triumphant momsie and her sympathetic (yet relieved) daddy that “the stupid, romantic Catalina was gone”; she’ll never ever allow anyone to fool around with her again, deciding to marry Sebastian (mostly out of spite, poor thing) to help out the family after all.
Sebastian angrily moves to his flat in the city (because of what his father did), takes Catalina out on a date & although it’s still early, asks her to marry him, to her surprise. (The way Catalina reached out to kiss him and offered to help make peace with his father convinced me she was genuinely growing fond of Sebastian, despite her decision to marry him out of spite and for money).
On her way out to visit Alicia later in the evening, she runs into Amelia (obviously intimidated by Catalina’s beauty after she confirmed she was the one Amelia was looking for) who wasted no time in accusing her of ‘stealing Sebastian from her’.

Amelia has now wrecked major damage; just when Catalina is tentatively reaching out to Sebastian in order to be happy again, her stupid action and whatever lies she’ll tell her ext week will remind Catalina of what Eduardo just did and harden her heart from feeling love for another man, and go back to her initial decision to marry him for his money. I knew the story was going to be based on one big misunderstanding, which was why I wished AIT had picked LA HEREDERA, both Catalina and Sebastian are going to suffer terribly before realising the truth, and probably make them renew their vows.

Until next week (Insha Allah) and pls leave your comments!