TELENOVELA WATCH: Strong Start For LA MARIPOSA; LOS REY Loosely Inspired On DALLAS

LA MARIPOSA
After two weeks, LA MARIPOSA (weeknights at 9 p.m. ET) is shaping up to be the best prime time show to air on MundoFox in the network's brief history. As the protagonists – an undercover American agent named Manuel Martínez (Michel Brown) and a high class Colombian money launderer named Alicia Benítez (María Adelaida Puerta) – navigate through a complex criminal world of drug lords and arms dealers, LA MARIPOSA manages to convey a sense of danger and suspense while remaining, thus far, reasonably escapist fare.

TELENOVELA WATCH: First Thoughts On CORONA DE LÁGRIMAS & LA MARIPOSA

CORONA DE LÁGRIMAS
No telenovela this year has been more aptly titled than CORONA DE LÁGRIMAS (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET), which premiered this week on Univision. The tears are flowing from the very first scene of this Televisa production as the novela’s heroine, Refugio (Victoria Ruffo), is tossed out onto the street with her three young sons by the boys’ father, with his mistress by his side. Refugio goes on to cry three additional times in the first fifteen minutes, understandable given the momentous upheaval she and her children are facing. We are soon to find out, however, that Refugio cries a lot. She cries four more times in the second episode, and has cried at least once in each of the first five episodes. Victoria Ruffo has long earned a reputation as one of the best weepers in telenovelas, but by week’s end, I began to think she was attempting to break some perverse record.

TELENOVELA WATCH: UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR's Final Week; EL CAPO 2 Finale; AMOR BRAVÍO; ROSA DIAMANTE; Premieres: CORONA DE LÁGRIMAS (Dec. 3), LA MARIPOSA (Dec. 4)

UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR
I intend to write more on UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR as a whole later this month when I run down my favorite telenovelas of the year. For now, some words on the final week, which was darker and more somber than I anticipated. This novela managed to maintain a wonderfully balanced tone through its run, but the humor waned in these final episodes as the novela went after tears instead and earned them: Don Aquiles making peace with the daughter he never knew he had, Violeta, and her mother before his death and funeral; Patricio discovering the proof that street ragamuffin Mateo was Luciana and Rodrigo’s son, missing five years and the subsequent reunion of them all as a family; and saddest of all, Patricio’s death in the final episode after complications in surgery he hoped would allow him to walk again.