RA vs the World

In the fifth week of “Dirty Linen,” we are treated to just how quickly Leona’s mind could work. The show’s story shifted focus from Feliz Pavia to Leona Fiero, but we still have yet to uncover more of her secrets including what Lioness Den is all about. In this post, let’s review all the episodes and try to unpack everything that we saw this week.

As always, there are heavy spoilers ahead. Please watch the episodes first before reading this post.

Episode 21

The teenagers are back and the world is not right again. The Pavias have decided that they want to “move out” and get Feliz’ inheritance, but Doña Cielo Fiero (Tessie Tomas) says she is the only one to decide whether or not Feliz (Angel Aquino) still deserves to receive it. While reviewing the Stella Murder case, Lemuel Onore (JC Santos) recalls an incidence when he crossed paths with Alexa (Janine Gutierrez) while she was pretending to be pregnant to get the pity of street customer as she sells crackers. He is then convinced she might be the woman caught in the CCTV at the Stella Murder crime scene.

The episode doesn’t delve deep into why Feliz did not get the any inheritance from Christopher Fiero, but we can only assume that this is because she married Ador, a lowly cockpit arena kristo. But there could be more to it since Doña Cielo keeps the last will and testament locked in a golden box. This could be because Feliz is Cielo’s daughter from another guy. This is a Filipino teleserye after all. This could make Feliz, who lives in another house outside the Fiero mansion, both literally and figuratively “anak sa labas.”

Episode 22

Lemuel start interrogating Stella’s former boyfriend, who is still in prison. Doña Cielo reviews the last will and testament by his late husband Christopher. Nico (Seth Fedelin) lifts Chiara’s (Francine Diaz) day with a text message, so he gets an emoji as a response. They stare at their phones the way horny teens would. Meanwhile, Tonet (Xyriel Manabat) sends Nico an update, so in turn, she gets an emoji as well. Clint (Raven Rigot) still doesn’t have good lines. He just follows Tonet around all day. Alexa and Rolando (Mila and Abe for the rest of the Fiero household) talk about the Fieros, and plan to see how much Leona influences the family.

This is the most eventless episode so far and the only thing that was interesting was Cielo’s obsession with the last will and testament.

The Max (Christian Bables) and Lala (Jennica Garcia) loveteam is cute, but I have a feeling it’s not going to happen.

The Nico and Chiara loveteam, on the other hand, is already getting old. Getting to know Nico changed Chiara for the better, though. She now treats the maids better. Wait until Tonet changes all that.

Episode 23

Speaking of Tonet, apparently, she is just flirting with Nico out of jealousy. It’s all about Chiara, Chiara, Chiara. Doña Cielo asks Carlos (John Arcilla) to get help from Leona (Janice de Belen) in the launch of another Fiero business. Just another proof that this family relies on Leona on certain things. Attorney Olga (Andrea del Rosario) invites a news team to feature Leona and her women’s shelter. The next day, a news production team praises Carlos for having thought of the women’s shelter program even though it was clearly Leona’s. It is then revealed that Leona’s Lioness Den is a nightly operation, but no further clues were given as to what it’s all about. Meanwhile, Alexa and a drunk Aidan (Zanjoe Marudo) were seen by Precious (Rubi Rubi) entering his room together. Precious took photos, totally breaking the rules she told Alexa on her first day. Alexa massages Aidan’s hands and we see more episode fillers in the form of unnecessary flashbacks. The episodes ends with even more flashbacks as Leona contemplates suffocating Carlos with a pillow.

I am not a fan of flashbacks if we’re only getting scenes we’ve seen before. This way of using flashbacks is just lazy screenwriting and the writers just want to stretch this story for as many episodes as they can. Flashbacks are necessary only if the scenes are totally new (e.g. Rolando’s story flashbacks). BUT—there’s always a but—I can totally forgive the use of flashbacks during the scene in which Leona is contemplating murdering Carlos. Despite the use of scenes we already saw before, the use of flashbacks here is so that we know what’s inside Leona’s mind. She never forgets. The slap, the infidelity, the credit-grab. None of it escapes her mind.

Leona is the smartest member of the Fiero household. The fact that Cielo would tell Carlos to get her help means that her role in the mansion, although overlooked, is very much needed.

Episode 24

Leona doesn’t kill Carlos because it’s too early in the series for that. The next day, Leona oversleeps because she’s not feeling well. Precious tells her about Aidan and Alexa. Precious then tells Marisol (Tart Carlos), who then mariteses all about it with the other house helps. Doña Cielo then learns about it and violently hacks Alexa with her cane. Aidan then tells Doña Cielo that he and Alexa did not sleep around. Alexa didn’t get fired, but she will instead work at the Fieros’ cockpit arena, where she will work under Carlos, the horniest of all horny people in this show. This becomes a problem for all of them. Rolando (Joel Torre) tells Alexa that she needs to make her way back to the mansion. Alexa, in turn, says she will use Aidan for their plans. Back at the mansion, Aidan finds it hard to sleep as he dreams of the seeing Olivia (Dolly de Leon) dead and bloodied.

It seems that whenever there is a stressful event in Aidan’s life, Olivia’s memory haunts him. We’re still not sure whether or not he (as a child) was really the one who killed Olivia, but at the moment, there are not other suspects as far as I am concerned.

I don’t understand why in this episode, Alexa had to reiterate that she will use Aidan for their plans. I thought that was the whole plan from the beginning. Don’t tell me she was actually flirting with Aidan just because she wanted to. Ugh. Where’s the focus, child?

Episode 25

Leona takes off in the middle of the night on her way to Lioness Den again. Rolando calls Max to tell him they have new plans since Alexa is not in the mansion anymore. After seeing Alexa in the cockpit arena, Ador tells Leona and Carlos that Alexa knows about his pornographic exploits before everything went south. Leona quickly and correctly suspects that Alexa was involved in the scandal leaks and that she was the woman in the CCTV. There’s your other reason to believe that Leona is the most intelligent member of the Fiero household. Ador’s men attempt to kidnap Alexa but she and Lemuel successfully fight them off. Lemuel tells her that they once met in Manila when he tried to arrest suspect, but Alexa tries to convince the police officer that he’s misremembering things. While she’s working at night, Ador kidnaps Alexa.

Lemuel and Alexa finally meet, and there’s a little bit of chemistry there. At least, if she flirts with the police, she’s not flirting with would-be inheritor of the family responsible for her mom’s death. But, but, but Lemuel is part of the institution that covered up their deaths. (Remember in the early episodes when the police told the young Alexa and the rest that their family fled the Fiero mansion after stealing from them?) Although, we can also argue that Lemuel is a good cop if there is such a thing in this Dirty Linen universe.

Leona Fiero

After the fifth week, here are the things we know about Leona:

1. She is indifferent towards Chiara at times.
2. She runs a nightly operation called Lioness Den and the Fieros don’t know shit about it.
3. She’s smart and she can manage the Fieros’ image well.
4. She has a deep-seated resentment towards Carlos to the point that it even crosses her mind to kill him.

I have some wild theories about what the Lioness could be:

WILD: It could be a drug den.
WILDER: It could be somewhat a modern-day gladiator den, where people fight each other in a hand-to-hand combat. I am old enough to remember Judy Ann Santos’ undercover work in one of the arcs in “Basta’t Kasama Kita.” In that arc, maids are made to fight to the death, cockpit-style.

This could be an illegal operation involving the women in their shelter.

Whatever it is, I’m sure Doña Cielo will again lose her shit when she finds out.