Here’s the Over/Under of Lucha Underground for season 3 episode 2, wherein we analyze the best and worst things about every episode of the best wrestling show on television. If you need to catch up, you can read about season 1 here, and season 2 here. Season 3 episode recaps can be found here.
Re-post: If you’re still wondering how to watch the show, it airs every Wednesday night on El Rey Network. If you don’t have El Rey on your cable system, you can get it on Sling. If you can’t do that, you can download the episodes on iTunes. They’re selling a “season pass” right now where you can get every new episode right after it airs. If you can’t do that, and you demand viewing information without just being a cheapskate and googling “watch lucha underground online free,” I don’t know what to tell you. Watch the show.
And now, the Over/Under on Lucha Underground season 3 episode 2, originally aired on September 14, 2016.
Over: Nurse Beautiful Brenda
So my one beef with Lucha Underground adding lucha legend Dr. Wagner Jr. to the roster is that they didn’t pay to use his entrance theme, 1988 Bon Jovi face-rocker ‘Bad Medicine,’ and therefore couldn’t (in theory) have Doc enter amidst a cabal of Mexican stripper ladies in sexy nurse costumes. Most of that’s still gone, but The Beautiful Brenda is now a nurse, and that’s a weird step in the right weird direction. It also puts her in a rare class with Barbara Bush (no, not that one) as one of North American pro wrestling’s best, most illogically busty EMTs of the modern era.
Also, Famous B has a stethoscope. Brenda’s diagnosis of, “HE’S DEAD,” after the match is pretty hilarious.
Under: “Doctor Vogner” Vs. Mascarita Sagrada
1. If Matt Striker’s going to pronounce the Wagner in Dr. Wagner as “Vogner,” his entrance theme should be Larry David whistling.
2. The actual Wagner vs. Mascarita Sagrada match is almost nothing. There’s a story here — Sagrada wants revenge on Famous B for ditching him for Doc Wagner and beating him up with a shoe — but they don’t do anything with it. Sagrada shows up, some short jokes are made about him and then he loses. That’s it. No scrappy underdog stuff, no real playing off the previous relationship, just a little guy played as a joke jumping into a Michinoku Driver after like 90 seconds of wrestling. I mean, Dr. Wagner should probably take Mascarita Sagrada to the woodshed, but it’s not doing much for the bigger story. What’s the message here, that Famous B was right and made a good decision?
One of the lingering problems with LU (and there aren’t many) is them insisting that everyone in the Temple is equal, then as soon as someone different shows up, losing their minds over how funny the differences are. It’s why we gotta say stuff like “half a chinlock” every single time Mascarita Sagrada wrestles, and why the women are still “sultry” or “seductive” sometimes when that isn’t the point. It’s just weird is all. Do it like you’re progressive or do it like you’re WWF in 1996, just don’t try to do them both at the same time.
Over: Taking The Advice Of A Vampire
Match number two on the night isn’t much more competitive than match one: Mil Muertes returns to the Temple to eat Argenis alive. Not literally, but he might as well have.
After Mil’s win, Catrina hops into the ring to collect Argenis’ precious life-giving face juices and leaves Mil open for an attack from Prince Puma.
Puma is apparently taking the advice of Vampiro, who told him at the end of last week’s episode that he’s never going to be himself if he doesn’t take out Mil. Mil took Puma’s mentor from him, took his title from him, and took him from him. There’s an intense brawl with Puma getting the best of Mil until Catrina steps in and separates them.
I think my favorite thing about the attack is that it shows how Puma understands Mil Muertes, and how he works. He knew that Catrina would be at ringside watching, so he had to wait until she was indisposed to launch his attack on Mil. I’d like to think Catrina understands Puma enough to know even a Thricely Powered Mil Muertes shouldn’t f*ck with dude when he’s on an emotional roll.
Over: A SHOOT FIGHT
Last week I joked that a “weapons of mass destruction” match should involve Killshot coming to the ring with a gun and shooting Marty the Moth. This week, Marty the Moth COMES TO THE RING WITH A MACHINE GUN. AND THE RING IS SURROUNDED BY MILITARY-GRADE WEAPONS. AND THERE’S A SNIPER TURRET, AND ALSO IF I DIDN’T EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH, MARTY THE MOTH BROUGHT A F*CKING MACHINE GUN TO THE RING.
That’s pretty much my review of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It takes an absolutely absurd pro wrestling concept, builds it in a shockingly organic way around a military-themed guy and the crazy nut who keeps trying to make him feel bad about his dead soldier friends, and pays it off in a long, bloody, brutal ladder match featuring GUNS AND BULLETS and also rations? WHO EVEN KNOWS.
Our own Bill Hanstock was live for the match when it was taped, and here’s what he thought:
Anyone who has gone to a Lucha Underground taping knows that they generally tape two episodes in a day, with an intermission where you can get some taco truck grub or some last-minute merch. Anyone who has gone to a Lucha Underground taping also knows that going to the show only spoils the results of individual matches for you, which is the least important thing about Lucha Underground most of the time.
When I went to the first taping session of season 3, El Rey was still midway through airing season 2, so we pretty much had no idea what was going on with ANYTHING. Imagine our surprise when the live crowd came back from intermission to see the Temple set up like the frigging 4077th, and Marty the Moth coming to the ring with a machine gun. We picked up on him and Killshot really hating each other, with no real idea of why.
Everyone in the building was just waiting for them to use all the different plunder around the Temple, and in the uncut, live version of the match, they pretty much obliged. Much like Cage vs. Mack from Ultima Lucha 1, this match was longer in person. But the Weapons of Mass Destruction match was a LOT longer in person. It honestly felt like it went 40 minutes, but it was probably closer to 30. Of course, a lot of that was just setting up things and lying around and selling, which was totally appropriate!
The length of the live match legitimately led to it feeling like a war, but I feel like that comes across in the televised version. Also, Marty’s crimson mask felt a lot gnarlier in person. But I think for a lot of people that were in the Temple for this match, this was their revelation of Marty as the real deal. I was already on board, of course, but if there was any doubt about Marty being one of the very best performers in the company (if not any company), this match removed it.
Agreed. This felt earned. It felt like two guys realizing this was their opportunity to step up, and doing it. It’s great from the little stuff — Marty going for Killshot’s balls early and Killshot bringing it back at the end to help set up the finish, for example — to, you know, leaping double-stomps from the tops of ladders through tables. Great bloody fun and a match that should make these characters, even if nobody got pretend shot with a gun.
Over: And Now, The Story Of Two Undercover Cops And A Millennia-Old Best Friends Necklace That Causes Female Immortality
Okay.
Man, I didn’t think they’d top “a dragon and a cosmic time-traveling Aztec spaceman having a nunchuck battle with a werewolf and his dickhead friend in a bathroom,” but this might’ve done it. Gonna have to recap this from the beginning.
Okay, so one of the two major plotlines of this week’s out-of-ring segments is Joey Ryan and Cortez Castro, undercover police officers working to arrest Dario Cueto for … mystical pro wrestling crimes? Still not totally sure on that. It’s about them picking sides in the coming “war.” Presumably the same war touched off by Black Lotus killing Dragon Azteca in season 1. Castro gives his allegiance to Captain Vasquez, promising to return to The Temple as an undercover cop living life as a pro wres gangbanger. Joey Ryan decides to side with Cueto, ratting out the entire undercover operation in exchange for being on the “right side” of the war, and also money to pay his child support.
Normally this would be the crazy part of the episode, but, uh, let’s jump back a millennia to see a dying tribesman give his daughter an AMULET OF FEMALE IMMORTALITY before he dies.
Yep, a dying guy tells his daughter she has to lead the tribe now and gives her a straight-up video game power-up, a gold medallion on a chain that can grant you immortality, but only if you’re female. She does a lot of “no papa” stuff but eventually accepts this burden, learning that “even if it takes a thousand years,” she will be instrumental in the War Against The Gods.
Fast forward a thousand years to CAPTAIN F*CKING VASQUEZ, who is apparently an IMMORTAL POLICE CHIEF.
But wait, she’s only half-immortal — what does that even MEAN? — because the amulet has been comically split in half like a BFF necklace, and the other half is in the possession of … wait, let’s try to figure it out. Who on the show is (1) female, (2) older than they should be, and (3) presumably a “God” of some kind to be a counter-point for the humanity of Captain Vasquez?
Bingo. With a dramatic musical reveal we finally have an explanation for Catrina’s weird ancientness. Now we need to figure out how that amulet got split, and whether or not that girl from the past is actually Vasquez, or if it could be a mislead and be Catrina herself. Or hell, maybe it’s Aero Star and we’re gonna get a Samus reveal at the end of the season.
I’m excited to learn about Catrina’s powers. How does the amulet work? How does a HALF amulet work? How does it give her the ability to actually go get Mil Muertes out of the underworld all those times? Does that have nothing to do with the amulet? Is it because she’s a God of Death or whatever? Is she using the amulet for something else? ARE THEY BOTH DYING UNLESS THEY GET THE AMULET TOGETHER? Does … uh, does Catrina know the cops are there? How did that change the cops’ orders when Catrina had taken over the Temple? ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS.
This is the only wrestling show in history where a split immortality amulet For Her could give sorta-immortality to a police chief and a teleporting ghost lady, and that could integrate seamlessly into a story about undercover police officers trying to bring down an evil Spanish businessman and his deformed monster God-possessed brother for doing Dark Magic under the hand of what appears to be Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget and also possibly THE DEVIL HIMSELF. And also it’s all about pro wrestling. And also that’s not even the entire story.
Love you the most, Lucha.
