The Over/Under On Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 4: Gods And Monsters

Welcome to episode four of season two of the Over/Under of Lucha Underground, our gently reworded Best and Worst report about every episode of the best wrestling show on television. Maybe the best show on television. If you’d like to read about season one, you can find all of our previous episode reports — we’ve been down with this show since season one episode one — on our Lucha Underground tag page. For season two, click here. If you’re new to the show and are jumping on with season two (or just want to know what the hell’s going on), we put together a season 1 primer that answers all your pertinent questions and fills in all the gaps. It also tells you where you can watch the show, so if you want to know, go read.

With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter. If you’re a writer for a major publication and want to steal our jokes, at least throw a hyperlink our way.

Shares, likes, comments and other social media things are appreciated. This show doesn’t have the built-in WWE audience behind it, so it needs your word of mouth. Tell @LuchaElRey that you read and love this column as well, because they’re gonna make a movie one day and I want to play a bystander in it. I’ll wear a generic mask if I have to.

And now, the Over/Under of Lucha Underground season 2, episode 4.

Under: Catrina As The Boss

I need to step outside of kayfabe here to make a point, so bear with me.

As you probably know from my old NXT season 3 write-ups and the constant screengrabbing of her licking things, I’m a fan of Catrina and the wrestler/actress who plays her. I think she’s great. I love Mil Muertes being accompanied by a rock-guarding ghost lady who can summon a team of electric skeletons to do her bidding and build skull thrones, and I like the new storytelling angle of The Temple being run by someone other than Dario Cueto. Mil Muertes on a Shao Khan throne watching entire shows is the best.

That said, Lucha Underground backstage segments are a unique thing, and I think they need at least one legitimately good actor in them to make them work. That’s why Robert Rodriguez movies always have Steve Buscemi or Benicio Del Toro showing up in them somewhere. You need a believable fulcrum for these ridiculous characters and situations to lever against, or it falls off that delicate tightrope between “purposeful pulp acting” and “bad.” It’s slight. Lucha walks it tremendously, but the major hook of the show has always been Dario Cueto.

I say that as a Cueto fanboy, but stepping back for a second to see how the show actually works, Luis Fernandez-Gil is an amazing f*cking actor. Like, no hyperbole or joking, he is very, very good. He understands that even though he gets to do things like scream LADDER MATCH and feed people to his deformed cage monster, he’s the straight man of the Temple. He’s there to interpret the ridiculousness and filter it into something we can knowingly enjoy, and not be embarrassed by. He pays such close attention to character work and mannerism that he can turn what would normally be a boring segment with Fernandez into a thing we talk about for months. I still think about Cueto giving him beer instead of liquor, then micromanaging it as they talk so the beer doesn’t leave a ring on his table. That’s the kind of sh*t that makes acting work. It’s not just about delivering lines.

With Catrina, all she’s really got is the Catrina voice. That works when you’re teleporting around backstage threatening people, but when you have to deliver several minutes of exposition to set up an hour of TV it gets to be a little much. Ivelisse isn’t terrible but she’s not a great dramatic actress, right? So if she’s in there doing these dramatic points and delivering affected dialogue but she’s got Cueto in there to play off of, the segment works. It’s a lead in a telenovela setting the stage. If it’s Ivelisse and Catrina, it just seems … bad. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but what I’m getting at is that while Catrina is great and an important part of the show, she’s not Dario Cueto. Nobody but Dario Cueto is Dario Cueto. They created one of the best characters on TV, and I don’t want to go many more episodes without him sitting in that chair.

He should keep the office looking like a bordello on Firefly, though.

Over: Touching Base

One of my favorite things about Lucha Underground that I write about all the time is how great they are at using every match as an opportunity to advance stories. WWE can spend six weeks running the same match over and over and never move forward with it, but Lucha has a finite amount of hours and a ton of stories to tell, so they’ve got to make every minute count, and tie together as much as possible.

This week’s opening match was the Unlikely Trio vs. Chavo Guerrero and The Crew, and it accomplished a lot.

1. It was set up via the opening segment of Ivelisse confronting Catrina, which not only reminds of of the Ivelisse/Catrina beef, but reiterates that the Unlikely Trio wants revenge on the Disciples of Death and want their Trios Championships back. Catrina sets up a match, reminding Ivelisse that there are more than two teams in the division, because reminding fans that the world outside of the story they’re currently watching is also important.

2. It gets a trio of fan favorites on the episode, shows that the Unlikely Trio is still interested in working together to accomplish their goals because they have an undeniable chemistry as unit, and sets up another match where everyone goes, “wow, Angelico is f*cking great.”

3. It brings back Chavo Guerrero, ties together Chavo and Ivelisse as the two characters who got injured in similar ways near the end of the first season, and gets Chavo — a major player in season 1, and the reason so much stuff in the Temple is happening the way it is — back into the mythos.

4. It gives the Trio a win to move them forward, and sets up the ideas that Chavo’s a jerk who doesn’t appreciate the people around him, and that The Crew are pretty ineffective henchmen.

5. It reminds the viewer of last week’s big reveal — that Cortez Castro of The Crew is actually an undercover cop, “Officer Reyes,” trying to find and eventually bring down Dario Cueto — and works to split The Crew from Chavo so we can tell that story.

6. It brings back Texano with a mech-style ROPE FIST to beat up everyone who embarrassed him at Ultima Lucha.

So now we’re moving toward TUT vs. The Disciple of Death, Ivelisse vs. Catrina, Chavo vs. Texano and The Crew’s secret narrative, all in the same match. The Crew losing also sets up the followup scene, where Officer Joey Ryan finds Cortez backstage and needles him about it.

Joey puts over HIS match by tying it to the first one. Now you’ve got a ton of narrative connections swirling together and you haven’t even touched the main-event scene. That makes everything on the show feel important, and like it isn’t a waste of our time. God bless this show for actively trying not to waste our time.

Over: MACHINER SCREWDRIVER

I like how hard Lucha is pushing Joey Ryan on the show and on social. The guy got a level of viral fame, so why not try to make something of it? The fact that Joey’s actually good enough and charismatic enough to be a regular TV character is a bonus.

He gets his Lucha debut match against Cage, who is a machine, and Joey eats the most gruesome move in all of pro wrestling, the Steiner Screwdriver. If you’re a regular reader of the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro, you know only a handful of guys in wrestling history have been brave enough to take the move, which involves letting crazy-ass Scotty Steiner lift you above his head for a suplex and just drop you straight down on your head. He sits out, too, so it’s like, your spine is destroyed and also you’ve got balls in your face. The ultimate indignity.

Here’s what Cage’s looks like. It’s not Steiner brutal, but it’s still enough to make me wince and curl my hands up against my chest like a T-Rex.

I would’ve been okay with them rolling out a casket and wheeling Joey away in it, but I’m glad we’ll be getting more of him throughout the season.

Lucha ties everything together again here with the post-match, with Johnny Mundo sneak-attacking Cage and once again getting put on his ass, all while Mil Muertes watches. Cage wants a shot at Mil. Mundo thinks he’s the biggest star on the show and deserves preferential treatment, including the Lucha Underground Championship. Mil has a broken arm and would be toast if ANYONE would stop infighting and capitalize. Next week we get Cage vs. Mundo, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

OVER: A History Lesson

Via a DOJO KARATE FIGHT between Rey Mysterio Jr. and El Dragon Azteca Jr., we finally start to learn the history of Dario Cueto, and it is AMAZING. I don’t know how to put it into words. They’re starting to contextualize the entire show, and I feel like I’m watching it all again in my brain for the first time.

According to Rey (who we’ll believe is a reliable narrator), Dario Cueto’s father came from Spain to Mexico 25 years ago — 1992, which vibes with Mysterio’s early days as a luchador — and met El Dragon Azteca Sr. They formed a partnership and decided to find the descendants of the original 7 Aztec tribes and let them do honorable battle as luchadors to please the Gods. Cueto’s father became obsessed with the dark side of the legend, though, and decided to sacrifice his infant son to the old Gods so a God could live in its body. That’s Matanza. Holy sh*t.

The two men went their separate ways and formed a treaty, promising to never step food in the other’s domain again. Cueto sealed the treaty with DARK MAGIC, because I guess Dario Cueto’s dad was a f*cking EVIL SPANISH WIZARD. Mysterio tells Azteca Jr. that El Dragon Azteca knew what he was getting into by entering Cueto’s Temple, and that he shouldn’t look for revenge — he should look for a way to unite the 7 tribes.

So, ignoring the SUPER AWESOMENESS of that for a minute to wonder where it’s going, who do we know that’s descended directly from the Aztec tribes? Prince Puma for sure. He’s our protagonist. There’s Marty “The Moth,” who is out of his goddamn mind, and I guess El Dragon Azteca Jr. Who else? Kobra Moon? Am I forgetting anyone? Matanza’s got a God in his body, but he’s Spanish.

All I want is a Lucha Underground movie that explains all this stuff to exist. Also, that I’m in it somewhere. I’ll let Matanza kill me, I don’t even care.

Over: Cats And Shapes

And hey, don’t forget that our main event this week is PRINCE PUMA VS. PENTAGON JR., aka maybe the best two guys on the show and two of our most important characters having their first one-on-one match in The Temple. This all happened in an hour, you guys.

The match is criminally short, but I love the fact that it ended early and controversially to set up something bigger down the road. The finish involves Pentagon grabbing Puma in a surfboard and letting him fall back, locking his wrists for a pinfall attempt. Just before the three, Puma bridges up onto his neck — amazing — and Pentagon’s shoulders are still down. That gives Puma a cunning, unexpected win, and keeps Pentagon strong enough that jerks like me can yell BULLSH*T and aggressively point at the TV in a public bar. Pentagon decks the ref, and that sets up maybe one of the best moments in Lucha history:

Puma gets the chance to break Pentagon Jr.’s arm. Give him a taste of his own medicine. The crowd loves Pentagon, but they want this moment. Puma locks in the hold, but stops. He leans down and says something to Pentagon, then breaks the hold. The crowd boos, but I don’t, because Puma just showed why he’s the hero of the show. He’s seen enough division and devastation in his year in The Temple. He’s seen his mentor die. He’s faced Mil Muertes head-on. I think he knows Pentagon could be a powerful ally, as he and Fenix — eventual spoiler alert involving the connection between those two, probably — have been the only people able to hurt Mil. He’s being smart, and he’s being the hero without losing his edge … he didn’t avoid the situation entirely. He locked in the hold, put the fear of God into Pentagon and let him know he could break him if he wanted to. He’s on the high ground now. By not breaking Pentagon’s arm, he stayed there.

I love you, show. Don’t change, just be more of yourself.