The Over/Under On Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 5: No Más

Welcome to episode five 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. 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.

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And now, the Over/Under of Lucha Underground season 2, episode 5.

Over: The Stro

One of my favorite aspects of Lucha Underground is that when a situation needs clarification, you can count on them to clarify. It might not be immediately, but it shouldn’t be … they allow you to think and wonder and fantasy-book and argue, and then they say, “here’s what it’s about.”

Vampiro is the Dark Master. We know that, but it needs a little clarification. As we learned in season 1, Vampiro is the evil side of Ian Hodgkinson, affable bro-Lucha Underground bro-nouncer. Ian had learned to manage Vampiro and keep him compartmentalized in his brain so he could start a family and lead a normal life. Vampiro’s its own thing, though … I’m not sure if it’s a vampire demon soul or the reincarnation of Emperor Palpatine or what, but it’s its own sentient, cognizant persona. It needed to be freed, so it sought out the one dude bad enough break everyone’s arms and set the demon free. That’s Pentagon. Pentagon will make Ian’s nightmares a reality.

So now the roles are kinda reversed, and Ian is a persona of Vampiro’s that can only be kept around (and sane) by desert military base psychiatric medicine. Otherwise, motherf*ckers getting bit. The best part for me is that there’s still the question of whether or not Vampiro’s a reliable narrator. Vampiro and Ian seem like they’re on the same team most of the time.

I also love that Vampiro’s telling Pentagon not to let anything stop him, not even “her” — Catrina — and that they show a closeup of that amazing Haunted Mansion painting of her we saw hanging in her office last week. That’s one of those great details you could miss if you aren’t paying attention, so they’re like, “psst, over here.” I know we’ve been calling Catrina a “ghost lady” for like a year, but I really hope the reveal is that she’s from the 19th century or whatever.

Over: Jack Evans, Worst Person In The World

This f*ckin’ guy.

It seems weird to say on a show with guys in dragon masks doing nunchucks, but Jack Evans being an a-hole and making the crowd want to tear him apart at the stomach like Romero zombies might be one of my favorite parts of the show. Jack is so good at getting under people’s skin, and having him do simple stuff like be a jerk to precious flower Melissa Santos makes him public enemy #1. I also like that he’s one of the only rudos who actively tells the Believers to shut up and interacts with them, as most of Lucha Underground‘s big heels are exaggerated comic book characters. Like, Mil Muertes isn’t going to tell a crowd to shut up. King Cuerno wears a hat made out of a dead deer’s entire head. Even Johnny Mundo’s more concerned with putting himself over than putting down the crowd. Jack Evans is just like, “SHUT UP, YOU’RE STUPID, I’M GREAT.” It works.

Over: Donnie Drago

If you want to get your friends into Lucha Underground, show them Drago showing up in a Satanic-ass dragon skull mask DOING NUNCHUCKS to intimidate Jack Evans, and Evans responding by throwing a water bottle at him. It’s a perfect moment.

Evans wrestles PJ Black, and poor Daredevil Werewolf isn’t faring any better in the Temple than he did on Smackdown. Dude’s 0-2 so far, having now lost to both The Mack and Jack Evans, and aside from that oddly-suggestive motel parking lot fight he’s just kind of a jobber third wheel. A third wheel on a motorcycle. The good news is that the season 2 trailer showed us him joining Jack in these nunchuck fights, so I’m confident it’s going somewhere, it’s just weird to see a former WWE star show up doing the exact same jog-in-place he was doing over there. I guess everybody’s got a role to play.

Over: GET FAME

Speaking of jobbers with roles to play, get the hell on board with Famous B as a used car salesman with a hotline and VHS tracking who wants to turn you from a JOBBER into a ROBBER. THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE, SOLD.

If you think about it, Lucha Underground is pretty low on funny characters. They had El Mariachi Loco in season 1, but they had to write him off TV. Some characters are inherently funny — Joey Ryan, Marty the Moth, even Dario Cueto is pretty funny — but I am a true sucker for a jobber with too much effort behind it. It’s why the Social Outcasts are usually one of my favorite parts of Raw. If you’re gonna throw somebody out there and make them lose, at least let them have fun doing it. Can’t wait to see Famous B make people famous. I hope he also has a yard.

Under: Live By The Rope, Die By The Rope

“Under” is always pretty gentle for Lucha Underground, but I didn’t love this week’s Chavo/Crew/Texano stuff.

It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong. We got four matches, a lot of world-building stuff and a main event for next week, but the actual match kinda had me tuning out. It was Texano vs. Chavo and The Crew in a gauntlet match, with the idea that Texano wants to get his hands on Chavito but has to go through the cronies first. It’s fine, and they do the Bobby Heenan/Ultimate Warrior “you can’t kick out because I’m holding one of your feet” bit, but yeah, compared to the rest of the show it was kind of a piss break.

Admittedly though, this kind of stuff is good for the show. It’s very classic, old school wrestling. Wrestling should be a three ring circus, right? There should be something for everybody. If you don’t like the acrobats, you might like the elephants. If you don’t like the elephants, you might like the clowns. If you don’t like exaggerated pulp stories of good and evil set in a bizarre time-traveling occult telenovela warehouse, you might like a cowboy losing because some gang members Numbers Gamed him.

Over: The Bull

I probably do the “this is why I love the show” gimmick too much in these reports, but I need to say this without hyperbole: last night’s Dario Cueto and Black Lotus segment might’ve done more to confirm my love of Lucha Underground than anything that happened before it. Grave Consequences, Ultima Lucha, all the plot reveals, all of it.

Since early in season 1, we’ve been wondering if there was a reason why Dario Cueto had a conspicuous, red bull state on the desk in his office. There have been too many shots of it for it to be innocent. The best theory was that that’s where he kept his cocaine. I remember some of us thinking maybe Matanza was a minotaur. You never know with this show. But there was something to it, man, and we weren’t sure we’d ever find out.

Last night, we found out. And holy sh*t..

If you haven’t watched the segment, go watch it. I compliment Cueto’s acting ability all the time, but he knocks it out of the park here. It’s so subtle and nuanced. It’s a story told from a character that is absolutely real, portrayed by an actor who understands the character through and through. I’m gonna try to recap it, but I won’t be able to do it justice.

Cueto tells Lotus about his mother. He says that she was cruel to him and his brother, until one day he stood up to her and said, “no mas.” That caused his mother to attack him, and he says he might’ve died if his brother hadn’t saved him … by bashing their mother’s head in with the red bull statue. Lotus says she’s sorry for what happened, and Dario says not to be: that was the moment he realized he loved violence.

Let me try to put this into a broader perspective. Dario Cueto loves violence because violence saved his life. You remember that Mil Muertes origin video where he almost died in the Mexico City Earthquake, but realized that death wasn’t something to be feared, it was power? That’s a perfect parallel for Dario. Dario parallels Mil. Mysterio and El Dragon Azteca are the light, and parallel Fenix. Every f*cking second of this ties together to create a bigger, world-creating and world-defining narrative. Everything Dario does to bring these fighters together, everything he does to set up the matches and promote pro wrestling and f*ck with people’s fortunes, is done in the pursuit of the only happiness he knows. Violence was Dario Cueto’s salvation. He’s not evil. His light’s just dark.

He was saved by his little brother, a boy who was sacrificed to the Old Gods. The Old Gods saved him. Sacrifice and dark magic saved him. Sacrifice, dark magic, and violence. It makes perfect sense, in a scenario that should never, ever make sense. Incredible. Absolutely incredible, essential stuff. Give Dario Cueto an Emmy nod.

Over/Under: SPOOKY BATTLE

I’m honestly kinda bummed that Pentagon confronting Catrina and her escaping having her arm broken via teleportation came immediately after Cueto’s revelation. It’s the moment wrestling fans probably enjoyed more. People who watch Lucha for comic book ridiculousness probably preferred it. I’m obsessed with the world and character building stuff, and the nuance. And Cueto, if we’re being honest. And Luis Fernandez-Gil. When he shows up, I just want him to stay onscreen. I’m not sure I’ve ever leaned on a wrestling character so hard.

But yeah, Pentagon wants a match with Prince Puma, gets into a karate fight with Catrina — why do these guys karate fight behind the scenes and pro wrestling in the ring? The answer is “because it’s awesome,” but I had to type it — and almost breaks her arm. She spooky teleports away, because she’s a corporeal ghost or whatever, and gives him what he wants. He’s made a big mistake, though.

I love that the Vampiro speech at the top of the show actually relates to what happened later in the same episode. I know pro wrestling’s all about the cycle and the arc, but man, self-contained plot reminders are pretty dope.

Over: Taya Is Such An Upgrade

Finally, we get Cage vs. Mundo and the Lucha Underground debut of Taya Valkyrie.

If you aren’t familiar with Taya, she had a WWE developmental contract back in 2011, but nothing ever came of it. I’m not sure she ever officially competed in a WWE-owned ring. She made her way to Mexico in 2012, joined Los Perros del Mal and has spent most of the time between then and now making the Apache family’s life miserable. Imagine Melina if she was younger, in better shape, could wrestle and kinda looked like one of the My Little Pony Equestria Girls.

Taya (and a pipe to the face) helps Mundo get a sh*tty win over Cage, and Johnny’s spectacularly sh*t-headed rise to the top continues. Mundo and Taya is going to be the best, if only to see how many abs we can fit on TV at once. Put them in a match against Sexy Star and Prince Puma and you’ll break the all-time abs record.

Before I forget, we don’t always give him the credit he deserves because we’re so used to him, but Johnny Mundo is legit as hell, and when you remove “parkour” from the description of the sh*t he does, it’s really special. I mean, look at this:

Best: Next Week

First of all, street clothes Cuerno will always, always get a standing ovation from me.

Second of all, we end the show by setting up next week’s main. Earlier in the night, King Cuerno had a match against Kill Shot. They’re both hunters (and they once wrestled for an Aztec medallion), so there’s a history. Cuerno wins the match but takes it a little too far with a post-match beatdown, so Fenix rolls in and stops him.

Cuerno is getting tired of not being able to keep Fenix down, and doesn’t want to get stuck carrying around the Gift of the Gods championship if he can’t cash it in. He’s done Catrina’s dirty work and Fenix literally can’t die, so he’d like to … you know, move on with his damn career as a hunter cowboy luchador. Catrina’s decides that the proper response is to make Cuerno wrestle AGAIN, make him defend the championship, and make it against Fenix. In a ladder match. Not only does that pay off the big ladder spot from their previous match, but it shows that Catrina’s frustration at keeping people away from Mil while he heels is amping up so fast she’s willing to just kill everybody in the process. She’s giving Cuerno one last chance to end Fenix, and if he can’t, at least she’ll get rid of Cuerno. Plus, we get KING CUERNO VS. FENIX IN A LADDER MATCH.