Welcome to episode seven 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 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. You should be caught up by now!
Also, Don’t Forget: Lucha Underground is coming to Austin, TX, for SXSW. We debuted the show poster earlier today. It’s amazing, and if you’re anywhere near Texas next week, you need to be at the show (and the panel).
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And now, the Over/Under of Lucha Underground season 2, episode 7.
Over/Under: Sexy Star’s PTSD
I’m gonna rate this one somewhere in the middle.
On one hand, I’m happy that the Sexy Star abduction storyline is going somewhere, and wasn’t just shrugged off like the Undertaker and Kane/Wyatt Family thing I mentioned last week. I’m not a huge fan of wrestling kidnapping stories, especially when they involve someone being abducted for several months, because there are probably legal ramifications for that kind of sh*t even on a telenovela about a supernatural wrestling promotion. But yeah, no, I’m glad they’re at least addressing it, and explaining that Sexy Star is not herself because she had to hang around the Martinez family for a quarter. It’s an interesting place to take Sexy, when season one established that she’s “Sexy Star” because of the empowerment she chose for herself after an abusive relationship.
On the other, I can’t help but wonder how much better this story would be with Big Ryck. Ryck retired between seasons and isn’t coming back — they killed him in the comics and used his skull to build Mil Muertes’ throne, if you were wondering what happened to the character — and that left his friendship with Sexy kinda hanging. The Mack stepped in because he’s Ryck’s cousin, but like, Mack and Sexy don’t really have the same story. Plus, as much as I love literally everything about Willie Mack, he’s not the best actor in the world. So it all kinda feels like a thing we could’ve covered from start to finish in one really good vignette, stretched out over several weeks.
This week’s payoff (via The Mack vs. Marty the Moth) is the onscreen debut of Marty’s sister, “Mariposa.” I … think she’s a moth? She’s moth-ish, at least. A mariposa is a butterfly, which explains why Marty was using butterfly metaphors to scare Sexy instead of moth metaphors. Mothaphors? Moths and butterflies are related, at least, so it all checks out. I never thought a wrestling show would make me feel inadequate about my knowledge of entomology.
Mariposa shows up and makes the lights flicker, which I hope is the reason the Temple lights have always been so shifty. I’m leaning a little toward “Under” for another distraction finish, but yeah, at least here’s a scary butterfly lady to continue Sexy Star’s descent into Silence of the Lambs madness. Does Lucha Underground have any cannibal characters? Does Matanza count? He ate a guy’s face once.
OVER: COSMIC NUNCHUCK GANG FIGHT
So hey, surprise, this was my favorite part of the show.
Jack Evans is peeing (with a camera on him!) and gets accosted by Drago for calling himself “The Dragon Slayer.” In a moment of great character work, Evans says that the “people” named him that. I’ve got a weird feeling that Jack Evans is an amazing, Hollywood-quality actor but we’re never gonna see it. Anyway, DAREDEVIL WEREWOLF PJ Black shows up with nunchucks to instigate a bathroom nunchucks fight. We know Drago has nunchucks, that’s been established, but it turns out Jack has them too, and suddenly we are having a NUNCHUCK BATHROOM GANG FIGHT. The Damned Numbers Game catches up to Drago and it looks like he’s finished, until …
Okay, I need a paragraph break for this.
[deep breaths]
Aero Star shows up with COSMIC NUNCHUCKS. Like, Aero Star, time-traveling ancient space alien astronaut luchador, is also a master of the martial arts and carries multiple pairs of glow-in-the-dark nunchucks with him through time. YES. I was watching this at a bar in Austin, and when Aero Star showed up I was like, “THEY’RE BUDDIES, HE’S GOING TO HELP HIM BECAUSE THE DRAGON AND THE ASTRONAUT ARE BUDDIES.” Lucha Underground remembering past relationships and rewarding you for watching and paying attention is my favorite thing. My second favorite thing is that a dragon and a time-traveling Aztec alien with rocket feet are best friends. BEST FRIENDS WHO WIN TANDEM NUNCHUCK FIGHTS.
Over: My Third Favorite Thing
My third favorite thing is the Lucha Underground in-universe commercials. Have you been paying attention to those Johnny Mundo workout commercials? Those things are the best. He’s like, “here’s a workout tip, I’m great at working out, look at me, go f*ck yourself.” And then there’s the ongoing GET FAME commercials, which have gotten so out of hand that Famous B is now a f*cking WIZARD who transforms ugly ladies into pretty ladies who are ALSO FAMOUS. And he has a WIZARD HAT. This show’s getting so good I can’t even analyze it, I just type what happened in all caps. THE AWKARD LOOKS AT THE END. Whoever is making the Famous B commercials deserves an Emmy. F*ck that, they deserve a lifetime achievement award.
Over: Wacky Pals
This doesn’t really require capslock — FAMOUS B IS DOING USED CAR SALESMAN MAGIC AND IT MAKES LADIES NERVOUS, YOU GUYS — but I like the setup of The Unlikely Trios finally getting another shot at the Trios Championships, and having to put their careers at the Temple on the line. It makes sense from Catrina’s perspective. If she’s playing along with the weird achievement-based honor system of the promotion, she’s got to give them a shot at some point … why not make it extra awful for them if they lose? It doesn’t have to escalate too much, she can just make one of those Dario Cueto, “you can have what you want but if you lose, you’re boned” deals.
I’m also a fan of any time Angelico and Son of Havoc talk, because I spend the entirety of it trying to figure out who has the least appropriate voice.
Over: Damn, Taya
This episode has two big matches. The first is supposed to be Cage vs. Johnny Mundo with no disqualifications, but ends up being Cage vs. TAYA, Mundo’s new female partner/familiar. She looks like one of the My Little Pony Equestria Girls, if you missed that joke.
This is brutal, but for the right reasons. Cage handles Taya like he’d handle anyone Taya’s size, and while the announce team stays a little too focused on the gender roles (even when they’re saying the gender roles don’t matter), it works. Cage doesn’t hold back or do a bunch of “oh no I can’t do it!!” stuff that accidentally super insults the female talent, he throws her around and suplexes her from the ring to the outside through two tables. Taya spends most of the match futilely dying, but she holds her own, and by the end you’re mostly impressed by what a professional beating she can take and keep going. I thought it made her look really good, even if she’s never really supposed to look “good.” She’s a perfect accompaniment to Mundo, kinda sorta seems like his peer and soulmate, and is such an upgrade over Melina I can’t fit enough words about it onto a page.
I like that Mundo shows up to “save” her way, way too late, and ends up f*cking up and having to flee. That subconsciously puts Mundo and Taya on the same level, and doesn’t ever read (at least not to me) like a guy “standing behind his girlfriend” or whatever. Mundo’s a vain coward, Taya’s vain and apparently way less of a coward, and Mundo didn’t pay attention to those season 1 vignettes that established Cage’s invulnerability to bottles. I also like that they brought back the curb stomp through the cinderblock as Cage’s Fatality. A show love its own history and utilizing it instead of pretending everyone watching’s too stupid to remember is a blessing for pro wrestling.
Over: WHEW
Sometimes I can analyze the hell out of a match, and sometimes I just type, “go watch it.” So hey: go watch it.
This week’s main event is Mil Muertes vs. Prince Puma vs. Pentagon Jr. for the Lucha Underground Championship, and it’s everything you want it to be. Mil is dominant. Puma is quick and does things no human being should be able to do. Pentagon is the coolest motherf*cker in wrestling and is not above dropping you on your head. The match plays to the strengths of all three men, never slows down, travels most of the Temple floor and at one point involves Puma walking down a flight of steps on the handrail and diving off into a rana.
That’s like, a piece of it. Puma doing a shooting star press off the second-level fencing. Pentagon throwing package piledrivers and chopping people so loud it makes candles blow out in my house. Mil spearing people so hard they flip a time and a half. It’s just really f*cking exciting, and the like, leveled-up version of Fenix vs. Pentagon vs. Drago from early in season 1. Pentagon getting Dr. Doom cocky and trying to break Puma’s arm in the middle of the match instead of capitalizing and winning and it costing him is pitch-perfect. Also perfect: the image of Mil pinning Puma and Pentagon at the same time, establishing that he’s the top man in the promotion, just in time for the only guy who can beat him to step in and challenge him next.
We end the show with Fenix announcing that he’s going to cash in his Gift of the Gods Championship, and that’s gotta be the perfect lead-in to Aztec Warfare 2. Season 1 didn’t really get started until Aztec Warfare, and the first 8 episode of season 2 feel a bit like a prologue. I’m excited to see how Aztec Warfare 2 plays on TV, and can’t wait to write about it changing everything. Again.
