Welcome to the Over/Under of Lucha Underground for season 3 episode 15, where we’ve been without Pentagon Dark and the Black Lotus Triad for two whole episodes but we’re building a mysterious snake army, so it’s fine.
If you need to catch up on the rest of the episodes — if you aren’t caught up, you should 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 15, originally aired on December 14, 2016.
Over: The Battle Of The Bulls Continues
Last week, Dario Cueto set up the Battle of the Bulls, in which Jeff Jarrett would have sex with Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael’s wife in front of him, and they would … wait, sorry, wrong column. This one is a series of four fatal four-way matches in which the winners would move on to a fifth fatal four-way, and the winner of THAT would get a shot at the Lucha Underground Champion, whomever that might be at the time.
The thing about Lucha Underground‘s one-fall fatal four-ways is that they often put together opponents you don’t see wrestle all the time, mingled with preexisting rivalries so that they address what’s going on directly, but maintain an air of freshness about it. So sure, say, The Mack and Marty the Moth hate each other and are in a match together, but they’re trying to fight while Mil Muertes is running around trident-reaping people. It works for me.
In the first of these matches, Ivelisse’s jealous, crowding boyfriend who might also be a supernatural being and is definitely a hacker, Jeremiah Crane, defeats Marisposa, Kill Shot and Dante Fox. Like I mentioned before, Kill Shot and Fox is the core rivalry. They’re so into taking each other out that it sorta takes their eyes off the prize, and allows one of the wild card entrants the chance to win. Plus, Crane’s in here with Mariposa, and really all we know about Crane so far is that if you’re a woman in Lucha, he’s either trying to date you or violently kicking you in the face.
He moves on to the finals with Cage and The Mack, who again have a personal rivalry spanning two Ultima Luchas. So Crane gets through the first round in a way that sets him up as a possible contender in the finals. If Cage and the Mack are trying to curb stomp each other through cinderblocks, he can just swoop in and steal a pin. And like, Steiner Screwdriver Melissa Santos or whatever.
The final Battle of the Bulls round one four-way pits two members of the Worldwide Underground (Jack Evans and DAREWORLF PJ Black) against former (?) tag team partners Son of Havoc and the returning Angelico. This one has the finish where if it happened in WWE, you’d be like, “why didn’t they just do THIS?” PJ and Jack are both operating with the same goal — qualify for the finals so Johnny Mundo’s got some kind of leverage, or possibly be out of the crew — so when Angelico and Havoc are out of the ring and incapacitated, PJ drops to his back and tells Jack to pin him.
The rub here, of course, is that PJ is way smarter than Jack, so when Jack staggers in for a lazy pin, PJ rolls him up and pins him instead. They accomplish their goal, but in the most dickish way possible. That’s the Worldwide Underground. They aren’t nice to anyone outside of the crew, and they’re barely nice to each other. Their friendship is built mostly around a shared love of bandanas and studio-assisted air guitar. Love it.
What’s Going On Backstage
Speaking of the Worldwide Underground, a definite Over goes to Taya trying to film some talking head footage of Jack and PJ for her Johnny Mundo documentary and having it turn into a disingenuous, over-acting thing where Mundo wants to threaten them but has to like, turn to the camera and put on a dumb voice to do it. I’m not sure I could love these jerks any more. I’m glad the most collected Caucasian representation on the show is a bunch of privileged, successful assholes who won’t stop making self-indulgent indie films and kicking people in the nuts.
Also on this episode, somebody puts a rubber spider in Sexy Star’s locker. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Gonna Under this, mostly because they spend like three minutes on dramatic Sexy Star shadowboxing and towel chest-patting to set up the spider prank. Sexy gets confrontational to Mariposa about it in the hallway, and we learn that (1) Mari didn’t do it, and (2) Mari sounds extremely Californian. Kinda wish the segment had ended with her looking at herself in a full-length mirror.
You’d think Sexy Star would’ve been around long enough to figure out how Lucha Underground stalker threats work. If there are a bunch of moths in your locker, the moth people probably did it. If it’s full of snakes, check the snake guys. If there’s a spider, look around and see if any new spider-themed people have shown up. If they haven’t, check the parking lot. See if there are any limos or spider convoys or whatever pulling up.
At the end of the episode, we got to Rey Mysterio’s dojo bachelor pad to find him still hurt and in bed, wearing his mask, because you’ve got to protect your identity when you’re alone in your bedroom. El Dragon Azteca Jr. comes in to do the classic, “you are my mentor and you always give me good advice but now I’ve decided it’s NOT good advice and I don’t need advice EVER AGAIN so I’m gonna go do this dangerous thing that will get me hurt.” That’s Lucha Underground‘s distraction roll-up.
The best part is that Mysterio is apparently living in the Wolverine crush meme. Same bed and walls and everything.
Bonus a million points if next week they work in him looking wistfully at a framed photo of Psicosis. Or like, Billy Kidman.
Finally this week, THE GODDAMN UNDERSNAKER.
Over: Snakes On Explain
If you remember last week, Kobra Moon is now Serpentor from G.I. Joe and is either in command of or is commanded by a pair of Additional Snake Guys, Vibora and Pindar. One of them is the non-union equivalent of Drago. The other, taller one is played by former NXT developmental guy Judas Devlin. I’m all for keeping kayfabe mask secrets or whatever, but when you’ve got a giant tree tattoo on your entire body that wraps up to your branch hands like you’re Jeff Hardy and it says FATED TO PRETEND in giant red letters on your stomach, it’s hard to not recognize you. Besides, now he’s not Judas Devlin, he’s BARON COBRAN. (credit: @ScottyTres)
Kobra Moon asks for a match with Drago, but it’s all a ruse to get him jumped by her associates from Snake & Bigger Snake. Baron Cobran is 1000% the Snake Baron Corbin. He has the same body language and posture, and he’s wearing those tights with the lace-up sides. They should just give him the End of Days and say he’s some kind of Rick & Morty alternate universe monster version of the dude.
Aero Star and Fenix show up to try to help out, but they’re quickly dispatched, and the Snake Tribe carries Drago out of the building. FOR SNAKE REASONS. I’m so excited to see where this goes, and I hope they bring in a fat guy reptile to make it a trio and call him Bullsnake Dempsey.
