Welcome to our weekly breakdown of the minutia of Kurt Sutter and Elgin James’ Sons of Anarchy spin-off, Mayans M.C.. While Kimberly Ricci provides her always excellent coverage of the series (here’s her write-up of the the latest episode), here we’re going to endeavor to look deeper into the episode and excavate some of the details viewers may have missed, callbacks to Sons of Anarchy, and posit questions explore theories about the direction the series.
1. The Mayan God to which the episode’s title refers, Lahun Chan, is not as straightforward as in most weeks. Lahun Chan is associated with morning star. It has ugly teeth and claws, has the head of a jaguar and walks like a drunk. Is that a reference to Happy?
2. Lahun Chan is easily the best episode of the second season, and one of the best episodes of Mayan MC‘s run. A lot happened in the episode, and it actually managed to answer more questions than it asked. The big reveal, however, was the revelation not that Dita and Felipe had had an affair (which we knew), but that Miguel is likely the son of Felipe. Twist! Dita never had a paternity test done, but as she tells Felipe, she just knows. She also tells Felipe that “no one will ever know” the truth, which is code for, “Everyone will know the truth by the end of the season.”
In fact, Emily is going to know the truth very soon, because that White Devil went snooping through Dita’s drawers and found an old picture of Dita with her husband, Jose, and Felipe, which is going to prompt a lot of questions.
3. So, it turns out that Cristobal, Miguel’s brother who died as a baby, was a misdirect? It still doesn’t explain why — as Angel suggests again in this episode — that Felipe and Marisol favored EZ over Angel, unless EZ was a much better kid and a more promising child than Angel. Maybe Angel just reminded Felipe too much of himself, and the more we learn about Felipe, the more we realize he wasn’t such a good dude. He was, after all, a crooked cop who worked with the cartel, and he cheated on his wife and got his mistress — the wife of the cartel leader — pregnant.
4. We also finally learned what the deal was with the fire. It was the California wildfires, but when Dita saw the flames, she believed they were coming toward her, so she basically gave herself over to them. She did not die, however, which made her realize that she still had some things left to do with her life, namely tell Felipe that Miguel is his son. It also explains why she’s been seeing a therapist (or supposed to see a therapist). She was basically suicidal when she refused to run from the fires.
5. It turns out that Opie — the greatest character in the history of the Sons of Anarchy universe — is still the best, even beyond the grave. Angel and EZ tortured the hell out of Happy in an effort to make him reveal who hired him to kill their mother. Happy refused to give in, and was willing to die rather than rat anyone out. However, when Angel and EZ threatened Happy’s dog, Opie, he flinched and agreed to give up the goods on whoever contracted him to kill their mother. So, Opie is still out there saving lives.
6. As it turns out, Happy didn’t actually have that much intelligence to share, beyond the fact that he was also hired to kill Felipe. EZ wondered if it was the cartel that hired Happy, but Happy actually has no idea. He got his orders from Packer (Robert Patrick), who got his orders from across the border. After Happy failed to kill Felipe, he believed whoever had hired him was tailing him in order to take him out. Happy was so disturbed by all of that that he decided to quit the assassin game and patch over to SAMCRO, which apparently gave him safety from the people who contracted him to kill Felipe and Marisol. Happy did say one thing noteworthy, however, which is that Marisol was not surprised to see him. It was as though she knew she was going to be executed.
If it wasn’t the cartel, who even could it be? Unless it was Potter, who — as we have seen this episode — is not above hiring mercenaries. Was he a factor years ago when Happy was a nomad? It also could have been Dita — and not the cartel — as she might have sought to remove Miguel’s biological father from the equation.
7. In the end, however, Happy agreed to get whatever intel he could out of Packer for Angel and EZ, and they’d call it square. I mean, he killed their mother, and they tortured him and cut off his tattoo. I guess it’s close enough to square?
8. The mercenaries, meanwhile, tailed Miguel, who was traveling with Adelita to meet up with Palomo. That meeting clearly fell through because once Potter’s mercenaries caught up with them, Adelita spared Miguel’s life and pretended to be hostile to him. Miguel, meanwhile, lied and said that he’d been trailing Adelita. The takeaway here is that the mercenaries left with Adelita, who they are taking to Potter. I have no idea what that means for her future, except that Potter will try and use her to take down Palomo.
However, based on the conversation in the car between Adelita and Miguel, I think we can rule out the possibility that Miguel and Adelita cheated on their respective partners. I don’t think that Miguel fathered her child. I do think that Miguel is fond of Adelita now, perhaps even romantically inclined. I don’t know what that means for their future, but I do know that Angel is going to be pissed when he finds out that Potter took Adelita while she was under the care of Miguel.
Emily is going to continue to be jealous of Adelita, though, and for good reason. Adelita represents the side of Miguel that identifies with his Mexican background. Emily represents the part of Miguel that attended an American college and is living it up as an entrepreneur. I think we all know that Miguel is more in touch with his Mexican heritage than he is with his wealthy American lifestyle.
I look forward to Potter’s interrogation of Adelita. Ray McKinnon — who plays Potter — is genuinely one of the best actors on television.
