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 episode title this week, ‘Tohil,’ refers to the God of Fire, and I have completely given up on trying to tie the Mayan God in the episode’s title to the substance of the episode. I am beginning to believe that all the episode titles are just random Mayan Gods without any relationship to what’s going on in the specific episode.
2, When Coco asks Letty the name of the bikers acting as the coyotes, she tells them their patches say, “Vatos Malditos.” I do not know Spanish, but the Google translation for that is, “Damn Dudes.” When Letty toldVatos Malditos that she was associated with the Mayans, and they laughed? Damn Dudes.
3. Sons friend Peter Weller directed the episode — Mr. Robocop himself. He also starred in 11 episodes of Sons of Anarchy, playing Charlie Barosky, and he directed 11 episodes of SoA. This is the second episode of Mayans MC he has directed.
4. When Angel tells Felipe that he’s going to be a father, and that the mother is Adelita, I like how casually Felipe responds. “How do you know her?” Angel asks.
“Oh, she came to kill me,” Felipe says, like it’s NBD.
We do find out a little more about Felipe’s past as a Mexican cop. He was on Jose Galindo’s payroll, because either you were or you were dead. Felipe reminds us that his old partner was Adelita’s father, and that Adelita believed that Felipe was responsible for her father’s death. Small world, right?
5. The best thing about this episode is that for a day, at least, Bishop and the Mayans decide to ignore Galindo and the cartel and remember that they are first and foremost a motorcycle club, and as such, they control the territory, which means acting as a motorcycle club and taking care of the human traffickers, Vatos Malditos.
6. I gotta say, that EZ and the Mayans get lucky. EZ had a hunch that VM would be holed up in a place accepting a lot of food deliveries, so they track down a house and knock on the door, hoping that they found the right place. However, when they answered the door, EZ and Co. just started shooting. Fortunately, they were right, but they could have ended up killing a group of guys that really just like ordering Chinese take-out.
7. Predictably after Marlon’s suicide, Emily wins the bid on the agripark, but the mayor has her suspicions … and so does Miguel. Miguel asks Nestor to track Emily 24/7, which may or may not mean that Nestor spotted Emily with EZ at the end of the episode.
8. Speaking of EZ and Emily’s meeting, after EZ explains that he made Marlon’s death look like a suicide, Emily says she owes him one, and EZ is quick to cash that in. He wants Emily to find out who in the Galindo organization was behind the death of his mother. I am beginning to suspect that it was Dita, if only because Dita is still alive and an available target of revenge for EZ, Angel, or Felipe.
9. Beyond EZ asking Emily for a favor, and Felipe filling in a few details about his past with Angel, “Tohil” didn’t advance the season-long arc very much. However, in the preview for next week, we get a glimpse of maybe the most exciting moment of the season: The return of Chibs! Hell. Yes.
It looks like someone blows up EZ’s motorcycle, too? Is that the other club that the Mayans are beefing with? Or Potter? Or Miguel?
