The ‘Mayans M.C.’ WTF Report: All The Boys Are Crazy About The Rebel Queen

Welcome to our weekly chronicling of Mayans M.C. episodic moments that live up to the mindset of the series’ co-creator, Kurt Sutter, whose Sons of Anarchy included some depraved gems over the course of seven seasons. Be on the lookout later this week for Dustin Rowles to deftly read too much into this episode while diving deep into callbacks and theories about where this club goes from here, particularly with this season’s episodes being named after prominent folklore figures from the Mayan culture.

Mayans M.C.‘s second season has leaned into its Sons of Anarchy ties for multiple episodes, including last week’s Happy-Opie fest, but this week’s episode, “Zquic,” takes a breather from the Sutter universe’s past and looks toward the future. Or so it would seem, yet there’s a conundrum. Last week’s truly excellent episode held so many ties to Sons but really put Mayans into its own groove. This week’s episode doesn’t lend that same exhuberence, and we don’t receive any followup on Happy regarding Angel and EZ’s pursuit of learning who ordered the hit on their parents. Also absent? The Swole Boyz, who are so annoyingly entertaining. But it can’t be all fun and games, and Mayans gets serious again, if slightly confusing, this episode.

The episode’s name is one of several sources of confusion. In Mayan lore, the “Zquic” episode title translates into “blood moon.” She’s a virgin goddess who gave birth to the Hero Twins, who are probably Angel and EZ, as suggested by the “Xbalanque” episode. Well, this episode doesn’t talk much about Felipe’s wife, who’s the biological mother of Angel and EZ. Yet there’s also the possibility that Zquic represents Adelita. After all, she won’t say who the father of her child (or children) is (and we could interpret that as some sort of “virgin” birth). Angel clearly believes he’s the dad, and now, so do all the Mayans. Yet Adelita’s secrecy on the matter has raised suspicion in Emily.

All the boys (and girls) are crazy about Adelita, you know? Not in a straightforward way except for Angel (and maybe Miguel), but everyone’s making dumb decisions as a result. During the episode’s closing moments, the Mayans do something very ill-advised: they kill two federal agents in an attempt to rescue the rebel leader. The main problem with all of this — besides the impossible feat of how the Mayans will cover their tracks — is that Adelita inexplicably doesn’t want to leave federal custody. The chase scene itself was a gripping one, with the club using two cars to literally squeeze a third to a halt, after a decoy Adelita led the audience astray. Angel got to (briefly) reunite with Adelita before she instructs him to leave.

It’s puzzling to see Adelita insist that it’s necessary for her (and her baby) to stay put in order to help the revolution. When she tells the club to scram, it’s clear that they’re not the only ones who will have some explaining to do. Potter’s already made it clear that he intends to have her tortured after childbirth, and how on earth will Adelita explain why she’s standing in front of a burning car with two dead agents inside? It’s a cool and cinematic shot but very strange.

Meanwhile, Angel remains an utter mess. He’s bound to go off the deep end at any moment, and earlier, we got to see a glimpse of this potential. After Angel lashed out at Bishop while insisting that he’d rather die than find Adelita, Bishop knocked him the hell down and called him a “sh*thead.” Totally fair.

Oh, and we finally see Potter losing some control and admitting that he is confused because he knows that Miguel’s hiding something — he just can’t figure out what it is. “I can’t read him,” Potter frets. “I don’t like that.” This is also (surprise!) related to Adelita.

This rare moment of a weakened Potter does not point toward him feeling conflicted at all over how he’s treating Adelita. Look, he doesn’t like the appearance of her being placed in a dog cage, but he’s still gonna torture her. (Funny how one of those is somehow worse than the other to him.) He’s also irritated as hell that he doesn’t know what Miguel, the “Ivy League prince,” is really plotting with the rebel queen.

Well, Emily would also like to know what’s up between Miguel and Adelita, in addition to her wanting to know Felipe’s connection to Dita. So many mysteries in her life! And I’m not utterly convinced that her grilling of Miguel didn’t actually make matters worse for their marriage. She’s not at all subtle while asking about his connection with Adelita. He insists that he’s not crushing on Adelita, but he does admire her a great deal. He’s gone from hate to understanding to respect, so um, yeah. I can see why Emily might not buy his explanation, but Miguel seems to believe himself with his it’s-not-her-it’s-me speech.

“It’s potent and beautiful,” Miguel raves about Adelita’s rebel leadership. “I grew envious. I wanted some of that. You’re right. I’ve gone out of my way to be around Adelita, but it wasn’t about her. It was about me.”

Not good, dude. Sarah Bolger, who plays Emily, appeared to confirm on Twitter that this scene didn’t help her character’s outlook on the Adelita situation.

On the subject of Felipe, Emily’s confrontation with him similarly stirs up more questions than answers. Everyone, including Dita, seems to realize that she’s a loose cannon, and while she could attack Felipe, or Angel and EZ, I worry most about what she’ll do upon finding out that Emily’s been digging into her past. However, we now know that Ignacio Cortina (Felipe’s real identity), traveled the world with Dita while they were both married to other people. Felipe got over this affair long ago, but Dita’s still keeping that fire burning. She literally walked toward a wildfire, in fact, and then emerged like a sociopathic phoenix who realized that she had unfinished business.

What’s the lesson of this episode? Most of the characters are fixated upon Adelita, and perhaps they should be checking their rear view mirrors for volatile Dita instead.

‘Mayans M.C.’ airs Tuesday nights at 10 pm EST on FX.