Third episode of Season 2 aired last night. It was a tricky one and hard to follow at times!
Spoilers after the cut.
If there's any one thing a viewer can glean from watching this episode once, it's that the editing could use some work. It's hard enough to follow multiple story lines as it is; the choppy editing and inability to focus on a topic or set of characters for more than 20-30 seconds doesn't make that task any easier.
And it's not like there are story lines that are thrown in for humor or aren't essential to the big picture. Unless I'm told otherwise, everything is important and everything is connected. At least, that's how I view it; I assume it would be that way or else the creators would cut out the unnecessary scenes.
That digression aside, it seems like the show is finally moving back in the direction that it took in the first season. Of course, there are more elements at play so it's a bit more complicated.
But maybe that's a bit of a misnomer. The only new characters in this episode that were added for this season (so far) are Eleanor and the DEA agent (whose name I don't know) working with El Paso PD. And yet, because most of the characters are off doing their own thing (in addition to doing things together, e.g. Marco & Sonya), there are many threads to follow at once.
Eleanor is quite busy throughout. She has acquired a new vehicle and intends to buy new clothes. While in the dressing room she stabs herself in the chest with a pin and watches the blood drip down. After she finishes shopping, she recruits a man who is supposedly "not right" according to the others surrounding him at the time. This fellow, Jaime, helps her out later on by carrying a container into a building.
She also has a conversation with the lawyer Monte Flagman. I'm not sure if they have an attorney/client relationship at this point and the conversation itself was a bit of a mystery. For her last trick, she enters the house of Kyle's friend. Just when you think she's clearly homicidal, she decides not to do anything to the kid after he wets himself out of fear. But she does give him one important piece of information: Kyle has been "changed" and that he's in a place with the butterflies.
Of course, even when Eleanor isn't on-screen, other characters are interested in either finding her or figuring out her inscrutable motives.
Sonya's first appearance on-screen is in a sex scene with Dobbs. Later, she and Marco talk to Kyle's friend at El Paso PD. There they learn the details of the kids' meeting with Eleanor that occurred at the end of the first episode. The kid notes that Eleanor has a lot of "scary tattoos".
The two detectives also pay a visit to Kyle's house where they talk to his father. As usual, it doesn't go well, although Marco is inadvertently handed a clue when Kyle's younger brother says something about a "metamorphosis" card.
When they and Hank attempt to inform the DEA agent of their findings, they are told little in response. Part of this is due to Marco being employed by the Mexican police, an agency the DEA man has little love for. He also vaguely mentions that Eleanor is important, but the reason for this is not explained.
Marco & Sonya eventually find their way to the storage facility where the second episode ended. While there, all they find are Kyle's clothes and a card with the title of "metamorphosis". Marco then takes a phone call from Capitan Robles and appears to be less than honest with Sonya about it afterward. In the car on the way to their next destination, they talk about David Tate and why he killed Marco's son.
That night, after Eleanor pays Kyle's friend a visit, Marco & Sonya talk to him. He mentions that she left after he wet himself and then relays the information about butterflies. Sonya knows exactly what this means and then she and Marco make it to the building where Eleanor and Jaime were earlier in the day. Sonya claims that the building was once a butterfly sanctuary. They go inside and find the blue container that Jaime was moving previously. Inside is Kyle's corpse. Although they are unaware, Eleanor is standing out of view watching the proceedings.
Charlotte, her friend Ray, and her employee Cesar get some screen time as well. Ray and Cesar are delivering drugs together when they're stopped by a gang of punks on bikes. It is revealed that the drugs were secreted into a horse by Ray (great idea, btw) and the horse is then shot. Ray then procures the drugs and hands them off to the kids.
Needless to say, Fausto Galvan is not impressed. He has another meeting with Capitan Robles to discuss the issue. He tells Robles that it'd be wise to keep his men out of Bellagua (the area where the drugs were taken, apparently) for a few days.
A while later, Ray and Cesar take a cab back to the ranch. Ray plans to run away (typical of his character, taking the easy way out) while Cesar plans to stick it out at his house. Ray appears to convince Charlotte that running is a good idea while muttering some racist nonsense.
Newspaper reporters Frye and Adriana continue to follow their story. They talk to Raul Quintana to confirm to him that his uncle is dead. They figure out that the death of the uncle did no real damage to the plans that were already in place for funneling money into the US. Raul Quintana meets his death later on to a man who looks like a guy that was working with the DEA agent seen earlier in the episode. Quintana also mentions a "woman in charge" to Frye and Adriana, which seems to confirm that they'll eventually be on Eleanor's trail.
Finally, we have the strange odyssey of Linder. He buys a trinket for Eva and is told about David slaying Goliath with a single stone; I'm not sure what this has to do with the overarching story, but if the implication here is that Linder is going to take down Galvan (who would ostensibly be Goliath in this case), well, that's just a bit too ridiculous to believe at this point.
Linder then makes his way to Bob's unusual residence. He meets Eva and also sees a cop from Juarez that Bob has hung by his wrists. Apparently, this Juarez police officer followed Eva from Hank's place to Bob's and wants to get rid of her by any means necessary. Once Linder and Eva talk, and she relates details of her ordeal and treatment by the Juarez police, Linder determinedly walks back into the room where the officer is being held and proceeds to smash his face in.
So much for wanting to know his story, huh?
This was probably a bit much, but as you can see from reading, there was quite a bit that happened in just about an hour. The preview for Episode 4 was not especially enlightening, so I don't really have anything to say about it. I'm sure that Eleanor will feature prominently. As for what she'll do, well, that's anyone's guess.
