In the “Mayans M.C.” recap, EZ is forced to face the reality of his choices, Miguel seeks revenge against those who wronged him and Adelita strikes back…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
There’s a great quote from James Baldwin about choices that seems to sum up everything that has been unfolding on “Mayans M.C.” season 3.
“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”
All season long, EZ Reyes has been struggling with the two lives he’s been attempting to lead — one led by his desire to become the best outlaw as a member of the Mayans and the other as he tries to allow love into his life after knowing nothing but pain and misery for so many years.
But as it was previously stated in this season — traveling in two different directions is a good way to get nowhere and that’s exactly what EZ has been doing while trying to juggle those two parts of himself.
Last week culminated in Gaby finally seeing the monster hiding inside EZ after he couldn’t allow a couple of racist assholes to say things to his girlfriend in an ice cream shop so he decided to take matters into his own hands. After beating the two guys to a bloody pulp, EZ was continue to thrash one of them when Gaby attempted to intervene and she caught an elbow in the face for her troubles.
As EZ was hauled away in handcuffs, Gaby saw first hand the kind of darkness that has been driving the man she loves and it terrified her. For EZ, he tried to put that part of himself away so Gaby would never see the ugly side of his outlaw life but it was impossible to hide it from her forever.
That same theme continued to play out in the penultimate episode of “Mayans M.C.” season 3 on Tuesday night at EZ figures out that he’s got to pick a path for the future or he’s truly going to end up nowhere.
Elsewhere this week, Miguel’s misguided thirst for revenge over his mother’s death takes him to a place where he’s actually ready to murder his own wife and the man he believes is responsible for killing Dita. Miguel has never been able to face the reality regarding his own mother and the mental illness she had faced ever since the house fire back in season 1 and it appears he never will.
Coco was also forced to face repercussions for his actions after ignoring the club all season long in order to get high on heroin and those choices finally come crashing down around him.
There’s plenty more to get to so with that said, let’s recap the latest episode of “Mayans M.C.” titled “The House of Death Floats By”…
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Waking up in prison is nothing new for EZ Reyes — he spent eight years there after accidentally killing a police officer — but this time he’s feeling something different as he stares at the walls and the bars around him.
He’s trying to reconcile with his actions from the previous night where so much rage filled up inside of him that he not only unleashed it upon a pair of racist assholes but he hit his girlfriend in the process. EZ has been telling himself all season long that he’s not driven by darkness but his actions speak much louder than words.
When EZ walks out of jail that morning he’s greeted by his brother Angel, who bails him out and apologizes for his behavior the previous day when they were together at the family dinner.
Angel finally comes clean to his brother about Adelita coming to visit him after she was released from holding by the U.S. government while also informing him that their child had died. He tried desperately to hold onto her but in the end, Angel realized that he just wasn’t enough because Adelita left him anyways.
That left Angel is a bad place but then he received some hopeful news after finding out that Nails — his side piece during Adelita’s absence — is pregnant with their child. Angel sees this as a second chance after what happened with Adelita and EZ assures him that he’ll be a good father.
After leaving jail, EZ makes his way to his father’s butcher shop where he’s trying to find Gaby but she’s been sent home for the day thanks to the bruises on her face. Felipe is trying to understand his son but EZ keeps slipping further and further away from him.
EZ then explains that when he was a child he used to look at a book of paintings belonging to his mother and there was one particular image that always stood out to him. It was a dog swimming in a deep current, struggling to stay afloat and just seconds away from being swallowed up by the ocean. EZ tells his father that’s exactly how he’s felt every day since leaving prison — he’s constantly trying to keep his head above water but he’s just seconds away from being swallowed up whole.
Everything that he’s done for the club since joining the Mayans weighs heavily on EZ’s soul and that’s why he can’t lose Gaby because she’s been his only lifeline.
When he finally goes to see Gaby, she’s reluctant to talk to him but she finally emerges from inside the house.
EZ apologizes but Gaby knows he wasn’t actually lashing out at her — but the violence that lives deep inside of him will always try to get out some way. Gaby tells EZ that ultimately he’s bound by the choices he’s made by joining the M.C. and he’s constantly flirting with death as if he’s challenging the Grim Reaper with every move he makes.
It’s taken some time but Gaby knows that’s just EZ’s true nature and she’s not going to be able to change him. After she escaped a life of true violence by making her way to the United States where she’s been able to start fresh, Gaby refuses to get sucked back into the same trappings that probably would have seen her dead in her former home.
That’s why Gaby has decided to go to nursing school in Lodi and while she loves EZ, the best thing he can do to prove he loves her in return is to let her go.
Back at the clubhouse, Bishop is talking to Ibarra about a plan he’s putting together to finally kill Canche and return the Arizona leadership to him. Ibarra has felt nothing but anguish since his kutte was taken away and he wants to finally bring this ordeal to an end so he can rejoin his club.
Bishop promises that he’s put a plan into action and Canche will be dead within 24 hours.
While he never goes into details, Bishop hints at some sort of plan involving one of the members with Army experience where he was a specialist in some particular job. Perhaps Bishop is plotting an explosion to take out Canche or maybe even a sniper’s bullet?
Whatever it is, Bishop is confident that Canche will soon be dead and there will only be one king left standing.
At the same time this is happening, Hank, Taza and Gilly return and toss their keys to Steve to detail their bikes. Steve is barely paying attention to anything happening as he continues to deal with the torment that he took another person’s life after killing one of the northern California Mayans during the fight at the hotel.
He goes outside to begin detailing the bikes as ordered when EZ returns from his visit with Gaby.
Steve has counted on EZ for advice as the last prospect to earn a full patch in the Santo Padre chapter and he’s turning to him once again as he tries to deal with the guilt about murdering another human being. EZ brushes him off at first but then decides to listen as Steve tells him about the torment he’s been facing and the guilt he’s been feeling over taking someone’s life.
EZ fires back by telling Steve to lock that pain away, deep down inside and never let it out again because this is the life they chose “and everything else is a fucking lie.” By the end of the episode, it’s fair to say Steve wasn’t able to lock it all away.
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
When Coco wakes up for the first morning when he hasn’t been high in quite some time, he goes into the living room to find that his daughter Letty has cleaned the entire house. He jokes that he wishes he knew all he had to do was overdoes to finally get her to clean.
While Coco has been passed out during withdrawal, Letty has been researching rehabilitations facilities where she hopes her father can go for help. She suggests asking the club for the money in order to pay for rehab but Coco quickly shuts that down by telling her that if the M.C. knew that he was a junkie, that he would be a dead man.
He then asks about Hope and Letty is forced to tell him that she couldn’t handle going through withdrawal and she abandoned him in the middle of the night.
Coco freaks out because he knows if Hope returns to Meth Mountain that she’s as good as dead so he rushes to grab his gun before heading out the door to go find her. Letty begs him to stay behind and not choose his strung out girlfriend over his daughter but Coco leaves anyways.
When he finally arrives at Meth Mountain, Coco finds Hope is passed out with a bunch of other people naked in the same bed. He picks her up and begins to carry her out when he’s intercepted by Butterfly and Isaac, who were just waiting for him to return.
Coco then finds himself strung up in one of the trailers with Isaac preaching to him about the war between ranchers and wolves and how the ranchers found a way to always win. He tells Coco that ranchers started to slaughter entire packs of wolves except for one cub — and they’d attach a GPS tracker to that one surviving wolf before sending it back out into the wild. Inevitably, the wolf would find a new pack and the ranchers would track it and then slaughter the new pack of wolves — once again leaving a single lone cub with a GPS tracker behind to lead them to the next pack.
The point of the story is that Isaac has been using the same method to track down Coco and bring him back again and again but this was always going to be how it ends. After Coco attempted to rob them the first night he arrived at Meth Mountain, Isaac had pegged him for revenge but only after he used him up — like forcing him to steal heroin from his own club.
Now it appears that Coco is no longer useful to Isaac so he’s going to dispatch of him. He shoots up Coco with a needle full of heroin but he fades back into a slumber again before we discover what happens to him next. It’s safe to say, Coco won’t be having a happy ending this season.
Kill the Devils
Back in the rebel camp in Mexico, Adelita begins training her young troops to accept a simple message — there is no longer one leader but instead they are all Adelita. That also stands for Mini, who has taken on the moniker of her savior as Adelita prepares for vengeance against the people who put them into this situation in the first place.
After making a deal with the Galindo cartel and Governor Montserrat Palomo, Adelita has watched them ignore the needs of the people and Mexico has continued to suffer under their shared leadership. Now it’s time to take the power back.
Meanwhile, at the Lobos Sonora headquarters, Palo welcomes Canche — the president of the Yuma chapter of the Mayans — into the room to meet El Banquero. Palo has heard about the ongoing war inside the Mayans with the Santo Padre chapter trying to take over and he believes this is the solution.
Palo suggests working together with El Banquero and the Lobos Sonora cartel in order to bring heroin into the United States through Arizona, which would then provide a steady income for the club and cut out the Santo Padre chapter all together. This would also cripple Miguel Galindo, who has been the main supplier for the Mayans for many years.
El Banquero reveals that Palomo is now working for him and it’s only a matter of time before Galindo’s entire empire is dead and buried.
Palo then tells Canche that as a final act of vengeance, he will patch over to join the Mayans and together they will strike down the Santo Padre chapter as well as the Galindo cartel.
Later that night, Palo ambushes his sister Laura at her house to begin the next phase of his plan to strike back against the Mayans. Obviously, Palo knows that Laura has been in contact with Taza and he intends to use her as a conduit to get to him and by extension the entire Santo Padre chapter of the Mayans.
But it appears that the Lobos Sonora cartel might soon need a new puppet to command in the Mexican government after what befalls Palomo in this episode.
As she gives a speech condemning Miguel Galindo and his organization, several children brandishing knives charge at the governor while chanting “kill the devils” as her security team swoops in for the save. One security guard rushes Palomo into a nearby bathroom for protection as the rest of the team clears the room.
The security guard goes to check the stalls to make sure they’re alone but as soon as he kicks open the second door, a bullet rockets through his head.
Adelita emerges from the stall as she condemns Palomo for her lies about helping the Mexican people rise up from living under the oppressive rule of the cartels and instead just becoming yet another politician in their pocket. Mini then emerges wearing one of the rabbit masks that were the calling card of the former rebel group, Los Olvidados, as Adelita continues to list off the reasons why Palomo shouldn’t be allowed to survive.
At that moment, Mini plunges a knife into Palomo’s belly and as she falls to the floor, the little girl continues to stab her over and over again until there’s a river of blood flowing from the body. Palomo is very dead and Adelita celebrates Mini’s commitment to the cause while they say their goodbyes.
It seems this was a graduation of sorts for Mini to become the new Adelita after taking out one of Mexico’s top politicians. What this means for Adelita’s future remains unclear but obviously she’s planning on following through with taking back Mexico for the people by any means necessary.
Happy Mother’s Day
Miguel Galindo has never been able to accept the way his mother died and after finding out that her throat was crushed before her body was burned, he’s finally got the proof that she was murdered rather than committed suicide. Last week saw Miguel get additional evidence from his former housekeeper that his wife was plotting behind his back with EZ Reyes, which has him convinced that the two of them conspired together to kill his mother, Dita.
Miguel then discovers from a conversation with Nestor that he saw motorcycle tracks at the site of Dita’s death on the night they found the body. This is just more proof to Miguel that EZ must have killed his mother.
Miguel then summons Marcus Alvarez for a meeting at the site where Dita died as he prepares to question his right hand man about loyalty. Marcus puts a gun in his belt because this might be the fight for his life but he soon discovers that Nestor covered for him regarding the motorcycle tracks by claiming he was the only one who saw them that night but he was afraid to tell Miguel the truth about what might have happened.
Miguel then tells Marcus his theory that EZ was the one responsible for murdering Dita after conspiring with his wife to take her life. Of course, Miguel has no motive whatsoever for why EZ or Emily would want his mother dead — but don’t let that get in the way of a thirst for vengeance.
In reality, Dita asked to die after EZ discovered that she was responsible for the death of his mother thanks to some bank records that Emily dug up for him. Dita hired a hit man to kill the Reyes family after falling in love with Felipe in Mexico only for him to leave and start a new life with a new wife in the United States. In the end, it was only Marisol Reyes who was killed and now all these years later, Dita was ready to pay for her crimes.
But obviously Miguel knows nothing of this and he’s now testing Marcus’ loyalties by asking him to kill EZ Reyes for what he did to Dita. Marcus was once the founding member of the Mayans and now he’s being ordered to kill a Mayan.
Of course, Marcus struggles with this request after returning home to his wife where they’ve been caring for the son of the man who previously guarded Dita Galindo, who was murdered by Miguel for allowing her to escape his sight on the day she died. Perhaps Marcus is beginning to realize that his real family was with the Mayans because Miguel hasn’t been showing much loyalty to anybody these days.
Back at home, Emily awakens the morning after her night of passionate, rough sex with Miguel where he nearly strangled her but she thought it was just an intense moment between husband and wife. Emily covers up the bruises with makeup but after returning home from a run, her sister Erin notices the marks on her neck almost immediately.
Erin is seething with anger towards Miguel over what he’s done but Emily defends her husband and instead lashes out at her sister.
That’s when Erin reminds Emily that both of them have made terrible choices when it comes to men, largely based around the abusive father they shared growing up. Emily responds by telling Erin that she only comes around when she needs money — and so she lays down a blank check asking how much she wants this time to leave them alone.
Erin scoffs at the insulting offer from her sister and leaves while promising to never return again.
That night, Miguel finds his wife alone by the pool where she explains that Erin is gone and not coming back. Miguel is happy with this news because he wants some time with just his family at home.
He then draws a bath for his wife while filling the tub with rose petals as the two of them share a conversation while drinking wine. Miguel then goes downstairs to grab another bottle when he crushes up some prescription pills and pours that into Emily’s wine before returning to the bathroom.
Miguel watches as Emily sips the laced wine, which soon has the intended effect as she’s barely able to keep her eyes open. Eventually, Emily passes out from the drugs and Miguel casually pushes her head under the water with the intention of killing his wife for the crimes he believes she’s committed.
Miguel leaves and begins to cry in the bedroom — and then he realizes that he can’t do this to Emily.
He rushes back into the bathroom and pulls his wife from her watery grave, forces her to vomit up the poisoned wine and gets her to take a breath again. He then wraps her up in a blanket on the bed as he puts his arms around her while apologizing for what he just did. It appeared for a moment that this was going to be Emily’s end but now the question remains — how will she react to Miguel’s actions or how much will she remember from the night her husband decided he wanted her dead.
Lock It Away
The night before the club prepares to go after Canche and settle the Mayan civil war, Bishop throws a party at the clubhouse for Creeper and Pavia, who return from their night in jail. The celebration starts with Steve being told to remove his kutte and then Bishop revealing that the club took a vote and despite him only being a prospect for four months, he’s already proven himself worth of the patch.
Steve is welcomed into the Santo Padre chapter of the Mayans Motorcycle Club but he doesn’t see this as a crowning achievement. A couple of episodes ago, Steve told EZ that becoming a member of the Mayans was all he ever wanted because he’s grown up his entire life being the punchline of jokes and he knows joining the M.C. will finally earn him some much needed respect.
Sadly, Steve wasn’t built for the outlaw life, especially after dealing with the aftermath of the person he killed during the fight back at the hotel with the Lodi and Oakland chapters of the Mayans.
Still the celebration continues.
Angel also decides to up the ante by making his own announcement that he’s no longer on the market after asking Nails to marry him. He holds up her hand and the ring he initially intended on giving to Adelita is now on her finger instead. This all happens after Hank invited Nails to dinner with him and his mother and she reluctantly said yes while telling him that they needed to talk.
Obviously, Nails had already accepted Angel’s proposal but she wanted to let Hank down gently.
Now with this announcement, Hank finds out the hard way that he’s not going to end up with Nails and she chose to start a life with Angel instead.
Later in the night as the party continues, Steve is still looking somber despite the best efforts from his brothers to induct him into the club. He’s barely hearing a raucous story from Bishop because his own thoughts are drowned out by the sadness he feels over the life he took so callously.
Finally, Steve looks at EZ and tells him that he wasn’t able to lock it away — and with that he puts a gun into his own mouth and pulls the trigger.
As Steve’s body is pulled out the clubhouse with police and ambulances everywhere, Hank is faced with the tragedy that the prospect is dead and he’s more alone now than ever before. Bishop is obviously rocked following the death of his newest member. And EZ watches all of this unfold and that’s when he ultimately decides on the road he wants to travel down.
EZ rushes over to Gaby’s house and knocks on the door — and he’s met with sadness in her eyes because she still can’t bear to see him.
But before Gaby can say much of anything, EZ tells her that he wants to leave with her to go to Lodi to start a new life together. He’s seen how much the outlaw life can take from him and now EZ wants to begin again while telling Gaby that he’s choosing her over the club.
Judging by his jubilant reaction, EZ is setting himself for a tragic outcome because leaving all of this behind isn’t that easy, especially with the warring factions inside the Mayans all gunning for blood.
Next week will be the “Mayans M.C.” season 3 finale kicking off at 10 p.m. ET on FX and don’t forget to come check out the recap afterwards for a full breakdown of everything that happens!
