Caray, Caray!

El Señor de los Cielos: miercoles

This in a big way was the plot-lightest episode of the season so far, so I'm going to try (and probably fail) to keep this short.

- Helmet Hair Pastrana, who has thankfully chucked that hideous plaid jacket, finds out via Ruben who was laundering money for both Aurelio and at least one other cartel: Esperanza Salvatierra. Which means Esperanza just made the List of Pastrana. Problem is, Ruben notes, that she's missing...but he somehow knows that Esperanza's Parents are out looking for her. HH is fine with that; he'll use the parents to get to her.

- Super Javi and that girl we saw him with a few episodes back are just out hiking around his coltan mine when he gets a somewhat rude interruption from a bunch of guys in uniform. It's Penumbra and his crew, apparently fresh from Cuba, and Penumbra's channeling the late and unlamented Carreno Arias as he "asks" Javi to show him around the place. Javi for his part is almost utterly inflappable, snarking off every five seconds about how Penumbra claims to be working for "the people" while enriching his own bank accounts and/or how he should just go ahead and kill Javi, and this goes around and around for at least three scene changes before Penumbra finally gets to what we all probably guessed the minute he showed up. He wants to take over Javi's mining operation, and if Javi helps him he'll be a good guy and "cut him in."

Super Javi takes his trolling up about ten notches when he agrees to this...but has to call his partner, so he knows what's up. And he busts out his handy satellite phone and calls Aurelio, then puts Penumbra on the phone. Aurelio's "You'd better not fork with this, man" speech lasts about thirty seconds, right before he reminds Penumbra that he's waiting on the drug shipment he promised him. Penumbra says he's on it and just needs some more time, and then after hanging up freaks out; Aurelio asked for a huge shipment and he can't get all of it together. So, yup, Penumbra asks Javi for help and Javi basically goes "I can put you in touch with some folks, but otherwise this is a you problem. I'm out of the game."

- Salazar gets back to L.A., just in time for Colon to drag him a little for being sick (with the flu, according to Salazar) and ask him at least twice if he was really off looking for Esperanza. Salazar, perhaps inevitably, goes Sean Spicer on him and asks him outright why a highly decorated CIA agent on the back end of his career ended up running a DEA office or whatever the fork he's actually in charge of. Colon for once holds up his end and retorts that obviously Salazar is hiding something if he's trying to deflect things, and on his final asking of the Esperanza question Salazar finally just lies to his face and says he wasn't looking for her.

Back in Colorado, Esperanza drops in at the Weed Zone to once again plead her case to Zoe--Salazar's part of her past, they banged because she was confused, the Devil made her do it, et cetera. Zoe isn't having any of it, even when Esperanza says that they don't have to be lovers any more but can at least be partners in the new and improved marijuana farm; Esperanza finally goes "Okay, okay, just let me be completely honest with you about everything...and then you can make up your mind." Naturally, that's the last thing that happens with them in this episode.

- After a brief dinnertime chat about how they had begun to "lose" Esperanza when she got older (which causes Pina to flip out), her parents proceed to leave Mexico for the States to meet with Salazar. On their way out, they're trailed by a couple of guys in a van...yup, they work for Helmet Hair...but they're not able to get to them before they meet up with someone near the airport.
 

El Señor de los Cielos: miercoles (2)

On the other hand, Arelis was left behind when the Parents bailed...and two more of HH's goons track her down at a sidewalk food cart and cart her off in an SUV, eventually dropping her off in what looks like a slightly junked up art-deco classroom. The goons check in with HH, who tells them to keep her in place until he arrives. Arelis crying just makes her look that much more like a librarian.

- Rutila, after bitching out some poor extra bank employee who dropped by her house to tell her they can't figure out where her $5M went (and apparently told her that they thought perhaps she stole her own money), has an epiphany after bitching to her henchman Pompeyo that she had no reason to spirit away her own money...realizing that someone else, namely dear old Dad, would. So she hauls ass over to Rancho Casillas, interrupting Ismael grumping to Aurelio about the whole Paulina thing, and blasts Aurelio for the umpteenth time about disrespecting her and only thinking about himself. For his part, Aurelio continues being the even more sociopathic than usual version of himself we've seen this season--declaring that he needed the money to get things going again, and that he'd just repay her with interest, before bailing to go on a trip to Colombia to get Penumbra's shipment and check on things.

After that, minus a brief detour where Grenas the Techie explains in TV fashion how he was able to use a vulnerability to hack her accounts before being shooed off, she ends up commiserating with Ismael about their asshat of a dad. Ismael admits that he knew what Aurelio was planning and tried to get him to back off, but was blown off himself, before swearing to Rutila that she'd get the first cut of whatever money they make and that he's still over Aurelio screwing everybody over. That at least calms Rutila down. This is where we all wonder how this can possibly go wrong...

- Tata, after being woken up by Balki from a champagne-induced nap, finds herself oddly...wobbly...and passes out. She blames it on the booze.

- We check in on Nazareno (Aurelio's seventh kid, seen a handful of times last season) and his wife Carmen, still working in their butcher shop in Toluca (?). It turns out Nazareno is on the List of Pastrana too, being Aurelio's kid, and Helmet Hair earlier in this episode already ordered people to "move" on him. But for the time being he's safe, if in debt to the tune of a million pesos. Carmen wants him to ask his uber-absentee dad for the money, or perhaps his half-brother Ismael, but Nazareno is just fine with going to get a loan from a bank...and even more fine with macking on Carmen right in the middle of the shop, complete with temporarily closing the shop pushing her up onto a countertop (surrounded by meat) for a quickie. Not sure if there's enough bleach for that, guys.

- And Evil Greg Brady, after randomly checking in on a threesome Baby Girl is having with a couple of his other "girls" (one of whom he actually turns down when she comes on to him), ends up hanging out in the Blaxploitation Nightmare Suite watching Monica sleep. When she wakes up, the conversation they have is so Lifetime movie it hurts: Victor insists that

a. all he truly wants is to be with Monica, since
b. nobody else in the world ever gave a damn about him, so the world can burn for all he cares

while Monica is so utterly in "Come on, man, it's ooooooverrrrr!" mode it'd otherwise be forking hilarious. And just when you thought it couldn't get more cliched...

Monica: "How long will you keep me locked up?"
Victor: "Until you come around."
Monica: "You're the one who needs to come around!"

Yup, it actually does.
 

"EL SENOR DE LOS CIELOS":

Bill C: Victor is obsessed with Monica BIGLY!
 

SIN SENOS 3

Hope others here are watching this -- it's awesome.

--Mary in Maryland
 

SIN SENOS 3

My very outdated computer often doesn't allow my comments to post here and my over-the-air antenna TVs get shaky English subtitles, so I missed a lot of plot updates and twists.

Never the less, I love how season 3 is filling in the loose ends of Catalina Santana's "suicide" aftermath. Sometimes I wonder if the scriptwriter(s) forget the storyline from season to season because of seeming plot discrepancies. For instance, I'm pretty sure Yesica told Daniela that Daniela was born in prison. Of course, Yesica could have been messing with her. But the twist in this latest season is Yesica badgering Octavio to get her pregnant so she can collect on Marcial's assets after turning him in. He's present in the non-prison delivery room, and afterwards, pushed aside apart from Yesica bragging to a Sinaloa drug lord that she is funding his senate run.

--Mary in Maryland
 

"SIN SENOS 3":

Mary: Yesica was PREGGERS with a dirty politico's baby ?
 

SIN SENOS 3

Steve: YUP. Not sure why we should be so surprised that creepy Octavio is devil Daniela's daddy since Yesica appeared to be having an affair with him before she hooked with the evil mayor. And Marcial's paternity test came back negative last season.

--Mary in Maryland
 

SIN SENOS 3

Here is the other twist I didn't see coming: Cata S. picked lovable Jota as her secret back home contact person before joining the TEA. She briefly returns from Miami to Pereira in disguise to meet with him and the smitten doctor who saved her life. She tells Jota that she doesn't want to steal Albeiro from her mother since they now have a child, and is flattered that her sister is named after her. Octavio glimpses her in disguise at the airport, so this encounter fueled his later taunting of Yesica with Cata sightings.

--Mary in Maryland
 

SIN SENOS 3

Season 3 starts again with Cata's notorious "suicide," but with added scenes -- paramedics detect a heartbeat and load her into an ambulance. Shocked Pelambre has left the scene to meet with the hit men. He yells at them for killing the wrong person and shoots them dead. As shown in season 1, Marcial buys Yesica an SUV which she promptly shows off in Pereira. She turns Marcial in to the police, then parties to the disgust of Pelambre. She orders Gato to get rid of him, but sly Pelambre has already disappeared.

At the hospital, gorgeous doctor Santiago rescues Cata and follows TEA/DEA agent Martín Cruz's order to keep her survival secret. Martin arranges for a body switch that is released to Pelambre for burial. During Cata's slow recovery, Santiago falls for her, but encourages her to consider Martin's deal of giving testimony in the US. She corrects the doctor's mistaken impression that she bravely challenged drug lords and confesses that she ordered the hit on herself because of several betrayals. In Miami, her testimony against one cartel lord earns her US residency under the name Virginia Fernandez and permission to call home. She calls Santiago to invite him for a visit. He proposes at the end of his Miami vacation, but Martin is also smitten and wonders if her lowly waitress job is good enough for someone so smart. On cue, her creepy boss demands sex, so she quits and applies for DEA undercover training. Because she must cut off all official Colombian ties, Martin arranges a contact with Jota and overlooks her one last visit to Bogota. He also serves as best man at her wedding to Santiago.

The scenes move really fast between the events of Cata's "afterlife," Marcial's conviction and imprisonment in Florida, his chats with prison mate Titi (who defends "still alive" Cata's refusal to rat them both out), Yesica's takeover of Marcial's empire, Jota's frantic antic hiding of his contacts with Cata from suspicious Hilda and Albeiro, and Hilda and Albeiro's raising of young Cata.

--Mary in Maryland
 

SIN SENOS 3

So glad that this story has gotten a different ending from the terrible one in season 1. It looked like Cata S. set up Pelambre to be arrested for her death, and nothing seemed to come of her whistle blowing to friend/confidante Octavio. For some reason, I assumed Octavio was a reporter and represented Gustavo Bolivar's role in the real life story. Googling the real story brought up an English comment by someone who knew the real Santana family in Pereira and set the record straight: Yes, a prepago girl's mother got impregnated by her barrio boyfriend, and, yes, her best friend stole her drug lord husband. But that unlucky prepago girl retaliated by getting her pregnant frenemy and cheating husband arrested for trafficking. The real Cata S. was still alive, but unhappily living with a new drug lord. Not a wonderful alternative ending, but still better than the one in the first season. Bolivar insisted he chose the terrible ending to scare off girls from Cata's dangerous choices. He reportedly keeps a picture of the real Cata.

As for Octavio's role, I learned from season 2 that he was a lawyer and ex-politician. This season showed him attempting to turn over to government agents two documents entrusted to him by Cata. They wouldn't make any deals with him, so he kept the papers and left.

--Mary in Maryland
 

"SIN SENOS 3":

Mary: Any chance we see an appearance from Daddy Casilas in this TN ?
 

SIN SENOS & EL SENOR

Steve: Have there been any cross-over characters? -- I haven't watched much of El Senor, and Carmen V.'s character on El Senor was killed off a few seasons ago.

--Mary in Maryland
 

SIN SENOS & EL SENOR

Steve: On the other hand, it would be an epic TN hoot if El Senor teamed up with La Diabla.

--Mary in Maryland
 

Somewhat belatedly: the "narcoverse," as I call it, includes five shows in all--the original El Cartel from the late 2000s, El Señor de los Cielos, Señora Acero, El Chema, and Queen of the South. In terms of crossovers, it's Aurelio Casillas who ties the latter four shows together; he's the only character to appear at some point on all four of them, and he may be the only character mentioned on at least three of them on any sort of semi-regular basis.

El Chema was largely a prequel to ESDLC, so a number of that show's currently deceased characters all showed up there (Isidro and Guadalupe Robles, Triste, Don Cleto Letran, Feyo Aguilera, and Jeremy Andrews).

Señora Acero is sort of the redheaded stepchild of the narcoverse. It's off doing its own thing, usually in a somewhat more gonzo fashion than ESDLC normally does, and tends to be more isolated and smaller in scope. Which is a shame, because I would love for Tuti to pop up in Mexico City and run into the older version of herself: Tata.