From Dusk Till Dawn S01E03: Mistress

In prison, Seth took some beatings, and Carlos visited him. When taunted about his brother, he found his fight, even managing to take down the bigger opponent for a time. Carlos offered a safe haven in El Rey, that wasn’t free, but only 30% of his take. The price seemed too high. Carlos knows that Richie hasn’t been well, and he tells Seth that the world never gave him anything, so now he takes it back, he just has to take it back for eternity. But Seth didn’t win the fight on the prison play yard.

Now-ish. The brothers head to the Dew Drop Inn. Seth goes to procure a room.

Coahuila, Mexico. Carlos meets up with a par of shady Mexican transporters who don’t think too highly of him. They’re transporting some items for him, when they decided that extortion would be better. Carlos doesn’t want to play, and he tells them that they will give him the Cargo for free. The pair have a laugh over it, until Carlos goes all snake vampire on them, and rips the throat out of the one holding the gun. The leader falls all over himself crying, begging for his life when Carlos gets a call. It’s Seth. He’s a bit upset. All of Texas is looking for them, and he can’t cross the border with his ticking time bomb. Carlos assures him that transport will be there this evening, and Seth warns him about flaking on him. Carlos clears up the fact that he’s not Mexican, and then finishes off his other victim.

Richie and Seth pull Monica from the trunk. The voices are talking to Richie again as he looks at her. Seth looks over the map of Texas. Richie wants to talk down Carlos’s price, but Seth is fine with it. Seth hands out hardware, that Richie scoffs at, but Seth knows it won’t be needed, or hopes so, because Monica is going to behave herself. She knows the first rule of customer service, and Seth tells her exactly what they want from her, and her stillness is not a high price. Richie gives Seth his food order, and then heads to watch some cartoons. Seth grabs some cash, and heads out.

Kate finds yet another reason to panic about. She’s not happy that her brother scot is driving, but their father Jacob is giving him a chance. Kate is regretful about the little incident with Kyle, but clarifies that they didn’t know he had left his congregation, and that was a big shock for her. He’s lost faith, and can no longer lead, and Kate doesn’t understand, since faith has been such a big part of their lives for so long. Right now he just wants her to trust in the Pagan power of technology and look for a good border crossing. She tells him to trust in God, not to lose faith, and he knows exactly what God is capable of. The Winnebago breaks down, and the Fullers are without a toolbox. He tells the kids to stay in the RV while he heads into a nearby bar hoping for help and finds drinks instead served up by a hot bartender. He barely ignores her and asks the bar full of people for help, and goes barely noticed.

Seth heads into the Big Kahuna Burger, and finds what he desires, not a burger, but his ex wife, Tyra, (Adrianne Palicki) and the two get frisky in the bathroom. The two may not have hooked up in G.I. Joe: Retaliation even though they had plenty of chemistry, but the two put that chemistry to good use here.

Richie asks Monica to join him in the bedroom for her protection. She reluctantly goes and sits next to him on the bed.

Ranger Freddie heads into what looks to be the same bar Jacob Fuller went to. He’s there meeting with a professor, Tanner, about the symbols he’s found. Tanner wants a little more respect for the “crazy little Gods,” which happens to be his life’s work. Freddie clarifies that he’s tracking two killers, and shows him the knife handle that links the Geckos to the cult symbols. Tanner looks at it in awe as Jacob arrives in the bar, announcing his predicament, asking for help. Freddie ignores the man’s request, telling Tanner that he found the handle on his dead partner. Tanner tells him that it’s a knife used for ritual sacrifices and the cartel that the Geckos are working with are likely one that worships the Serpent. The knife shouldn’t exist he says, but the knife represents a Mayan symbol giving the user the ability to see and take action.

Richie makes the mistake of leaving the gun on the bed when he goes to get his knife. Monica is worried as he draws near, but he cuts her binds. Richie struggles with something internally, growing more frustrated by it. Monica asks if he’s okay. He isn’t. he’s a scientist, a master technician, a lock artist, and now he tries to figure out what isn’t matching up. As she tries to appeal to his humanity, telling him about her kids, Richie draws. She asks to see what he’s drawing, and he hands over his book. It’s full of disemboweling, of rituals. Monica tells him he has a gift.

Seth and Tyra finish up their bathroom acrobatics and grab a seat. She didn’t think he would show up, and tells him to order something so they don’t look suspicious. He tells her that plans have changed, but plans don’t change, they never have before. He tries to reason that sometimes plans get better, but she can’t fathom how a plan gets better than the two of them on a beach together in Cancun. Them both being alive is a start. He pulls out a stack of bonds, and gives her a name of a washer. She’ll be set after that, all the money will be hers. The money sounds too good, feels like Vegas. She asks him if he remembers Vegas, remembers a girl who came in after they won, and ordered breakfast, and Seth had commented about her being a whore. She tells him she wonders what it feels like to walk into a place and everyone knows you’re a whore, but she makes it clear to him that she’s no whore. She’s his partner, and they honor their plans. She’s the one that cased the bank, found the ins, outs and schedules that made his heist possible. The brothers messing it all up though is not her fault. All the time in the prison she waited for him, baking cakes, blowing out candles, not for his money, because she loved him.

Monica helps Richie clean out his hand wound. He bets she doesn’t use Patron to clean her kids scrapes, and she tells him the Patron is usually for her. In his hand he sees an eyeball, and it tells him that Monica wants to be free, that he needs to set her free. Richie sends her away from him, telling Monica to go sit down. Monica goes, and in the mirror, he sees her trying to seduce him. He thinks that she wants him, but when he looks at her she tells him that she didn’t say anything. “Monica” begs him to set her free. He asks who she really is, what she wants, but as he draws closer she continues to say she didn’t say anything. He thinks she’s toying with him, throwing her back onto the bed. He ties her up and gags. His vision of her tells him that she likes it rough, and asks to set her free again.

Scott asks his sister Kate why she has to be suck a biotch. The age old question, countless brothers have asked their sisters. She reasons that their father is going against everything in his life. Scott tells her that she also made it seem like their father caused their mother’s accident, but that wasn’t her intentions. She knows their father is in a bad place, and she doesn’t know how to be their mother, how to get him back. Scott tells her not to try to be. Jacob tries to fix his Winnebago while some bar patron, Bo, chats him up. Bo tells him that his adventure might be cut shorter than he thinks as one of the hoses sprays steam into his face. Jacob loses his temper and beats his bumper good, and Bo tells him that the RV needs to cool off, and the two head back to the bar and knock back some drinks. Jacob asks Bo if he has any children, and he doesn’t, isn’t sure if he’s ready. Jacob tells him it’s a team sport.

Tyra tries to convince Seth that if he walks out, he’s walking away from them. They pulled a job and walked away with 30 million. They could walk away and go back to paradise for them. Seth can’t walk away from his brother. She’s willing to let Richie have most of the money, but Seth can’t do it. The Geckos did 36 jobs together, Richie is smart because of their father. He always made him think. First it was little things, just sneaking past their father. Richie spent a lot of time thinking of ways to keep him off Seth, until the day he didn’t have to. Their father fell asleep with a lit cigarette, which burned down the house. Richie pulled Seth from the fire, and so he owes him everything. Tyra asks what if Richie can’t be saved, and Seth has to hope that in El Rey he can. She has a nurse friend who works in a mental hospital, and had her evaluate Richie one night over dinner. She said he had dissociative condition, that he hears voices. Seth is angry that she had him looked at, rather than seeing her motivation being to help him. Seth tells her that Richie is not crazy, and he walks away from her, telling her to have a good life.

Tanner reveals more of his research. He tells him that if one or more of these brothers are killing for this blood cult then he has to think not like a ranger, but back to his roots. He asks if he is a man of faith. Freddie is. Tanner makes it clear this isn’t just a cartel he’s up against, but a blood cartel who’s patron saint is a very powerful demi goddess. No one knows her real name just that she was so beautiful that the serpent god had to have her. They chased her through the jungle, captured her and dragged her back to sacred ground to be sacrificed. They threw her into a pit of snakes where she was consumed and transformed. She became a harbinger of the next realm. The killer uses the knife, he isn’t looking for blood, but to see something that no one else can.

Richie continues to draw, to hear voices. He looks through the hole in his hand, and he sees Santánico where Monica lies, still asking him to set her free. Richie draws his gun, pulling into action. She removes the gag, and asks how he knew the nickname, Gordita, that her husband calls her during sex.

Seth goes and orders some food, but Tyra’s destruction of his car interrupts him. Calm talking didn’t work, so maybe if she goes all Carrie Underwood on his car it will. He pulls the crow bar from her hands. It was never going to be her and Seth she realizes, it was always going to be Seth and Richie. Seth tells her that he’s all Richie has. She yells at him that they could been good together, but he reminds her that they were together and it wasn’t good.

Carlos hands the cargo over to a trio of women, telling them to prepare the gifts, so treat them accordingly. The girls turn to their work, and Carlos heads to his alter. He kneels before the Goddess statue and surrenders himself to her. He tells her that there were people who tried to betray them before he showed them her power and corrected their mistakes. The cargo is magnificent he says, and soon they will hear her name, will tremble for her.

Richie tells her that he isn’t afraid of her, doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She tells him it was just one night, her and husband were having trouble so they went to a counselor who suggested role playing. He was a cop, she the high priced hooker, she explains the name Gordita. He didn’t know any of that he says. He tells Monica that he hears a voice in his head, that its usually just noise, but if he listens and he focuses then she can show him things. He falls to his knees softening to her, guessing that he was seeing a vision of that time. Her husband calls her Gordita because he likes her curves. Richie tells her that the movie her husband liked is called Sharkie’s Machine. He knows the characters. Monica isn’t sure how she did it, but he saw the real her. Richie tells her that he sees too much, and he lays his head on her lap, she pets him softly.

Kate enters the bar, to retrieve her father. She wants to take him  back, but he’s very drunk, and sends her back alone. Tanner steps in her way, but she brushes him off. Kate goes looking for the tool box again in the RV, and grabs the tub Jacob stopped her from opening before. Inside is a warrant for a Blood Alcohol test for Jacob, charging him with vehicular manslaughter if found guilty.

Freddie maps out the counties along the border, but the knife is missing. Tanner tells him that he wanted him to take the knife with him back to the University for some Tests. Tanner reluctantly gives it back, telling him that it belongs to the Lords of the Night. They are nine Mayan Lords that occupy the first realm. One of them threw the girl to the pit snakes. Freddie tells him that if he find them that he’ll arrest them too.

A motorcade of cars drive on a dirt road, nine men meet with Carlos. He is set to give the men a sample of what’s to come. One doesn’t understand why he’s using the Kansas City Gringos, but Carlos is a busy man. He opens up the trailer, and its full of girls, very pretty, scared girls. They cower in the men’s presence, and the lead one drops fang.

Seth digs in his pockets, spilling bullets on the counter. The fast food worker gets nervous, and a cop walks in making Seth nervous. Tyra pulls a gun on the cop giving Richie a chance to get away.

Monica lies back against the pillows, with Richie lying on her stomach like a scared child as she strokes his hair. He tells her that something is coming, but something is coming everyday she consoles him. Today is different though. He slowly gets up, and stares down at her. He sees vision of Monica in the jungle, as the voice tells him that she longs to be free, that Monica wants him. Richie reaches down and feels soil in his hands, but there is nothing there. He envisions a snake rising from his hand, traveling down his throat. Richie chokes on it, and Monica grabs the gun. She takes aims and fires it at Richie, but its empty.

Freddie puts the cult deaths on a map, but there’s a clear spot untouched. Tanner tells him that they’re precisely surrounding cult lands, and in the middle of the deaths are border crossing.

Kate calls in saying that she’s from the insurance office. She raising questions about the Fuller accident. Bo finishes fixing the RV, as Kate asks if they have the report. She asks to have it sent over. Jacob backs out, and hits Kate with the car. She decides it may be better if she drives, taking the keys.

Tanner gets ready to leave. He mentions Freddie they story from the Mayan bibles, about a pair of brothers that journey to the Underworld to trick the Gods. Freddie isn’t familiar with this story. The brothers beat the Gods at their own game.

Seth returns with the food. He tells him that their debts are paid, and he asks where the girl is at. Richie motions to the bedroom, and Seth goes to find his brother’s latest mess. Richie has killed Monica, disemboweled her, and removed her eyes, placing them in her hands. Seth pushes him against the wall, trying to make him realize that this isn’t what they do. Seth is still holding onto the hope that he can bring his brother back.