(in best Kurgan voice) Happy Day of the Dead, ladies!
Yes, it's CBS attempting to be multicultural. So they have Halloween and Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos, doncha know?). "Muertos" also has two strikes against it, Jack, and Justin Hires trying to be funny.
Fortunately, they kept those two down to small doses. Jack comes in all buffoonish, but by the end is halfway serious. And Wilt the Stilted... well, he's Wilt. What can you say other than that? He has a "moment", when he tells Riley he's not so sure about his relationship with Leanna. And let's face it, if she isn't aware of the human garbage fire she's dating by now, she deserves everything she get in the way of a relationship.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find these little "Wilt moments" kind of awkward. He's played as such a buffoon most of the time that when he does come across as a human being, it just seems wrong. George Eads has the same problem to some degree. But Eads is a much better actor than Justin Hires.
And yes, I never thought that I'd use "George Eads" and "better actor" in the same sentence. Irony can be pretty ironic sometime.
But enough about my personal complaints about the actors. On with the recap. Luis Gomez (Marco Rodriguez) is at home (presumably) lighting a candle to his dead wife and daughter. He's the same drug lord that was working with Walsh the former anti-Jack who used to be Oversight's partner and went bad. Quicker than you can say, "Isn't Tate Donovan listed in the press releases?", Tate Donovan and a bunch of guys in skull masks show up, take Luis captive, and leave.
It turns out Oversight sanctioned a team to go in and get Luis after he left his cartel HQ to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Meanwhile, Mac is talking with his African girlfriend via Skype and she asks how the search for Murdoc is going. Three episodes, and we've had barely a whisper of Murdoc's name. So... not so well is my guess. Jack comes in dressed as a generic knockoff of Freddy Krueger, fails to scare Mac, and has a horrible idea of what horror movie sequels to watch as part of a marathon.
Before they can settle down to a night of watching bad horror movie sequels, Oversight calls Mac and asks for help. The rest of his team have been killed (off-camera), and he has a piece of glass in his side. Somehow he's held onto Luis through all of this, and calls Mac direct. And I'm still trying to work out what Phoenix's operating mandate is. So they can just declare capture missions on international drug lords. They're like the UN, except stationed out of LA and effective.
Matty soon finds out about the operation and is providing support from the war room. Jack and Mac fly to Mexico, track Oversight via his phone GPS to a church, and find a cryptic message which turns out to be the frequency for an avalanche beacon Oversight taught Mac as a kid. This leads them to Oversight, and Matty directs them to a dentist who takes the glass out of Oversight's side. They also rig a chest taser to put on Luis to keep him from escaping.
Luis' Sicarios show up and open fire on them, thanks to a call from the dentist who is afraid Luis will hurt her family. A rooftop chase ensues, and we get the best part of the episode, Mac and Oversight bantering back and forth about technical stuff and discussing Mac's childhood. Lucas Till has grown on me since the series premiere, and Tate Donovan has slowly grown on me. They're no Richard Dean Anderson, but then again, Richard Dean Anderson is no Richard Dean Anderson.
Eventually Luis' lieutenant Rafa tries to kill Luis, and Mac and Oversight stops him. Which involves Mac "accidentally" kocking him off a rooftop to his death. Luis realizes his own people wants him dead and starts helping out Mac and Oversight. Meanwhile, Jack has gone to the local police station but no one will help him because they're all either afraid of Luis or in his back pocket. One brave cop, Cardoza (Santiago Segura) does secretly offer to help Jack get him and his friends out of the country.
Luis leads Mac and Oversight to some old tunnels in a cemetery the cartel used to use. A somewhat confusing chase through the tunnels ensues, and Mac eventually uses a hand grenade and some candle wax to make a makeshift IED and bring the tunnel ceiling down between them and the sicarios. Remind me again: is there some reason Mac doesn't carry explosives with him, particularly on missions where he knows he'll be going up against armed opposition? Or why doesn't he borrow one from Jack, who should be carrying a few on such a mission?
They get to the old airfield, after Jack gives Cardoza a pep talk about how "little people" like them can stand up to big nasty drug lords. Then Cardoza shoots Luis dead and says that he's getting justice. And... fade to black.
In the B plot, Wilt and Riley are posing as neighbors to get close to a suspected traitor--Kettner-- selling secrets to the Chinese. This involves Wilt going hog wild with Halloween decorations on their lawn. They also have an x-ray scanner in a ghost decoration, and discover the traitor has a secret laptop. Wilt gets his cousin Calvin to go up to Kettner's house and keep him at the door, poses as Calvin's dad and stands nearby, and Riley sneaks in the house to technobabble the technobabble from the laptop.
Kettner doesn't like being kept at the door, and Wilt is forced (ha!) to overact even more than usual complaining about Calvin's peanut allergy. Riley sneaks around the house a bit, eventually gets out, and they turn the data over to Matty. Other then Wilt saying that he's more comfortable with Riley then Leanna and he's worried Leanna will see him for who he really is (i.e., an idiot, and correctly so) that's it for that subplot.
So ""Muertos" was an okay episode. It's basically a typical nu-MacGyver episode. I liked the chemistry between Till and Donovan. Jack was mostly harmless, and actually gets a pretty decent speech near the end. The Wilt/Riley subplot was a waste of screen time, but I suppose they needed filler.
The most nuanced character is Luis, who goes from mildly sympathetic to ruthless drug lord, to mildly sympathetic again when he explains he became a ruthless drug lord because a rival blew up his family. Then he becomes a Friend of Mac when his lieutenant tries to kill him. But he doesn't completely turn helpful, as he still bargains for his life in return for the information in his head. Which includes what the aforementioned Walsh is up to with his super-criminal steroid drug.
"Muertos" doesn't so much end on a downer as just an "eh". Cardoza is a local police officer, and he can always claim Luis was trying to escape. Next week it looks like the episode goes back into Murdoc mode, as Mac teams up with Murdoc to save Murdoc's son. So I'm sure they'll come back to the whole Walsh/steroid plot someday. And we'll get more of Oversight. But it just doesn't add up to much.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?'
Written by Gislef on Oct 27, 2018
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