And what a show! I laughed, I cried, I felt a deep and likely creepy love for Tig. The show peaked and peaked and peaked. And then, to be frank, it crapped out. Collapsing into itself, not so much like a dying star, but exploding under the weight of its own self-importance. As a twice disappointed Sutter fan, I was not sure my heart could take the strain of a third let down. With that in mind, I girded my pulmonary muscles (and my loins) and braced myself for the season premiere of Mayans M.C. Holy shit, it did not disappoint. While Sons eventually got swamped in the morass of an Oedipal complex gone really, really, wrong, Mayans seems to be firmly locked in the present. Unless you have lived under a rock for the past ten years, you are likely aware that in 2006, when Mexico’s then President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, things in that country went sideways and quickly. Since that time, Mexico has experienced an unprecedented spike in drug related crimes including trafficking, murder and kidnapping. The fallout of this ongoing disaster, coupled with the current conservative political climate in the U.S. provides fertile ground for storytelling. What we loved about Sons, the complex characters and scathing social commentary, we find in Mayans. Nothing here is what it seems and the show, from its opening credits on, is a clear exploration of duality. further reading: Mayans MC Season 2 News and Details Nowhere is that duality more evident than with our protagonist, and super sexy man-crier, Ezekiel “EZ” Reyes (thank god I girded those loins). The one-time Stanford alum whose golden future apparently spun out of control eight years earlier and landed him in prison, now finds himself struggling with what it means to be a Prospect in his brother’s M.C. Clearly this new lifestyle is miles away from the clean-cut jock/academic who wanted nothing more than to escape that cartel-controlled town with his high school girlfriend. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that EZ’s deep intelligence, dedication to his father (played by the incomparable Edward James Olmos), and attachment to his childhood sweetheart echo all the things we once loved about Jax Teller. However, I’d like to let the show get its legs before casting dispersions. After all, one can assume EZ’s moral compass was never skewed by a lifetime of club politics and, well, Gemma. At first glance, the show is a good mix of what you would expect from a Sons spin-off. The “good guys” (law enforcement) are dirty and suspect, the “bad guys” (the M.C. and rebels) are deeply humanized and committed to family and a higher moral calling. But Mayans asks us to kindly check our preconceived notions at the door in the first half hour, as we watch a self-proclaimed “L.A. Mexican” receive free medical care from a trained physician on the far side of the cartel tunnel, where he can only speak one word of Spanish: Hola. Where see a small boy stealing food from a cart, you later realize he was orphaned by the cartel and has had to learn to steal to survive, having lost his family. Sutter and Barba ask us to take a momentary break from the screaming rhetoric on social media and remember that “these people” are, in fact, people. Something that Sutter did so wonderfully in Sons, by creating characters based on the people living in the margins and putting their traits, good and evil, on full display. No one here is purely shit. People do shit things for a reason. Namely to protect and support the people they love. Unless you are a smarmy cartel boss who wears a bright yellow raincoat to protect your expensive suit while watching a rival get tortured. Then you are just a douche. And as invested as I am in character development and astute cultural commentary, I would still be happy to watch every week, waiting in glee for the day Mr. Raincoat gets messily dispatched. Because sometimes, I enjoy being a shit, too.
