FX’s Mayans M.C.
3×07: “What Comes of Handlin’ Snakeskin”
Directed by Elgin James
Written by Bryan Gracia

* For a recap & review of 3×06, click here.
* For a recap & review of 3×08, click here.
More brutality comes for Stockton when Angel turns up with a baseball bat, beating one of the patches on the guy’s front lawn in front of his wife. He wants to know where to find Ramos. Shit’s getting way more tense, and very fast. Across town, Bishop and more of the charter come with baseball bats to a tattoo shop connected with Stockton. They won’t stop until they figure out where to find Ramos. While the lads are out cracking skulls, EZ drops Gaby off and then meets up with the club later to regroup. They need to wait to hear from Tucson before making another move, especially since the Stockton chapter are now clearly well aware Santo Padre’s in town. Brilliant moment when EZ tries to give Prospect Steve a bit of advice, using a quote from Carl Jung, who’s briefly mistaken for “Jeezy” with a great play on words since Jung is pronounced Young.

After Coco finally returns from Meth Mountain he’s not in good shape. Leticia’s been worried about him, so she tries to take care of him. It’s unfortunate to see another generation of this family take the same route as the one before, given Coco used to take care of his mother while she was in the throes of addiction, and now Letty must take up the same kind of role. Then there’s Adelita and Mini in a similar state, but far different circumstances. Adelita’s saving a child, whereas Leticia, technically the child, must save the parent/adult. So much pain for so many reasons. Leticia attempts to confront Coco about his drug addiction, only receiving hatred in return. “I didn‘t ask for help, and I didn‘t ask for you,” Coco says. But Letty didn’t ask for Coco, either. She wishes death on him for his nasty words and even he knows he deserves it.
Oakland Mayans, led by Diaz, come by the motel to tell the Santo Padre chapter to “go the fuck home.” Diaz and Bishop sit down inside for a more in-depth chat. The whole thing’s made worse by Angel talking shit. Diaz explains that Ramos reached out to him for backing. He also talks about starting the Mayans along with Alvarez, showing how far back he goes. A lesson in nostalgia. Other charters aren’t generally happy with Santo Padre necessarily. Though Bishop brings up the problems with the Three Kings approach and the corporatisation of the MC. This seems to speak to Diaz and some of the others. Bishop asks Diaz to join them for “a reckoning” that’ll take the Mayans back to the glory days. And Diaz agrees. So they start trying to get a location on Ramos.
Too good to be true? Or the real thing? We’ll see.

When Adelita returns with Mini she confronts Pablo about his lies. He tries to claim that things “got out of hand” with people abandoning their cause, that everything went haywire. He blames part of it on Adelita, as well. For that, he receives a knife in the gut. Adelita stabs Pablo a second time to make sure he’ll die. A young boy pulls a gun on her instinctually, but she disarms him, telling the boy: “I‘m back.”
Diaz smokes meth while everyone waits at the motel. He’s fine with sitting back and relaxing until they track Ramos down. The Santo Padre boys are having a few beers but they’re generally keeping their heads on straight for whenever word comes in about Ramos.
Stockton and Ramos get the jump on Santo Padre outside the motel. Turns out Diaz pulled a fast one on Bishop. Everyone’s getting beaten to a pulp, including EZ, as the numbers game is way out of proportion for Santo Padre. Certainly doesn’t help to have some of the bikers jacked up on meth, either. There’s just nonstop violence all over the motel, from outside to inside. Fists and baseball bats and boots are coming down hard everywhere. Taza and Bishop eventually take control of things with Diaz, beating him and his men down with utter viciousness. Angel manages to get himself free to help EZ in the parking lot, where Prospect Steve is getting the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of guys until he pops off a shot and kills one of them. Sirens are already wailing nearby.

Santo Padre gets out before the cops pull up, but shit has hit the fan. Steve is haunted by just a killing a man. Meanwhile, Bishop has no clue about what to do next. This is where EZ seems to have another idea of his own. At the same time, Ramos is being released from custody by a plain-clothes cop, O’Grady. It’s clear that O’Grady is a big Squeeze fan, listening to “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” while pontificating to Ramos about music. Just when Ramos thinks he’s being let go, he’s shot in the head by EZ in the desert. EZ orders the cop make sure their boys are safe overnight in jail, then he walks off into the darkness with his “existential biker bullshit.”

A tragic scene waits for Leticia when she gets back home and finds Coco has overdosed on heroin. Will he survive? Or is this the end for Coco?