Marco son’s murderer, David Tate, gingerly mops the floor at his high security prison. When two inmates approach him, he does his best to ignore them. What he can’t ignore, however, is when one takes a big bite out of his cheek before the guards can pull them apart. Tate is bleeding so a female guard handcuffs him and leads him to the infirmary-or so she says. As they walk alone down a corridor, she hisses that he “probably shouldn’t have killed that kid.” He shoots her a confused look just as she stuns him with her taser. Another hulking inmate meets up with her in the hallway and they kiss. She tells him to proceed with the plan, which involves punching her in the face to look like a struggle. (Squeamish readers, now would be the time to stop reading until the next paragraph, OK.) The inmate then drops down to Tate, pulls out a spoon and proceeds to use it to carve out Tate’s eye, like his head is made of cantaloupe. Tate screams in agony.
One of Galvan’s men drives through an Army checkpoint, with a hooded man in his backseat. He gets through easily and the man reveals himself to be Marco. Marco is dropped off at a ruin of sorts, where Galvan awaits. Galvan is not pleased that Marco and Sonya went to see Sebastian Cerisola. Galvan instructs Marco to make sure that Sonya stops looking for Eleanor or else. It turns out the place where they are, is a glass encased tomb for Galvan’s eldest son. “The pain of outliving a son never leaves you. It never lessens,” Galvan tells Marco. Marco is all too well aware of this fact. Galvan pulls a cloth off of a jar on the tomb to reveal a human head. It’s that of the man who killed his son. (Looks away again) Galvan cut off the man’s eyelids so he had to watch his own torturous death. He walks over to Marco with Tate’s prison ID bracelet, and asks if Marco still wants Tate dead. Marco simply responds, “When?”
Sonya is doing that thing where she submerges herself in the bathtub. This time when she comes up for air, she sees Jim Dobbs, sitting there, watching her. She shakes off the image and climbs out of the tub. Still in Sonya’s bed is Jack, and Sonya is all smiles at the sight of him. He wants to talk about he choking thing, but Sonya shrugs him off, saying she just felt like it. She asks him about Jim’s funeral (there wasn’t going to be one) but Jack agrees to do something if only for Sonya’s sake. He stays to take a shower and she kisses him before heading out the door for work. Uh oh, someone has the feels.
In the DEA office, the strange man who hired the hitman to kill Raul Quintanna, is making himself some tea. His name is Alex Buckley and he’s CIA. They all engage in a little pissing contest about who gets to be involved in what case. Buckley is concerned about money laundering, but McKenzie wants justice for his fallen agent. Buckley, being the spy guy that he is, reveals that McKenzie’s partner Agent Rivas was sleeping with the dead agent’s wife. Rivas guiltily admits it. McKenzie asks Buckley what he wants in exchange for his silence, and Buckley tells him to stay clear of CLIO and Cerisola. If McKenzie doesn’t comply, he’s getting shipped off to Sierra Leone.
Back at Sonya’s, Jack stares at the near shrine that Sonya has set up in memory of her sister. He goes over to his bag and pulls out some of the pictures that Jim drew, and places them next to each other. He breathes heavily, like a man who knows something he isn’t sharing.
Pintado shows up at the El Paso police department to take Eva’s deposition, but Marco has not arrived. Sonya calls Marco, leaving him a message about Eva, before rushing after Wade and Pintado. The three of them show up at Reverend Bob’s ranch, where they are still holding the dirty cop. He screams in vain when he sees their truck pull up.
Pintado and Sonya implore Eva to sign the affidavit and testify against the men who attacked her. Linder pipes up, worried about Eva’s safety, and Pintado assures them that he will order her protection. No longer wanting to feel helpless or have any other women go through what she’s been through, Eva agrees to help. Pintado shows her pictures of Juarez cops and she picks out the one who is currently in tied up in the barn, and Capitan Robles. Sonya calls Marco again, but to no avail.
Marco, meanwhile, sits in his apartment alone. He takes a big wad of cash, and some official looking paperwork, and places it in an envelope, alongside a handwritten note. He leaves his badge and gun on the nightstand, and takes a long swig of beer before walking out the door.
McKenzie pulls Frye into a private meeting inside a room stacked to the celing with seized drugs. McKenzie was the one who sent Frye and Adriana the note about Millie Quintanna in the first place. Frye gives him the goods on what they’ve discovered so far, and McKenzie tells Frye about CLIO. Not only is CLIO involved in the cartel, but so is the CIA. The CIA knew about the Quintanna house. McKenzie instructs Frye to asks the right questions and bring him back some answers they can both use.
Sebastian Cerisola has problems other than Marco and Sonya sniffing around. His teenage daughter is a drug addict, a fact that is deeply upsetting to Cerisola. He tells his daughter that she’s going back to rehab, but she says no no no. Actually, she just coughs a bunch and they make a detour to the doctor’s office.
At the bike-riding, drug stealing, teenage crew’s hangout, it’s party time. There’s a kid wearing a Halloween mask handing out sandwiches, the music is pumping, and the leader of the boys is about to get busy with his girlfriend. That is until Galvan’s men pull up and shoot the entire building full of lead. They kill everyone in the entire place, except for the leader who fakes being shot. Galvan’s men leave a note saying, “This is what happens to thieves.” When the men leave, the teenager grabs his bag and escapes out the back.
Sonya is increasingly worried about Marco since he has yet to return her calls. On the way back from the ranch, Pintado offers to swing by Marco’s house to check on him. When Sonya wants to join him, Wade forbids her, knowing her safety could be in compromised.
Marco shows up at the Juarez station and Celia is relived to see him. Everyone has been looking for him. He hands her the envelope and asks her to do him a favor. Just then, Capitan Robles grabs Marco by the arm and tried to suss out what he’s been up to. Robles not t0o subtly reminds Marco that there is a bullet with his name on it, anytime Robles wants there to be.
When Frye meets up with Adriana, he spills the beans about his meeting with the DEA. Adriana has a hard time swallowing that Groupo CLIO would be involved in cartel money laundering, not to mention the CIA connection. Frye is eager to get to the bottom of it however.
Eleanor is busy doing her thing; crunching numbers, cutting up cold cuts with a pair of scissors, and feeding them to a cat on the end of a needle. Jesus. She stops when Cerisola comes a knocking on her door. Have I mentioned she’s wearing a fur coat indoors? Anyway, she answers and lets him in.
Monte Flagg drives Charlotte and Ray out to the subdivision in the desert where Eleanor machete’d Chip Diaz to death a couple weeks prior. Galvan has transferred ownership of the development into Charlotte’s name. That and they get to live another day. Cesar is there too, alive and well, thankfully. He’ll be taking care of the properties. Looks like these three are still stuck together for a while.
A large food supply truck pulls up next to a waiting Marco, who hops in the back. Inside, there is a uniform for him to change into and a box to hide in. Hmmm, I wonder where he’s going. (Prison. He’s going to the prison.) Marco’s box gets unloaded at the penitentiary, and is wheeled into the kitchen storage room.
At the crematory, Jack awaits Sonya’s arrival. She rushes in to find a cardboard box containing Jim Dobbs’ body, on the conveyer. She watches the box burn for a bit before the door is lowered and his ashes are rendered. When Jack refuses the ashes, Sonya takes them.
Back at the prison, Marco poses as a prisoner and easily slips into genpop. Some actual prisoners lead him to the inmate in charge. The melon baller. MB gives Marco a knife, and directions to where to find Tate.
Pintado shows up at Marco’s to look for him, but is instead confronted by two Juarez cops. They attempt to take Pintado by force until Sonya shows up and intervenes. They warn her to stay out of their shit if she knows what’s good for her, then hop into their car and drive off.
MB takes Marco to find Tate, and is let in by his prison guard girlfriend. She gives Marco ten minutes to do what he came to do. Marco walks in to find Tate, blinded in one eye and helpless on a bed. Even all bandaged up, Tate taunts Marco. “Just do it,” he tells Marco. Marco sticks the tip of his knife in Tate’s throat, but can’t bring himself to sink to Tate’s level. Mercy will be Marco’s revenge. Well, that and squishing in Tate’s already bloodied eye socket. He leaves Tate in pain, but alive.
