Episode Report Card Aaron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Super Hole
By Aaron | Season 6 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.25.2003
Later in the day, Guerra swings by the hospital to greet Morales. Enrique, however, isn't in a very friendly mood, and he's obviously still holding a grudge that no one in El Norte followed his orders to kill Martinez. For added bonus irony, Nurse Botch It comes over to check on him just as this little Martinez-murdering conversation comes to a close. Morales asks for some juice, and Nurse Botch-It steps forward to deliver her big line: "Too bad about your friend Martinez," she says. "But he was a nasty man. He deserved to die." Dun dun DUN! Morales wisely puts down his cup of juice without taking a sip, and Augustus shows up to taunt us in a two-second shot that virtually ensures I will go to grave hating Hill with the fire of a thousand suns no matter what may happen in the final four episodes. God, that guy is annoying!
Visiting room. Alvarez struts in to meet with a buddy, and once again I'm able to call the outcome of a scene before even a single line is spoken. For the sake of completeness, I'll quickly recap the fact that they discuss Alvarez's car and whether or not Maritza is dating anyone before we finally get to the big reveal. Have you guessed it yet? If the answer is no, you obviously don't watch enough television. In fact, you should probably get the hell out of here and go read Salon or something. That'll be a bit more your speed. Those of you with more finely tuned dramatic irony detectors have no doubt already divined that Maritza's new boyfriend is none other than The Buddy himself. Alvarez reacts to this news with an angry glare and a threatening whisper that my limited Spanish translation skills heard as "I hope you eat meat." I'm guessing that's not right, but that's just me.
Later, Alvarez reclines on his bed all Colonel Kurtz-like and delivers a long stream-of-consciousness monologue about snails walking across razor blades and children with their arms cut off. Then Dennis Hopper wanders by and offers him another joint. Just kidding. He actually admits that he feels somewhat better now that the whole Maritza situation has been resolved. He's also proud of himself for not freaking out and attacking The Buddy. "I mean, everything happens for the best, right?" he asks. "Right?" McManus nods sagely, as only a pretentious fool can, and admits that Miguel is finally beginning to show some progress.
Nappa. In all fairness, I have to give credit where credit is due and say that the narration scenes were particularly well-written this week. Especially the first and last ones, which actually made more than a few salient points about God and man's need for instant gratification. This particular one, however, is definitely the runt of the litter. Not only is there a ham-handed reference to "that other Oz, Australia," but Nappa also actually uses the phrase "in the aboriginal sense," which for some reason causes me to have a disturbing mental image of Kangaroo Jack and Haley Joel Osment doing a duet on "Rapper's Delight." In the background, we see Alvarez putting all of his pictures and letters from Maritza into a box, which he then burns in an empty storage room. For the love of God, don't they even have smoke detectors in Oz?