Episode Report Card Joe R: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT On the Mean Streets of San Miguel
By Joe R | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 02.02.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Let's start off with the Nazi, huh? So the once-a-month dental services of Ed Begley Jr. arrive in Jungle Land, as his first patient is beloved oldster nicknamed Abuelito, a gringo who's been living in Jungle Land for 60 or so years, teaching the little children, see. But when Mina discovers a lesion in his mouth, which then ruptures, leading to a terminal cancer diagnosis, Abuelito lets it slip that the gold fillings in his teeth were pilfered from the Jews at Buchenwald. Nazi! Mina, emotionless little minx that she is, immediately wants to grill his ass, while Dr. Clark, who knows the old coot, tries in vain to push compassion. Mina and Cole ultimately call in the U.S. feds, but the night before he's to be retrieved, Abuelito begins to hemorrhage. Rather than letting him die, Mina's determined to keep him alive long enough to face judgment. Because she's Jewish? No, because she's a dick! It's why she's the one character I like. Of course, her heart ends up growing three sizes or whatever, and after she helps Herr Abuelito make it through his first night with a trachea tube, she ends up soft-pedalling the whole Nazi thing to the children who come to see Abuelito off.
Meanwhile, Lily joins Dr. Ben and Charlie on a day trip to San Miguel to pick up their mail, which includes crucial antibiotics for Lily's patient with a severe leg infection. Lily learns how to talk tough with the local corrupt bureaucracy, and she also learns that Dr. Ben's wife is alive! And in a vegetative state! (Though possibly not for long, because we never see her face, leaving room for casting a recurring guest star later on.) Turns out, Ben's keeping her alive and married to him in order to plumb her trust fund in order to finance the Clinic. This is all supposed to give him a layer of moral corruption underneath all that dreamboat, but the fact that he's so upfront about this to Lily only makes him seem like more of a hero.
Elsewhere, Plastics learns that his macho hottie patient with a priaptic wang is also the boyfriend of that bartendress he was flirting with last week. He's all conflicted about it, but also really sweet. And Dr. Cole ends up having his impacted wisdom tooth operated on without anesthesia because he's a drug addict and he can't take narcotics. I was wondering when we'd uncover our secret addict.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, M. Giant did me a solid by pinch-hitting for me while Mina learned the lesson of pretending to be interested in the locals' stupid romantic pursuits, while Plastics was cruelly thwarted in his attempts to take his shirt off. Well not this week! We open with Los Gringos standing on the dock, waiting for a delivery of some sort, and Plastics has his shirt unbuttoned. Winning hearts and minds, that's what Off the Map is about this week. They look out to the river and see a sad little raft making its way over with one piece of cargo: a dentist's chair. Mina automatically sees this as a sinister omen. A dentist's chair with no dentist on the island means they're going to be the ones on the hook for teeth cleanings and holding kids' hands while they get cavities filled. I expect you know Mina's feelings on hand-holding. Lily's more concerned with how they're going to haul the chair back to the clinic, but that's when Charlie shows up driving the pickup truck. He can barely see over the wheel, but Lily shouts to Charlie that he's a hero. Charlie trots out to the deck, beaming that his unrequited lady love just called him a hero, and asides to Plastics, "See, hermano. A woman always wants to be rescued." So we're starting early, then, show? Have it your way.
Zee and Cole are walking through the jungle, and Cole is feeling the kind of convenient tooth pain that usually comes when a TV script finds it necessary. Zee says she's made an appointment for him to get this wisdom-tooth issue dealt with, as he's been enduring it for a year. Cole begs off, talking about his patient-load, but clearly he's just a wussy-baby about going to the dentist. He changes the subject by macking on Zee -- not a bad strategy -- but they're interrupted by the sounds of Dr. Clark hacking her machete into some nearby greenery. (Uh... not a euphemism?) Cole leaves Zee to deal with the Lady Problems, but it's not like this is a particularly tough nut to crack -- Clark's taking out her Dr. Ben frustrations on the underbrush. In between thrashings, insists that she can't be mad at Ben, because he was upfront at the beginning; she can't be mad at Ben's wife, because she "doesn't exist anymore"; and she can't even be mad at herself because every time she tries to leave, Ben wears this amazing shirt that makes his eyes pop. So she's mad at the jungle instead. Can't fault that logic. Clark says Zee and Cole have the right idea -- "No strings. Friends with benefits." Zee says their relationship is a little more than that, but when Clark presses for what that might be, Zee can't come up with a term. Clark suggests Zee find out soon, lest someone get hurt.