Synopsis of 3×03: Ranger Freddie Gonzalez must team up with and old enemy to bring down a demon hell-bent on enslaving culebras. Meanwhile, Seth and Richie track down an ancient hunter.
As we move further into the season and closer towards Amaru’s end game, we’re slowly getting re-introduced to some of our supporting cast again. “Protect and Serve” centers mostly around Sex Machine and his little gang of co-ed culebras who all kind of feed into his creepy barely legal fetish. Tanner is kind of one of those characters you love to hate, he’s all emotional talking about family, but really he’s turning college kids into culebras and inducting them into a sex cult. He’s insightful and intelligent, but he’s also slimy and a grade A douchebag. You’d never have to stress about disliking his character, because that’s the essential reason his character exists. He’s not really a bad guy, just a caricature of a sleazy guy with a receding hairline who would call himself Sex Machine.
That being said, I do love his character as much as I hate it sometimes. He brings a good amount of humor into the story, in the same vein as the rest of the show and he makes for a good makeshift partner for Freddie’s broody personality. The episode centers mostly around Tanner’s missing students, who have been caught by a farmer-turned-culebra-neuterer. The Xibalban servant of Amaru is kind of the perfect antithesis to Tanner. Tanner can’t stop luring and making more culebras, and the farmer can’t stop taking their venom glands—essentially taking away their ability to create more culebras.
As Freddie and Tanner try and track down the farmer, Seth and Richie track down an old hunter named Burt. He’s a crossbow wielding culebra, who caught most of the inhabitants of the labyrinth, but now he owns his own little plot of land and a weed shop. Again, I really love Rodriguez’s humor, it’s just the right amount of dark and cheese to be entertaining.
After some persuading, Burt joins up with Seth and Richie, if only to seek out Venganza. But Ximena, her ever-present bodyguard, confesses that she doesn’t know where she is. Regardless, Burt is a welcome addition, coming in to save Freddie and Tanner just in the nick of time. We also find out how Amaru ended up in Kate’s body, and is essentially on a vengeance mission after the lords at her physical body for breakfast and left her in a blood well for centuries.
Still no sight of my favorited moody child, Scott Fuller, but we do get a shot of Amaru at the end opening up the probable door to Xibalba.
English