Dia De Los Muertos – Nestor Cabal (Yul Vazquez) and Guillermo (Pedro Giunti) make their first visit to the Mutiny Club. Nestor tells Roman Compte (Danny Pino) that he can see the appeal but he is going to make him so rich that he’ll forget the club exists, starting with spying on current Columbian guest, Alvaro Gomez (Victor Oliveira). According to Nestor, Alvaro is not only guaranteeing a 20% purer product, he’s offloading it at a much lower price. Although Alvaro has invited Nestor to a seat at the table, he wants Roman to confirm his claims first. Roman later learns from Burton Greenberg (Mark Feuerstein) that Alvaro is in the Marquis De Sade Suite where he is currently entertaining several impressed guests (Alejandro Duran/Andrei Pishchalnikov/Daniel Salazar).

Janice Nichols (Laura Gordon) is in the process of getting the Mutiny Girls fitted with new bras when Roman briefly interrupts to tell her about Chucho Ramirez’s (Juan Carlos Messier) untimely demise. She assures him that she wasn’t involved as he leaves to tell Agent Zulio (Michael Chiklis) that he wants out of their deal. As imagined, this doesn’t go well and Zulio appears to already be several moves ahead when he gives Roman the open letter containing Valeria’s (Corina Bradley) driver’s license. This leads Roman back to Janice, who apparently knows nothing about Alvaro but suggests offering him free champagne to get close to him. Although the ruse gains him access to the room, he learns nothing new and possibly makes the situation worse by claiming the champagne was complemented by Nestor.

Despite being distracted, Roman briefly enjoys making pancakes for Marisol (Tania Watson) and Valeria. At nearly the same time, Burton enjoys himself in the Alice and Wonderland Suite. This is until he receives word that his sister, Constance (Maggie Lacey) is downstairs. Although he quickly composes himself and throws on a nice suit, he doesn’t even attempt to hide his disdain during their brief meeting. She appears to dislike him just as much and relishes in telling him that he’s about to default on a loan and their father is willing to provide the assets to let her acquire and run the property.

When Roman meets Nestor to tell him about Alvaro, he also meets Nestor’s new wife, Alejandra (Camila Valero). The discussion quickly segues into family once Nestor claims he really cares for Alejandra and wants to make it work. Roman tells him all about Marisol and Valeria which leads to an invitation to Alejandra’s Day of the Dead party. Roman initially turns down the offer but changes his mind after seeing Nestor’s disappointment.

Burton meets with his accountants only to learn that he cannot afford to repay the entirety of the loan. Burton appears stunned and out of ideas until one of them says that Constance is using the loan to initiate a hostile takeover. Upon hearing the word hostile, Burton says they should get hostile right back which the same accountant advises against. Roman’s meeting with Zulio goes just as bad when he learns that he now wants him to bug Nestor’s house. Despite this, Zulio does agree to trade the arrest of Alvaro for the arrest of Nestor if Alvaro proves to be just as big.

Roman later meets with Janice to arrange for housekeeping to deliver Alvaro’s room waste to his office. He later explains military rooting to Janice as they comb through the trash. All they learn is that finding more will require a more thorough search of the room and Roman is already late for Nestor’s party. Janice clearly doesn’t approve of Roman introducing his family to Nestor but just slightly brushes the matter. While she promises to handle the matter, Burton interrupts to inquire about the Maharishi’s (Hajaz Akram) arrival.

Marisol shares Janice’s concerns about meeting Nestor and nearly backs out altogether. Valarie, on the other hand, is ecstatic. Nestor and especially Alejandro roll out the red carpet later at the party, but Marisol only grows more apprehensive. Roman is briefly introduced to Congressman Landon (Nick Barkla) while Valeria meets his son Howard (Cale Ambrozic), who asks her out. Also in attendance are the three men that Roman saw in Alvaro’s room. Roman points this out and asks if they can’t offer information about Alvaro’s smuggling operation, but Nestor claims they are only concerned with making money and do not want to endanger that.

As the party progresses, Alejandra regales the guests with a traditional song. At nearly the same time, Janice and two Mutiny girls visit Alvaro. They spend what appears to be several hours dominating him until Janice finds the opportunity to sneak away and clog his toilet. At one point during the party, Nestor becomes irate after witnessing a guest get aggressive with Alejandra. Guillermo stops Nestor from turning it into a public spectacle but the two of them are later shown killing the guest. Roman uses this opportunity to plant the bug in Nestor’s office. At the same time, he seemingly becomes emotional with an older family photo.

The next day while Janice and Roman trade stories about how they spent their evenings, Zulio interrupts. He tells Roman that Alvaro has potential as a big fish but needs to confirm it. Roman excuses himself when he receives a phone call about the clogged toilet. Sometime later Roman uses the plumbing to distract Alvaro and search his room. He finds a notepad with the Marty Owens (Robert Beck).

Shortly after the discovery, Burton asks Roman about guests who might be able to loan him $700,000. Ray Dorado (Erniel Baez). Roman advises him against that, being that any customer with that kind of money would likely work for a cartel or at least be involved in something shady. They are soon interrupted by an associate with the news that Marisol and Valeria have just shown up. He meets them out front to learn that Nestor has bought Valeria a convertible. He lies about buying the car through a new employee leasing program Burton started offering to employees. Marisol immediately relaxes and tells him that he’s done a good thing.

Roman immediately capitalizes on his discovery by visiting with Marty at the shipping yard, where he poses as an associate of Alvaro’s. He tells Marty that Alvaro is worried about the next shipment and needs explicit details so he can oversee it. It doesn’t work because Marty doesn’t appear to be your typical sucker. He orders an associate named Jimmy to kindly show Roman out which leads to a very brief fight. This eventually leads to Roman learning that Alvaro is importing Kawasaki Motorcycles, not cocaine.

Burton tries to get another audience with the Maharishi by waiting for his return to the hotel’s front entrance. Although the Maharishi’s assistant once again blows Burton off, the Maharishi agrees to speak with him. Surprisingly enough, the Maharishi tells Burton what he needs to hear, although it doesn’t seem like it at the time. It is only later when Burton meets with Constance and her army of board members that he understands the Maharishi’s cryptic message. It probably helped that Burton took two hits of acids before going to the meeting.

Speaking with Janice later that evening about the imported motorcycles, Roman realizes that Alvaro is in town to take over the coke business. Motorcycles are the preferred method of assassination in Alvaro’s country, allowing for quick entrance and even quicker egress. It isn’t until Roman mentions warning Nestor about the war that Janice practically points out Roman can kill two birds with one stone by simply staying quiet.

The episode ends by showing several Kawasaki riders assassinating Miami’s biggest coke importers. Just when Nestor is about to get taken out, it’s revealed that Roman chose to warn him after all.

 

Hotel Cocaine Review

I really enjoyed the turn the episode took at the end. As it turns out Roman is more malevolent than Nestor. Nestor might even be afraid of Roman, which is an interesting prospect. The simple truth of the matter is that as much as Roman acts like he doesn’t enjoy being on the chopping block, it fuels him. The episode revealed that he is one of those rare people who perform at their best when the pressure is at its highest.

Although Burton’s hallucination scene was a bit much at times, the same could possibly be said about him. The episode accomplished exactly what a third episode should; it established a precedent for the remainder of the series to build up to. Despite being slightly too long and filled with needlessly dominatrix and hallucination scenes, the bit with the motorcycles was incredibly clever and I’d have to give the episode a hard 5.6 out of 10.

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