Homeland Or Death – The episode begins with Valeria (Corina Bradley) refusing to discuss the pier incident with Roman Compte (Danny Pino). Although Nestor Cabal (Yul Vazquez) is in the mood for discussion, his topics aren’t favorable thanks to Congressman Bryon Landon’s (Nick Barkla) public advocacy for justice. Things aren’t much better for Agent Zulio (Michael Chiklis) as he finds three Colombians hanging by their necks.
Yolanda (Mayra Hermosillo) rolls out the red carpet for Gilbert ‘La Cobra’ Henao (Juan Pablo Raba) but their celebrations later end up sidelined when he also learns of the murder of three of their top lieutenants.
It doesn’t take Andrew Landon (Cale Ambrozic) long to notice and question Valeria’s odd behavior, but Marisol’s (Tania Watson) abrupt arrival ends their conversation. Marisol also notices Valeria’s behavior but doesn’t get much more of an answer about the source than Andrew.
Congressman Landon appears immensely pleased as Roman gives him a brief rundown of the upcoming fundraiser at the club. It’s not long before Landon turns his attention to the Club’s impressive staff but Roman surprises him by bringing up Ray Dorado’s (Erniel Baez) contributions to his campaign. This eventually segues into Roman arranging for Nestor to meet with Yolanda’s backer. It’s only minutes later when Ray relays this information to La Cobra.
Burton Greenberg (Mark Feuerstein) brings even more unwanted attention to Dorado’s Orange Grove Bank when he asks Zulio to investigate Constance’s (Maggie Lacey) death. Nestor’s meeting goes from bad to worse when he practically tells La Cobra that doing business in Miami means going through him. La Cobra tells Nestor he admires the honest/straightforward approach and proceeds to supposedly unveil the most inner details of his operation. Things appear to be going rather well until La Cobra offers him fifteen percent and says he can work for him. After insulting his nationality, Nestor tells him, it’s either a partnership of fifty/fifty or nothing.
While Alejandra (Camila Valero) offers to treat Marisol for an afternoon of dress shopping for the fundraiser, Nestor catches Valeria snooping around his office. As it turns out, he knew all along that she had taken nearly two grams of his coke. After claiming that he only keeps it around for guests, he tells her how he got into the business in the first place. Alejandra and Marisol’s afternoon immediately goes awry when they find themselves caught in the middle of a drive-by.
Despite Marisol later blaming the attack on Roman and smacking him for it, he remains composed while Nestor rages and vows to go to war. Roman attempts to calm him by explaining how the attack was merely a tactic to get Nestor back to the table to negotiate.
After finally convincing Nestor that peace is the way to go, Roman meets with Janice Nichols (Laura Gordon) to ask her to reach out to Ray to rearrange the meeting, despite the earlier wrinkles. She gives him a hard time about it, apparently out of concern, but ultimately agrees to help.
Seconds later Janis finds herself in the Aquatic Erotic room where Ray appears to be in the middle of packing his luggage. He briefly jokes about finally getting her in his room but it doesn’t take long for him to get back serious when he requests the meeting.
When Roman and Yolanda meet, he attempts to get right down to business by getting Nestor and La Cobra back at the table. Yolanda, on the other hand, is much more interested in Marisol, and after several underhanded comments; Roman nearly loses his cool. Before too long, Roman is on the phone, convincing Nestor to return to the negotiating table.
Valeria is on the phone as well but in a much different conversation. Although the conversation is brief, she finally realizes what a jerk he is once he presses her to steal more coke from Nestor. As final preparations are made for the fundraiser at the Mutiny, Burton learns that Ray’s bank is involved in something known as ‘smurfing – Small financial transfers over a prolonged period of time that ultimately led to millions.
As agreed, Nestor meets with La Cobra and Congressman Landon. Despite the meeting getting off to a not-so-good start, he ends with an agreement thanks to Landon’s threats of getting the DEA involved. Just as they shake hands, Roman visits Ray with Zulio, who keeps his presence hidden until the door is open. After Zulio barges in and identifies himself as an agent, he practically waterboards Ray into sharing his knowledge about his bank’s ‘smurf’ accounts. Ray holds for a while but eventually relents.
Zulio’s interrogation basically leads to Roman learning that La Cobra has the backing of Castro. One of his Air Force pilots is flying the stuff in for him. Roman is not only stunned by this but Nestor has a hard time even believing it when he hears about it. In spite of all this, Roman doesn’t share with Nestor how he learned the information.
Things only get much worse for Roman when he learns that Zulio can’t officially arrest La Cobra or Yolanda due to him having nothing more than a coerced confession. His mood does seem to improve a bit later when he and Nestor finally get to question Landon before the fundraiser. Of course, Landon initially plays dumb then becomes insulting once he realizes he’s been caught. After leaving this meeting, Nestor covertly tells Guillermo (Pedro Giunti) to call Hal (Sam Robards) and order him to send the present.
As the star-studded guests pack into the Mutiny for the fundraiser and Landon takes the stage, Hal is shown assembling what appears to be a bomb. Not long after assembling and packaging the bomb, he puts it in a car in the parking lot. The episode ends with Hal detonating the bomb when Landon gets in his car.
Hotel Cocaine Review
This was a by far much better episode than the last but I don’t know if I so as much agree with the political turn the show took. That said, Castro, Cuba, and cocaine (the three Cees) were imminently tied together during this period, so I understand that telling this story would have to involve them. I just hope it doesn’t overshadow everything else. I don’t particularly care for Valeria but it was finally nice to see her wise up a bit. The new Zulio who is actually more focused on doing the right thing rather than furthering the agency’s agenda is a breath of fresh air. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it reminds me of Chiklis’s days on The Shield, but interesting, nonetheless.
This new Hal character is intriguing but Landon’s assassination was practically a given. Despite all this, I’d have to give the episode a 5.4 out of 10. If it would focus more on the priorities and cut out the useless content, I feel that this could easily a 6 out 10 episode series
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