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Recap: Lucha Underground s4e13 "The Circle of Life"

Screen cap from Lucha Underground featuring Melissa Santos, a fair skinned brunette Latina. She is peering intently just off to the side, crouched in a fighting stance. Her body is framed by the male fighter in front of her.

By: E. Young
BrightNightmares.weebly.com

Lucha Underground has never hid its grindhouse roots (it is on the network of Robert Rodriguez, after all) but this week’s episode took us on a strange, psychedelic, kung-fu drenched trip to the center of the mind!

Melissa Santos’ and Catrina’s feud finally comes to a head in a long cinematic piece that opens up the show. In Mil’s dark sanctum, Catrina finally breaks it off with Mil to go live her new life – literally. She leaves her stone with him but is stopped by Melissa. How did Melissa get in there? Doesn’t matter, because soon she and Catrina are scrappin’ while Mil watches.

Melissa received training from Fenix last season and Catrina’s new Livingness seems to have diminished her fight ability but this was a great fight shot like a ‘70s wuxia film. It also runs 15 minutes, so if you’re not tied to the aesthetic grainy footage and mild corniness, this may not be for you.

Personally, I loved it because all I’ve wanted this season is for Melissa to beat the hell out of Catrina. The match ends when Melissa appears to knock Catrina over a ledge (this shot wasn’t terribly clear and comes with some endearingly bad green screen – there goes our budget). What a time not to have supernatural powers! Before Catrina’s grip slips, Mil comes in for the save… only to give her back her stone and tell her, “Long live the king”. Catrina falls to presumably her death. Catrina? Dying?!

Aerostar appears! He takes the pendant that Melissa gave Catrina – the one that kept her in between the realm of the living – and promises to return to Melissa that which she loves. He does a quick Kamehameha wave and goes back in time to revive Fenix, then bring him back to the present time. Fenix and Melissa embrace but Fenix isn’t quite his old self… yet.

Everyone still with me? Are we still on the same show? From here on, things go pretty quick and make the episode feel a bit disjointed. We get back to the Icebox and it appears that Joey Wrestling has asked for a match against Matanza to avenge his broskis Johnny and Taya. Antonio grants Joey’s first match in the temple… only to announce that it’s a Sacrifice. Gad-dammnit! I’ve never heard the temple go from joy to dismay so quickly which is about how I felt. As with all the Sacrifices so far, we know how this is going to go but Joey actually makes it a whole 5-6 minutes with Matanza in the ring. I hate Joey for making me think he might have this. Matanza takes Joey on a tour of the islands and sacrifices him to the Aztec gods. Big sigh.

Next, Killshot returns to the temple and is taking on Big Bad Steve, who is still repping Infamous Inc with the Beautiful Brenda. During the match, Son of Havoc comes out with drinks and popcorn and sits in the audience crapping on the match. More like Son of Petty! Killshot still picks up a win a pretty good match, but attacks Son of Havoc for existing. They have a brutal brawl outside and Son of Havoc snatches Killshot’s mask. Killshot flees, presumably to get a new mask. Shout out to Vampiro for his wacky conspiracy theory involving Killshot being an actual supervillain or something.

Our final match of the night was supposed to be Pentagòn Dark versus Johnny Mundo for the championship, but Matanza has made sure that Johnny is indisposed. Pentagòn is sad that he can’t break Johnny’s arm, but damnit he didn’t put this mask and make up on tonight to NOT break someone’s arm. So Pentagòn issues an open challenge for the Lucha Underground championship. And who else should accept but… Hernandez?

Hernandez!

This is Hernandez’s second appearance this season and even though it’s a little random, it’s not a bad match at all. The thought of Hernandez as champ is a little scary, all things considered, but Pentagòn takes him on through there and retains his belt. Just as the dark ninja is celebrating, he is jumped by none other than Cuerno! Cuerno clearly still has a deep grudge against Pentagòn and is back there biding his time. On that note, Cuerno’s good guy twin El hijo del fantasma was recently unmasked, and I’m so deeply embedded in lucha libre culture I still can’t bear to look at his face. Wrestling!

Joey Mercury may be kayfabe dead, but at least I’m finally getting a full blown Cuerno and Pentagòn feud. Will Cuerno mount Pentagòn ’s head on a wall? Is Catrina really dead? Will Quentin Tarentino show up this season? I only hope to find out the answer to a few of these next week!

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