I binged QOTS in like few days recently & haven't been there where all the episodes analyze/discussions happened & I wonder what was the general outcome/reaction of the James storyline in S3 & how the season ended for him. I've been in many fandoms & I'm not the panicking type and while I'm pretty confident his story hasn't ended there's also this 1% that has that fear for his future or lack of it. What’s ur take on this?
That’s kinda the general vibe I’ve been getting from the fandom at large: if people are a bit worried it’s mostly because of prior TV experiences, not by QotS itself. As for James’ fate I’ve mostly seen sadness and heartbreak expressed as the prevailing sentiments, but I think exactly because of how the whole thing played out there has also been a healthy amount of appreciation towards the narrative decision the writers made.
Me personally, as I mentioned in my S3 finale post, I kinda loved where it left James. As a conclusion to his character arc in S3 (and I’d even argue from the begging of the show) and just his whole behaviour it so true to his character, I can’t find any faults narratively. Not to mention that looking back it became clear the show was bulding up to that sarcifice all season. It just all made sense, and from a story that’s really all I personally need.
Gerenally I’m pretty optimistic James will very much be around in S4 (and full time) and that there's some good stories and character arc and develpments ahead.
The show has a history of setting a couple of character aside off doing their own thing. There are a lot of theories going around about how “James will be recruited by the CIA now” but I don’t think that’s how it will play out at all. Devon has a very low appreciation of James right now, and his whole deal in S3 was to get him off the chess board and away from Teresa. My best bet is James will be incarcerated, and we’ll see him in captivity for most of the first half of the season (which is why he’s not in NOLA right now. From a sceduling POV it will probably be easier to block shoot everything of him in prison)...
Either way, that’s my theory. But regardless of how it plays out I’m still otpimistic. Mostly I have confidence in the writers on the show. They are generally very in tune with the fandom, the story, and their characters and they’ve been very respectul about keeping their storytelling consistent.
(PS - I started writing this in the message box but it was getting too long and blabby...)
@jloo37 Hi, any theories on who Teresa is going to partner up with in 308 and the mole in 310? I think the mole is KA but not sure about the partner. The episode cast lists for 308 and 309 on imdb is quite interesting in case you want to take a look.
Re who the partner is 3.08 - Much like my take on the “unexpected ally” I think there are quite a few options:
Boaz could be on a revenge spree after the Kique incident. And he could very well go fully on Tereza’s side.
I’m preeeeetty sure I saw Sheriff Mayo in the promo, and I have read somewhere that A.Martinez is sticking around for a few more episodes... so he could be it.
Alfonso Herrera’s character should show up sometime soon. Maybe this will be the week and he’s in fact “the devil” in question.
The last person refered to as the “the devil” by TPTB was Devon on the official twitter feed... and going by the fact that James ended up being the “old friend” both times that description was used, maybe it is Devon and she calls him for help in exchange for some El Santo scoop (which could also lead to her having to prove to El Santo she’s still loyal to him later on in the season).
Re who the mole is in 3.10 - Firstly a correction: the mole is referenced in the episode synopsis for 3.11.
As for who it is, I honestly have no idea, and looking at the options I find myself at a loss TBH... and granted it might be because I’m quite attached to Teresa’s current crew and I want them all to be loyal to her to the end. But even putting in the effort to figure out who it is, objectivelly and detached, is proving difficult.
I think it’s easy to peg Kelly Anne as the weak link... and the obvious choice... which actually makes me question it being her.
Turning Lil T traitor after the whole deal with James in 3.05 feels redundant. (And if it was foreshadowing instead, it wasn’t very good)
Charger and/or Tonto are “maybes” I suppose... they used to run with James on Camila’s behalf after all. And Charger in particular seemed to have a personal raport with her. But they haven’t been given enough to do currently to be considered a real threat IMO. And if it is either one of them (or both of them), what with them being James’ guys that will cause friction. And it’s extra drama James & Teresa don’t need right now from a narrative POV. (If they didn’t have all the Guero crap hanging over their heads, I’d be more inclided to support this option)
Ivan, firstly we don’t know enough about, and secondly in general he’s too peripheral of a character to bring actively into the story like this and so late into the season (unless they build up to it in the next few episodes). And if Teresa loses her tech guy then the whole operation could fall apart.... which could be the “terrible choice” she has to face... so I would add this choice as “likely” I guess.
George I think is a no-go mostly because I’m like 99.9% sure he’s the “friend in the cage” in the next episode (the picture of Veronica, Ryan & Yancey on twitter is basically all the proof I need for that). Being the mole on top of that feels too contradictory. And Bilal is like his “Pote” so I don’t think that’s an option either.
Lastly I think we all know there’s no way in hell it’s either James OR Pote...
As an outlier option, I will however bring up Alfonso Herrera’s character again. I think he will have most likely shown up by then. So if by episode 11 he’s embedded himself enough in the group, then maybe it’s him.... (?)
Re the cast list - I’ve been around fandom & spoilers long enough to know not to trust IMDb when it comes to spoilers in the least (It’s a great source of information after things have been released/aired. But as spoiler source it’s utterly unreliable). Therefore the cast lists so far isn't something I'm taking at face value. I will admit that historically Peter has missed one episode per season so far, and so he could very well skip one this season too. But considering how popular James is as a character and how aware the writers are of this fact, I don't think they'd do that anymore. Plus, he was gone for most of 3.01 anyway, so that kiiiiinda counts as "having skipped one” right?
First things first: I actually think this is an incredibly strong episode with great emotional range from a wide cast of characters, tying up the first three seasons' worth of story pretty neatly and introducing new elements to carry into the next season (whether those elements were used well--or at all--in that season is a subject for another day). Cortez got his comeuppance (and watching George go at him with a chainsaw was truly super). Camila got hers, Teresa-style, meaning no violence involved (Teresa's exasperated 'you're crazy!' was also super). James got to save the day and pass the buck to Javier. Teresa finally got to take over Phoenix and then set off for sights unknown. Basically a satisfying episode.
Except... it also breaks my heart 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Do I even really need to recap the events of the episode? I've spent over a week reblogging gifsets and I think I pretty much captured it all lol. James and Javier head off to Mexico, following the tracker on Camila to find and capture Cortez. Teresa, back in Phoenix, meets Castel, who warns her that Cortez plans to strike against her. As a result, she figures out there's something wrong with Cortez's latest shipment and narrowly survives a bomb intended to kill her. All of this leads to Cortez going doooown sucka. Then Castel delivers Camila to Teresa, Teresa banishes her, and now she's in control of Phoenix, yay! All her enemies are finally out of the picture! Pecas, Mayo, Cortez, Camila! So what does she do.... but decide to go expand, make some new enemies somewhere else.
And the thing is I get it because... the other big thing that happens obviously is James leaves her and she's gutted. She can't stay in Phoenix after this. It's his house. And ambition has always been her response to having her heart broken. It's her survival strategy. Right? She gets her first toe-hold in the business in the aftermath of Guero's first "death," and she claws her way up to being an asset to Camila so that she doesn't have to be a sex slave. Then Brenda's death is the catalyst for her staying in the business and partnering with Camila. Camila's betrayal of her is the catalyst for her deciding to fight for her right to be in the business herself. Guero's real death leads her to buckle down and fight back against her enemies, whom she'd hoped to peacefully coexist with. And now James leaving her... I think this is the catalyst for her deciding to focus on growing her business.
Or at least, the catalyst for her deciding to do it so quickly and drastically. She's had expanding in mind for a long time: it was back in 3x05 that she said, "now that we have a team, we can expand, get big enough where no one can hurt us." But I think this is a little bit different. That was before everything came crashing down around her. That was back when she still thought she could just sell on the dark web and no one would need to bother her because she wasn't threatening their street corners. That was when she still thought she could show everyone that this business could be operated like a legitimate business!
So when James leaves at the end of this episode and she takes off for sights unseen (aka New Orleans which... lol is not "a long flight" from Phoenix, but anyway...), the context is totally different. By now, she knows it's not really possible to do things all that differently. She's played a defensive game this season, sure--she hasn't instigated any of the drama that came at her--but she had to play the game. She had to kill her enemies (Camila being the notable exception, but I'll maybe get to that in my season 3 retrospective), she had to experience death and violence herself (Guero, obviously, but also the reporter in 3x04, and Bilal, and her own several near-death experiences). So if James had stayed, I kind of think she might not have rushed off to expand anywhere else. I think she might have genuinely just... hunkered down for a little while. Rested. Let things be. But... it's his house she's in, and he's gone. She can't stay. She has to compartmentalize. She has to do something with the restlessness that results from trying to keep her broken heart taped together. So off she goes, to try to keep busy and distract herself from the devastation she will surely feel if she slows down.
In other words: James's departure is directly related, I believe, to her queenpin arc. He's another in a line of devastating losses.
And speaking of James, on this rewatch it really sank in for me how much his leaving her--and not just the fact of his leaving but the way he left--was truly to save her. The way he saw that couple in the fight with Cortez, the woman who refused to leave the side of her dying lover even though it meant her own inevitable death? That was no accident. In 3x12, you could see James struggling with the knowledge that he had to leave with Devon but couldn't tell Teresa that. You could see the internal battle play out. This rewatch I really have come to believe that he wanted desperately to tell her, and he might have, even. But seeing that woman die for her lover, without hesitation, without fear--he saw Teresa. Any hope he had that he might tell Teresa that he wasn't leaving her, he was going with Devon, died with those two lovers in Cortez's hideout. He realized, as Devon put it so inelegantly, that he would have inevitably "dragged her down" if he had told her. She wouldn't have let him go. She would have fought with him to her death. And he's right.
Something about that makes it so much more devastating to me than on previous watches where I've largely just accepted that he was doing the ultimate sacrifice for her. Somehow it hits differently when I realize that it's not just him being self-sacrificing. He's doing it because she would too. If he didn't, she would. He's sacrificing himself for her so that he doesn't have to watch her sacrifice herself for him. It's like. ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING. Because it's not only the biggest statement of love you could imagine, it's the biggest statement of validation. Of forgiveness. He sees who she really is, not the version of her that mistrusted him. He leaves knowing she would die for him. And she thinks he leaves because she let him down.
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
It's just brilliant. It's so brilliant. I wish Peter hadn't up and left because season 4 could have really explored this (I mean, it should've explored this better anyway, even without James around). It could've explored more explicitly how on the one hand, James is off sacrificing himself for the version of her that would die for him, the version of her that strives to do things with integrity and trust and respect, and meanwhile, she buries that part of herself more and more because she no longer believes in it herself. Because she thinks her failure to live up to that part of herself has let down the person she loves most and needs most.
Anyway. So, off she goes. Looking staggeringly beautiful, as she does, but also wistful. Pained, almost. Queenpin gives her El Mundo--the tarot card--and looks out the window with peaceful anticipation, but Teresa? She looks heavy-hearted. And we know she has every reason to be. 🥺
Oof, where do I begin with this episode. This one and the next almost feel like parts I and II of the same arc and they are both (in my opinion) really well-written, tight, satisfying episodes. Bringing Camila back to her OG squad is a big part of that (*god* she's just suddenly sooo much more interesting when she's sharing scenes with Teresa, James, even Pote!!! WHY they wasted her on Cortez and Isabela this season is waaaaay beyond me); Teresa's business acumen is on full display; Castel always adds a little something; and there's lots of quality Jeresa angst while they both still manage to stuff down all the fEeeLIngS and show off how synchronized they are anyway. Not to mention the whole new attitude Javier brings to the table. To me, no scene feels misplaced or extraneous except in this episode for one of the Cortez scenes at the beginning (but I really dislike his entire plot, so that's no surprise).
AND YET. Listen, these metas have really become an opportunity for me to pick apart the entire Jeresa relationship, sorry not sorry, but so even though this is story-wise and character-wise such a strong episode, I...... can't handle it 😭😭😭😭
My format for these rewatches has continued to deteriorate over time such that last time I didn't even recap anything, I just ranted about the James mole situation. This time the events do warrant at least limited revisiting. I always forget how many little *shocking plot twists* the writers tried to throw in multiple times a season and tbh I find a lot of the side plots and relationships fairly confusing, even when it's my like, 4th full rewatch of this season!
The main one that still confuses me is all the elements of deceit involved in the Camila/Cortez story, including now, in this episode, Castel getting involved. She meets with Cortez and it sounds like she's prepared to team up with him against Camila and her uncle... but then next episode she's asking Teresa to take him out. I don't get it?
Anyway: the episode opens with Teresa meeting up with Oleg to ask him to supply her, which he refuses given the mess she made in Malta. He'll be singing a different tune in s5! I appreciate that he remained a recurring character to the end. That was nice continuity.
Then of course there's James meeting Camila at a motel (and bringing her a red dress and accoutrements so that... she's back enough to her old self to try and metaphorically top Teresa again? why James? so on-brand for him to pay his former boss that respect but at the same time Camila has literally been responsible for MUCH of Teresa's--and hence his own--pain and grief this season...) and facilitating her meet and greet with Teresa.
Other non-Jeresa stuff includes Camila introducing Teresa to Reynaldo and vouching for her so that Reynaldo agrees to supply Teresa (obviously none of them aware that Castel is plotting behind Reynaldo's back).
We meet Javier Jimenez (that approach on the motorcycle with sunglasses and the bandana is so great) who comes to help James rescue George from Cortez's mental institution. Boaz is willing to send men to help too but only on condition that Teresa will let him work for her afterwards. She agrees 😩 Oh, Teresa. Surrounding yourself with all these traditional cartel people is not going to make it any easier for you to do things your 'different way.'
Unfortunately George isn't at the hospital so they have to come up with a different way to get him. Teresa and her brilliantly strategic mind comes up with the plan to swap Camila for George, and send Camila in with a tracking device so that they'll know her location (and thus, Cortez's). It's poetic justice (for both Camila and Guero) that it's Guero's necklace with its tracker that she puts on Camila.
Before I get into the Jeresa stuff I just want to talk about how this episode reminds us in both explicit and implicit ways how embattled Teresa is going into the end of this season. In an unusual move for a show that tends to move past traumas fairly quickly so as to make room for the next one, she still has the visible scrapes and bruises from the blast that nearly killed her in Bolivia two episodes ago. Almost every (non-James) scene involves her looking wearily bored, as if she's just starting to check out; all the problems piling up to form a thick callous. She faces off with Camila finally (which BTW, I cannot BELIEVE that scene was not giffed; okay I can believe it because this fandom kinda stopped caring about the Teresa x Camila relationship this season, mostly bc Jeresa ramped up and also because Teresa and Camila shared virtually no scenes so any investment we had in them just kinda faded I guess) and Camila keeps making jibes (both to her face and not) about how she's basically become "what she hated the most"--the violence, the threats, the deal-making and -breaking. As viewers I feel like we're kind of left with the uncomfortable question: has she become like Camila?
But to me the answer is a resounding no; not only because, unlike Camila, she doesn't break deals (Camila, talking to Reynaldo, assumes Teresa will hurt her, showing just how much Camila is seeing herself in Teresa only because she wants to and because she's narcissistic, rather than because it's true), but also because, at the same time as we're seeing a cooler, less affected Teresa (in some ways evoking the queenpin), she's also this episode--with James--showing a crack in her veneer that goes deeper than we've ever seen with her. Like, ever. She feels deeply how mistaken she was about the possibility of James being a mole and at the same time she feels a little helpless to make it right. She can't make empty promises to him (as someone who has such a history of trauma and who knows trust comes hard to her, she knows she can't promise she will never mistrust him again) and, knowing it's that form of unconditional trust that he most wants and needs from her, she won't disrespect him by begging him to forgive her or to stay. But she can try to at least tell him what she wants. And she can make every effort to show how much she does actually trust him, both with the signs of responsibility and support she gives him business-wise and by doing her utter level best not to hide from him emotionally. The anguish she displays in their fence conversation... oooff.
But like everything with the two of them, the personal is polluted by the business and she can't quite fully separate the two, which makes this so painful. James can't work for someone who keeps questioning his loyalty, so he won't be there for the rest. Teresa wants him to stay to run Phoenix. James finally asks, is that just a business offer? And she gives the smallest, saddest shake of her head (NO IT'S NOT JAMES!) while still unable to directly answer the question. I don't wanna lose you. Sure, she's answering it as a question about whether it's just business, so it feels obvious she's talking about their personal relationship. But it's not enough. Obviously I 100% believe James already knew he had to leave with Devon by that point, so I don't think anything she could've said would've changed the outcome of the season, but I think they could've had a little bit more catharsis between them before the season end if Teresa had been able to actually figure out what it meant for her to love him as a person, separate from the business.
She's a long way from being able to do that, though. Actually, in many ways, it's their working relationship that feels safest and most comforting to her. It's the stable thing between them. It's the thing that clicked into place immediately when they met. Like from the moment she stared across the table at him in Camila's warehouse swallowing down the baggies of coke and he stared unblinking back at her, there was an understanding between them, something that was so automatic and unintentional in their relationship, like it existed in their relationship a priori, that they didn't realize it was there and had to go on respective journeys of dawning awareness about what that "thing" was that lived in the space between them and what it meant. It was a quicker realization for James but for Teresa I think she's only just realized that all the things she'd grown to know about James (as she put in 3x02, "how you shoot and how you fight") were actually profoundly important things about him, things that could be taken out of the world they were in and that mattered to her personally, too: his loyalty, and competence, and intelligence; his respectfulness but willingness to challenge; his physical strength and stamina; his bravery. Look, she met James in a brutal and unforgiving context and he is a dangerous person, so how is she supposed to think about him outside of that? How is she supposed to make sense of the fact she's falling (fallen) in love with someone who was inextricable from the world she felt so trapped by?
This duality of the personal and the professional relationship is also why, I think, I can so easily forgive her for the way she mistrusted James in 3x10-3x11. If they were just lovers, that mistrust would feel so much more misplaced and unfair. With a lover, there's a reasonable expectation that you need to communicate about things. That if you doubt them, you talk about it. If you feel hurt, you talk about it. If you think they're betraying you, you talk about it. But they aren't just lovers. And also, they're barely lovers. We don't really have any idea how much time passes between 3x05 and 3x10, but basically, they hooked up once and then Guero died, and then presumably some time passes, they dance around each other, stumble at various communication attempts, and then take over Phoenix finally at which point they hook up again. Then she gets called to Bolivia. All of this could be a week or two, or a few months. But since George goes missing in 3x08 and they don't get him back again until this episode, I don't really think that there's THAT much time between 3x09 and 3x10; otherwise, they would've certainly been trying to get George back. (Or idk, who knows about TV show timeline issues.) Anyway the point is by the time she goes to Bolivia, they're probably in some undefined state, lovers but only under the cover of darkness, so to speak, and otherwise: business.
And as her employee, she'd be completely insane not to consider him a major candidate for the mole. Sure, she should've looked around and considered the other possibilities. But James is by far the most dangerous of those possibilities. She knows that it must've been someone in her inner circle to get the tracker in that necklace. She knows it needs to be someone with cunning and intelligence to be so duplicitous as to be around her for god knows how long and act trustworthy. If James was the mole, she was fucked. (Sorry, no pun intended, lol.) And she needed to figure out a plan immediately. So it was the mix of personal and business that made everything so murky for her with respect to him.
ANYWAY, that's it from me on that subject, I'm really not trying to be judge and jury on this front anymore. It's just that the tragedy of their relationship to me -- and really the tragedy of this entire season and her entire attempt to be in this business -- is that it seems like love cannot survive in this business, and in order to have the power she's begun to grasp for because slowly and surely she's realized that enemies won't stop coming for her, she has to stuff down her emotions in favor of survival. She won't run off with James at the end of this season because, even though I believe deep down she is a romantic at heart, her softening to James over the course of this season has also been simultaneous with her hardening from the lessons of this business. And James--being inextricable from the business--can't represent an exit from the business for her yet. So she just has to swallow down the pain of their relationship. Yet another layer to add to her callous.
Wellllll, from here on out the season is pretty dismal. I'm already depressed 😂 This is why season 3 can't be my fave: because after 3x09 I just want to pretend the rest never happened. There are some really great episodes here, there's some great Teresa character stuff, great James character stuff, very satisfying closure to the Camila/Cortez stuff... and I enjoy a lot of it. But in my heart of hearts, my favorite things about the show are Jeresa and Teresa's individual journey, and since the absence of Jeresa makes Teresa's individual journey darker and sadder... I find the show from this point until James's return a lot harder to watch. This episode in particular, I remember watching it live and just being soooo fucking depressed as soon as I realized the episode was opening with her waking up injured in a pile of rubble. Like just... noooooooooo 😩 The amount of trauma this poor woman has had to endure and we can't let her just.... chill for an episode after taking out Mayo and the rest of the Comisión?? I get it, that wouldn't be great TV, so let's just pretend there were several happy weeks between the end of 3x09 and Teresa's trip to Bolivia in 3x10. But still. Even with that allowance. It's fucking exhausting to watch her suffer soooo much, and then for the consequence of that suffering to be that she damages the happiness she might've had. Still... there are some beautiful things about this episode too, things that I clung to during the nearly three years between when the episode originally aired and season 5 premiered.
It's actually next episode that gets truly depressing with Teresa spending most of it putting up serious walls between herself and James when she thinks he's the mole. This episode is depressing because of the hardship Teresa goes through:
El Santo's little angel shows up to instruct Teresa to go to Bolivia at sundown the next morning, alone, or forever forfeit his product.
Teresa and James have that so sweet, so soft 'come back to us' conversation, leaving us with just the most meager glimpse of how their post-3x09 domestic life may have felt.
Teresa takes a shower... *by herself* which very much ought to have been a joint shower with James.... (sorry).
Kelly Anne tries to basically convince Teresa to quit the business and leave this life behind; she's an emotional wreck and I don't know how I didn't figure out the first time I watched this that she was the obvious mole. I can't remember what I thought would happen, but I was definitely freaked out that the show writers might've actually turned James, which was my number one most-hated plot device in the entire show lol.
Teresa makes it to Bolivia where a buuuuunch of weird shit happens; it seems to be at El Santo's villa in the jungle and all his distributors are there and he's trying to figure out which one of them is responsible for his shipments being held up in Ireland. The others all end up throwing Teresa under the bus but Devon's raid saves her just in time (but kills all the others, except for El Santo himself and his baby, who he cuts out of the presumably dead mother).
She takes poison and hides in the mud to evade the drones hunting them down and she hallucinates slash visits an unsettling afterlife where she and Guero have a daughter together and he tries to convince her to stay there with him.
But she sees James in her vision and something in her clicks and she knows she doesn't want to remain in the land of the dead. James represents life. Something to live for.
But when she wakes up she realizes that Devon was able to find El Santo's compound because of a tracker on Guero's necklace that she'd worn down there, and the episode ends with her sinking feeling (encouraged by Pote) that maybe it was James that put it there.
So it's that vision of hers that I want to talk about because I think it's a pretty big freaking deal. She essentially dies (El Santo told her that there's no guarantee of resurrection if she swallows this poison) and finds herself in an afterlife. The one she always wanted--with Guero. She's pregnant and domestic, he's his smooth sweet self with her. Then she blinks and she's a mother now, with a daughter, and Guero still by her side. A few episodes ago in her grief she almost seemed ready to die just to be able to hold onto the dream of that life, but even then, she knew it was a dream that had already died, and this vision here, in this episode, cements that. Here she's given a final choice: she can stay here. With Guero. With their daughter. She can have peace; she can get away from the violence and trauma of the drug world.
But she knows it's not right. It feels off. She doesn't feel connected to Guero, or her child. And then she sees James. He's out of place here. In a hoodie, hovering in the corner, and then he turns towards her, and you can see the recognition in her eyes. Guero is next to her, he's still talking to her, trying to convince her to stay, but her eyes are glued to James.
She knows. I think this is the moment she knows she loves him. It's the moment she finally, unequivocally chooses James over Guero.
And actually I think this is really powerful and is directly related to why she immediately turned around and put their entire relationship in jeopardy.
Teresa is a master of compartmentalization. Since that phone rang in Guero's house, she's been fighting for her life, having to shove down her emotions in order to be able to get up every morning. If she tried to actually unpack her emotional trauma in the life she's living, I think it would potentially immobilize her. Kelly Anne asks her in this episode, before she leaves for Bolivia, why she doesn't just curl into a little ball sometimes. Teresa says, because I never had that choice. We see that as strength, but the truth is, curling into a little ball is actually a really powerful and important way that our bodies process and move through trauma. Animals do this too--they process trauma physically, in their bodies, by going off by themselves and shaking it out. But if they're still in danger, they can't do that. They don't go shake off the trauma until they're physically safe from harm.
So Teresa hasn't done this and she can't do it because it would leave her vulnerable. She's in a life where she has to constantly be on guard. She lets down her guard to process her trauma and she's at risk of being killed. I think that actually is literally true, given the story we see unfolding on our screens--the relentlessness of what she deals with, day in and day out... it's exhausting. So yeah, she's become a master of letting her emotions play out largely beneath the surface.
Of course, this then means that all emotions are playing out beneath the surface. She's not necessarily turning totally away from them and she does have a pretty good degree of self-awareness (like her ability to tell James that she has a hard time trusting people, for example) but she just can't go too deep with them. I think this is why she comes across as colder towards James than he is towards her and why she seems almost unfairly slow to warm up to him.
But her subconscious is different. Both times we visit her subconscious, we get such a different perspective on her emotions. In the first one, she is vulnerable, she is scared, and she needs comfort and reassurance; she hallucinates James embracing her, calming her, petting her hair, holding her face, kissing her. This is not the self-possessed, self-protective, private Teresa of her waking life, the one who gives James very little to work with and certainly never acts like she needs him. And the outcome of that vision for her is that she almost pulls back from him even more once they get back from Bolivia. Episodes 207, 208, in contrast to 203, 204... it's like she's scared of what she learned about herself from her visions so she's retreating from James even more. She doesn't want to need him. The thought of depending on someone else emotionally again terrifies her.
And I think the same thing happens here. She realizes, in this 3x10 hallucination, that she loves James. Not just a basic kind of love, like the way you love a friend, or even like a deeper familial bond, but I think she recognizes in this moment of looking at him across the pool that there's a soul connection there. Obviously by now she's slept with him at least a few times (I mean, we can agree that it's canon that they've by now had a bunch more sex off-screen right?? lol), and they've talked to each other, at least a little bit, about feelings-related stuff (e.g., in 3x08), so she's perfectly aware she has feelings for him and she's not trying to pretend she doesn't, she's not playing games. But I don't think she's allowed herself, in her waking life, to really unpack them, to put those feelings in her hands and examine them and really give them a lot of breathing room.
This vision does that for her. While her body is physically incapacitated, her mind is granted the space to process her emotions. And this is what comes up.
So again -- as she did before -- she wakes up and now has to reckon with that realization. But before she's really able to, she finds that necklace with its damn tracker in it and, following in her established pattern, she immediately retreats from the revelation of the unnervingly deep feelings she has into someplace a little bit safer: mistrust. It's ironic because you'd obviously think that doubting James would feel like a far less safe place to be, mentally--I mean, it can't feel good to be suspicious that someone you love is betraying you. But I think that defaulting back to her place of forced independence is in some ways a relief. If James maybe betrayed her, then she doesn't have to look at what it means to be in love with him. She doesn't have to contend with being emotionally vulnerable to him. She's far more practiced at this point with the bodily vulnerability she has to deal with every single day in this business than with the emotional vulnerability that being in love with someone entails. Trusting someone with your heart is far more vulnerable than trusting them with your physical safety (hence why Pote isn't complicated in the same way James is).
Obviously her distrust won't last long--by the end of next episode she already knows she's wrong and will regret it, profoundly. But I think even though the next episode is sooo painful, and so frustrating, this episode does something really beautiful for Teresa and for her relationship with James. She knows now that she loves him. It's a terrifying truth and it's one that she's going to try to hide from before learning the hard way that hiding from it causes more pain (to everyone) in the long run. But at least now she knows.
It's funny because I wouldn't say this is one of my all-time favorite episodes, and yet when I think about it, I certainly don't have many complaints about it and it's such a strong Jeresa episode too (which is usually one of the top criteria for an episode being a fave). There are so many good moments in it: Pecas's execution, Mayo's comeuppance, the excellent Jeresa teamwork... And it ends on suuuuch a high note! So why doesn't it really make it for me as a series top 10 contender? (I don't think it even makes it into the season top 3--I like 3x08 better!) I think it's because for me, the best episodes include more explicit character development (whether it's in the Jeresa relationship or in Teresa and/or James individually), while this one is more action-focused. Obviously this one is a hugely significant one for the Jeresa relationship too because it shows them working together beautifully and then riding the high of taking over Phoenix together; it shows them coming back together after the beautiful softness of 3x05 ended in the upset around her kidnapping and Guero's death... So yeah, it's an important one (and maybe it's ranked 4th this season for me? maybe?), and a fun one to rewatch! It just lacks some of the emotional work and breakthroughs between in Jeresa in 3x02, 3x05, and 3x08. That's my hot take. HOWEVER. Obviously there's a lot going on beneath the surface, and that's what I want to look at more closely after the cut.
Ok so main events:
Teresa woos the DA/Senate candidate (omg, she is so hot in that scene I can't stand it) despite Kelly Anne embarrassing her by being strung out. Poor Kelly Anne ☹️
Meanwhile, James and Pote are trailing Bedoya; the plan is to work with Mayo to get him raided, arrested, and then have the DA drop the charges, which they know will make it appear to the rest of the Comisión that Bedoya sold them out to get himself off.
Teresa and her wonder twins meet with Bedoya and convince him to set up a meeting with the rest of the Comisión, after which he'll be her partner, along with Taza. James and Pote trail him to the meeting at a strip club, where they handily take out the other members of the Comisión except for Pecas, who doesn't show.
They pay Mayo to hand over Pecas, whom James summarily executes in a highly satisfying show of bravado.
Finally, Teresa turns over the video she's had since earlier in the season of Mayo beating up the inmate to the DA/Senate candidate, who has him arrested.
And Teresa's arranged to have Mayo targeted by a Hispanic gang in prison, who (it seems implicit) will beat him to death. (Which of the four horsemen of the apocalypse is she? WAR. Does that track over the rest of the series? Honestly... I don't know? I feel like Conquest almost fits her better, but that's ok, I'll let it pass.)
This is also the episode in which Cortez lobotomizes Bilal 😭😭 I will never, ever forgive the show writers for that. EVER. (And then the way George had to go out eventually too??? Pfffft.)
As well as the episode in which Isabela "finds out" that her mother ordered Kique killed and publicly outs her as a murderer at a press conference.
Meanwhile, Camila had figured out that Cortez was not to be trusted (ugh, finally) and tried to have him assassinated, which failed horribly and instead she ends the episode on the run from Cortez and the Mexican army.
AND OBVIOUSLY, the end of this episode makes the second time (of only THREE TOTAL TIMES in the whole series!!!) that Teresa and James get it on, woo hooooo!!! Hooray, except now this means we have to get through two entire seasons until they bang again. I guess I'll survive... I made it through seasons 1 and 2 and half of 3 after all 😂
I joke, but the truth is, watching this episode does feel heavy somehow, knowing what's coming. At least, I always thought that's why it felt heavy, but on rewatch I think there actually is a real undertone of heaviness, a pulse of anxiety, that kind of permeates the episode. It's in the way James calls Teresa half a dozen times over the course of executing their plan to take down the Comisión and Teresa answers hurriedly each time. It's in her somber "I hope so" when James says "we'll be the only game in town and we'll do it together." It's even kind of, almost, in the let's-bang eye contact on Teresa's end and the way she is so serious when James finally comes to her room to do the deed they've been dancing around all episode. There's nothing remotely coy or flirty in her demeanor; really "serious" is the best way I can think of to characterize it.
Which isn't to say it isn't hot, or that she isn't fully into it, at all. If anything, it's the opposite, it's that the intense emotion she's been carrying around with her all episode is at least partly--maybe even largely--related to this dance with James. When she first finally closed the gap with him in 3x05, everything felt hopeful, and soft, and sweet. The potential for love felt huge and the business felt on the precipice of working out. They'd just gotten rid of Devon... basically it was such a moment. They'd already had to make some compromises to get there (Mayo's murder of the reporter being a big one; taking out Mayo being another one) but I think Teresa thought just maybe they'd been through the worst of it. Obviously she was wrong, and by 3x09 there's so much more loss that she's already had to confront. Guero, obviously; also Tonto and Lil T (the latter not being dead, but still a loss in more ways than one); and there's also been a loss of a kind of idealism. She's already had to become more cutthroat. She's War, she tells Mayo at the end of the episode, and it gives me shivers because war is what's always been associated with Camila up to this point (remember Camila choosing war with Epifanio over divorce?). Camila relished war, though; Teresa loathes it. It's not her choice. But with Camila and Cortez after her on one side and Pecas and Mayo on the other, she's got no choice but to fight back. She's already invested way too much to just walk away from it all now.
So anyway. Point being, she's in a far more embittered place than she was in 3x05, and also in a place that is so freshly reminded of all the dangers surrounding them. So this energy she's carrying around with her this episode feels like dread, almost. Like she's just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when it doesn't, when everything works out and she can finally celebrate, she barely even cracks a smile! When James finally pays a visit to her room, the way she looks at him is with a quiet yearning that almost doesn't make sense since he's right there. And she clings to him with a fervor we haven't seen in any of her other intimate scenes--not with James, and also not with Guero. It's like she's trying to get all of him she can right now because something terrible might happen tomorrow.
I don't know, maybe I'm really reading too much into it, but this is how it translates to me on this watch. And the impact of it is that there's almost a part of her she's withholding. Not from James, like she's not intentionally hiding any part of herself from him or anything. But with that seed of anxiety in her mind, it's like she can't just let herself relax, can't let herself lean into the vulnerability of love (not to sound all cheesy lol). Instead she's carrying the burden of worrying whether James, too, will suffer the consequences of being too close to her. All season she's been wanting to trust him fully, she's been waiting to feel that utter certainty that she can trust him with her life, but actually trusting him with her life is almost more terrifying, because she doesn't actually want him to give his life for her. Unfortunately what all of this means is that, rather than giving herself to him fully here, she's equivocating a little bit. Out of fear. Fear of losing him, fear for his life, fear that to get too close to him is to lose herself if anything should happen to him too. So while they are working together incredibly smoothly this episode, and barely need to exchange words to know they're on the same page, that's just it: they barely exchange words. I mean, they do exchange words. But they largely aren't very memorable words. They're about work. And despite the fact that they end up in bed together (or, erm, technically on a desk?) by the end of the episode, it's celebratory sex, it's we've-had-the-hots-for-each-other-for-way-too-long-and-we-need-to-fucking-do-something-about-it sex. But it's not as emotionally intimate as 3x05 was. I don't think Teresa's intentionally holding anything back (and I'm certainly not trying to rain on the bang parade here!! I mean, this is my favorite sexual energy of their three sex scenes so I am not mad about any of this lol), and if anything I think she is someone for whom sex can communicate quite a lot even without exchanging many words. But as a TV viewer, there's just this feeling that she's... afraid.
I honestly think this sets the stage for 3x10 and 3x11 and Teresa allowing herself to think James might have been the mole who sent her with the tracker in Guero's necklace to Bolivia. I'll say more about that when I get to those metas, but man, it hurts. It hurts that she finds herself at the center of another major traumatic event right when things were seemingly going well. But it hurts even more that she's unable to access the part of her that does trust James, with her life. It feels like it's at least in part because she's almost trying not to let herself lean into trusting him with her life here, to protect him more than herself. For that reason I don't think it's an accident that we don't get emotional scenes betwee Teresa and James in 3x09 like we did in 3x02, 3x05, or 3x08 , that help them process their relationship to each other and keep that trust building and growing. In 3x09, in contrast, while clearly terrified and worried, Teresa's not sharing that with him. She's keeping it to herself.
Aaaanyway, have I gone on quite long enough about this? No doubt. In case it's not clear, I do love this episode. I love the catharsis of that sex at the end for them. I love James clearly comfortable and assertive now that he's worked out how to plug into Teresa's organization in a way that balances all the different facets of their dynamic (boss/underling; friends/lovers; business and personal partners...). And overall they are SO sweet with each other. Soft and gentle and concerned, but really staying in touch with each other throughout and remaining exactly on the same page. It's beautiful and I wish we could've seen more of their working relationship working THIS effectively.
Welp. Here we are. Heading into 3x10. WE WILL GET THROUGH IT. And it will be easier now than it was the last time I watched this season, because this time, I know it alllll works out.
