Posted by Sarah
We open with Henry, whose injuries have been blamed on a “car accident,” telling his family that Alicia Keys will be performing at that evening’s selection of the Duque Rum Girl down at his club.
At the table, Henry and Frank grill Alex about the $100 million that was invested in the ethanol project, since the Senator’s resigned and they have no support from the government anymore. Alex flashes back to a trip to D.C. we never saw, at which some Congressman tells him that corn is the big name in ethanol and sugar people don’t stand a chance. Pancho tells everyone that Alex has made mistakes, and that he’ll learn from them, leaving Alex with a “bzuh?” expression, since he always believed he had Pancho’s confidence.
Pancho explains to Alex that the Duque family business is most importantly rum, and that Duque rum is losing market shares to the other brands that are creeping onto the top shelf. He tells Alex to focus on the rum now, because the family legacy is at stake.
Instead of attending Frank’s marketing meeting, Alex meets with his new thug friends at the yacht club, where they’re discussing Cuba. These men want to get their land back from the international companies who bought it up, and they charge Alex with getting it done. Alex needs this land for his ethanol project — the government won’t even consider him unless he can get his hands on an awful lot of cane field acreage in a hurry, so at the moment, Alex’s interests are lined up with the Cuban thugs’. And the meeting is being photographed from afar …
Back at the Duque house, Pancho and Goldilocks have a great time testing and trash-talking each other’s rum blends .
Alex tracks down the P.I. and confronts him at a diner, “How’s your boss, Mr. Samuels?” The P.I. plays it cool, “I’m not familiar with that name.” Alex plays it cooler, “You’d better look at your paychecks — or can’t you read?” He offers the P.I. a job working for him instead, but the P.I. is loyal to his clients. Alex threatens him, and the P.I. offers Alex his condolences for his wife’s miscarriage and a laundry list of his other personal family issues.
Now that that’s out of the way, Alex has time to crash Frank’s meeting saying, “I’m here now, let’s get started.” Never mind that he’s two hours late and the meeting’s all but over. Frank calls him out on it, and Alex tells him he feels like acting like a CEO now.
Alex meets with his lawyer about the best way to get the Cuban land from the international holders, and his lawyer suggests that Alex buy the titles, flat-out. Again with the “bzuh?” face. “You want me, an American businessman, to break the law about Americans doing business with Cuba? You’re my lawyer?” The lawyer tells him to add a clause to the contracts that will get around that law, and Alex is interested, so he gets on a plane to Vancouver to meet with the first of the international landholders, whose address he finds on the web.
Katie, who’s been spending a lot of time with her secretly-sex-taping boyfriend, flips through his cd case and finds one with her name on it. Assuming it’s a mix cd for her, she puts it into his computer and is shocked to see herself having sex with Nick, who’s looking directly into the camera.
That night, at Henry’s club, Pancho and Goldilocks show up to do some tasting in context, and the Duque Rum Girl is chosen. Henry spots Alicia Keys and offers to sponsor her new album, but she refuses. She does, however, perform, and since it’s Alicia Keys, it’s awesome. One of the club security guys spots Katie drinking at the bar and alerts Henry, who reminds her that she’s not allowed in anymore and that her grampa’s just at the other end of the counter. She tells him about Nick’s tapes, and he asks for Nick’s address.
Alex makes it to Vancouver and knocks on a house’s door, pretending to be a representative of the Cuban government. The lady who answers is in pajamas and clearly drunk, and has no idea what he’s talking about until he tells her he’s here to offer her an incentive in the form of cash. Door opens, he’s shown in. While he snoops in the kitchen under the pretense of looking for another bottle of scotch, he finds an address stamp that says “Samuels.” Over the course of his visit, he finds that this woman works for Samuels. By work, I mean that she collects a hefty sum for stamping boxes of envelopes with the Samuels’ Florida address on them. Hmm …
Old Man Samuels tells the P.I. to start going after Alex’s family: “Sometimes, when you’re a hunter, you’ve gotta shake the tree a little.” So the P.I. goes to Isabel’s church, where she’s alone, and sits behind her. He prays out loud for the soul of the murderer Alex Vega, then leaves. Subtle.
Frank meets with Pancho and tells him that Alex has gone to Canada to chase down land for the ethanol project. He pitches his marketing strategy to Pancho — a new label and a 20% price increase. Pancho tells him to run it by Alex when he gets home. Frank thinks the reason Pancho made Alex CEO is that Pancho’s ashamed of Frank, and that he didn’t sell the land to the Samuels just because Alex told him not to. This prompts Pancho to tell Frank the real reason behind all of this: Old Man Samuels wanted Pancho’s cane fields, so he had Frank’s sister Lucia kidnapped and held for ransom when Frank was a little boy. The kidnappers demanded money, and Pancho sold his land to Old Man Samuels in order to raise the money, not knowing that Samuels was behind the whole thing. When Pancho went to deliver the money to the kidnappers, he took Alex with him, and they found Lucia dead.
Frank confronts Alice with this information, and tells her to stay away from him. Alice storms off to see her daddy, who doesn’t deny Frank’s accusation. She puts the pieces together — Quinonez killed Lucia, Alex killed Quinonez, Daddy’s behind it all — and tells him he makes her sick. He tells her that people are always looking to blame someone for their problems. When her mama left, Alice blamed him. “These fictions allow people to go on with their lives,” he tells her, and she storms off. Cryptic much?
Alex finally comes home, and Isabel tells him about the man at church. First thing next morning, Alex and Santo jump the P.I. in his car at gunpoint: “You come anywhere near my wife again, and I will kill you.” The P.I. needs to change his shorts.
Alex meets Pancho at the marina and tells him about the Samuels land scheme in Cuba, but Pancho doesn’t want to hear it. He’s lost faith in Alex’s ability as CEO. He wishes he never brought Alex with him to deliver the ransom, because it’s affected his whole life and now it’s affecting his company. He tells Alex, “If you don’t stop this vendetta, it’s going to destroy you and your family.”
Frank goes to see Alex, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” He tells Alex that killing Quinonez was the right thing to do, and asks Alex to approve his marketing plan right there, without having heard it. “Trust me.” Alex does.
Henry goes to Nick’s house and beats the crap out of him for making a tape of Katie.
The Assistant U.S. Attorney comes to see Alex, saying that violations of the law about Americans doing business with Cuba are taken very seriously. He asks what information Alex has, and we know that Samuels is goin’ DOWN.
