Mayans M.C. finale review: That ‘Happy’ Sons of Anarchy twist

The season finale of Mayans M.C. ended with a shocking Sons of Anarchy twist that no one, not even Kurt Sutter, saw coming.

Our minds are still blown from that Mayans M.C. season finale bombshell but we’ll do our best to make sense of it all.

Perhaps a play-by-play is the best way to do that.

This week’s Mayans M.C. finale had a lot of loose ends to tie up. EZ needed to come to a decision about his future with the club, Felipe had a difficult choice of his own to make, and the Santo Padre charter was forced to figure out their role in Miguel Galindo’s new criminal enterprise. Sutter’s writing team managed to answer all of those unresolved questions while presenting us with an even bigger headscratcher: How are the Sons connected to the death of EZ’s mom?

Most of this episode focused on the younger Reyes brother. After Lincoln Potter blackmailed both EZ and Angel into doing his bidding last week — he wants the brothers to continue to spy on Galindo and, oh yeah, off their cousin Kevin Jimenez — this week, EZ was left to contemplate his fate with the M.C.

The show has positioned its hero as a good guy stuck in a bad situation, a victim of circumstance, a character meant for a better life than as a criminal in a biker gang. It’s easy to believe that narrative too. EZ’s a decent man, one with a brilliant mind, a kind heart, and a love for his family. He’s made mistakes, paid for them dearly, and always seems determined to do the morally right thing. However, that narrative isn’t one that EZ’s buying anymore.

Despite both his father and his brother urging him to leave Santo Padre, to renege on his deal with Potter, to forge a better life away from the sins of his past, EZ now thinks he’s exactly where he needs to be. Boy, did that conversation with Coco over his mother’s corpse really do a number on the poor prospect.

It’s that belief that drives EZ to Jimenez’s home to kill his former handler. He ends up shooting the guy’s boss while Angel comes in for the assist on Jimenez himself, but still if there were any doubt of EZ’s commitment to his new life, that was silenced with a bullet this episode.

In a way, it was fortunate that EZ decided to clean up his own mess. For most of the finale, we were left to assume it would be Felipe, the man who used to chop heads for the cartel before he transitioned to life as the neighborhood butcher, who would be the one to deal Jimenez a final blow. Watching that decision way on Felipe, watching him wrestle with the idea of killing a family member, and watching Edward James Olmos deliver yet another outstanding turn as the conflicted Reyes patriarch was a highlight of the season in our opinion.

Felipe’s hands remain clean of that particular crime while his sons embed themselves even deeper into a life of crime, one that’s now connected to the Sons in a surprising way. Bishop has made a deal to begin buying guns for the Galindo cartel from the Charming gang, which means even more opportunities for crossovers with Sutter’s original biker crew come season 2.

It’s a bold move, one that ends with Alvarez — the de facto leader of the Mayans this season — trading in his leather for a suit. The guy has decided to advise Galindo in this new venture, helping him aid the rebels while lying to Potter and the Feds. It’s a confusing twist to be sure, seeing as Alvarez’s loyalty to the club has been a constant, dependable thing for years. Still, this frees up Bishop to take back control of his charter and to become EZ’s new mentor — a request from the young prospect that Bishop happily accepts.

It’s at the end of the episode, as the Mayans and Sons come together to celebrate their new deal, that we see the payoff of a plot point laid out in flashbacks all season long.

EZ’s still intent on finding out who murdered his mother. We thought it could be Jimenez or Adelita or even Coco at one point. They all had motive and/or exhibited some disturbing behavior this season. But it turns out, the man responsible for that life-changing crime is none other than Sons of Anarchy favorite Happy (David Labrava). That’s right, the SAMCRO enforcer seems to be the culprit behind the heinous crime, and it looks like EZ has finally connected the dots.

Of course, this brings even bigger questions into play, questions we’ll have to wait quite a while for seeing as Sutter has already admitted he’s not sure where this particular reveal is going.

To be honest, we’re not sure either. It’s a strange choice to have Happy be so connected to the Mayans world. Of course, it sets up a new conflict for the club and its young prospect, but the whys and hows of it all are still murky.

Happy would’ve been a nomad at the time of the shooting, so it seems unlikely that SAMCRO put a hit out on the Reyes family matriarch, but that almost certainly means someone else did. It could be someone connected to Felipe’s past — one expecting him to be at the shop that night and not his wife — but it still feels like a very forced choice to have the gunman be Happy.

Mayans has succeeded in existing on its own, separate from its predecessor. Sure, we’ve been given some nice Easter eggs, fun nods, and a cameo or two to keep the nostalgia flowing, but the writers have done well to set up the world of EZ and the gang as being interesting enough on its own without those callbacks. Why ruin that now?

Maybe ruin is too strong a word, but this reveal certainly complicates things, for the club and for the show, come season 2.