The Mosquito Coast Review: Calaca (Season 1 Episode 6)

There’s a point in The Mosquito Coast Season 1 Episode 6, “Calaca,” where you may burst out laughing — not because anything is particularly funny, but because this show is so completely ridiculous it almost defies simple description.

“Calaca” sees the two groups that have been chasing the Fox family — the nondescript U.S. Marshals aiming to bring them back to America, and the drug cartel that wants to trade Allie for a political prisoner — converge on a rundown hostel, where a shootout takes place as both try to grab their man. 

The Foxes, naturally, escape through some combination of sheer blind luck and the stupidity of others, and the U.S. agents are conveniently murdered violently before they can tell us anything about why they’ve been trailing Allie, trying to contact Dina, or want so badly to take the family back to the states.

Maybe in the finale next week The Mosquito Coast will finally give us some basic background information about the characters at the center of this story. But, maybe not. They’ve certainly enjoyed playing fast and loose with the truth up until this point!

The episode is something of a mini-The Leftovers reunion as Paterson Joseph (the former Holy Wayne on the HBO drama) appears as Calaca, the mysterious dark web contact that Allie Fox has been trying to track down in Mexico. 

For some reason, Allie thinks that not only will Calaca be happy to see him but that he’ll help him disappear from all the various factions – government, cartel, or otherwise — that are chasing him. Calaca is unsure if Allie can be trusted, or if he’s even who he says he is in the first place.

(This is a concern we share, friend.) 

The result of this impasse is a long, drawn-out interrogation sequence in which Allie gets questioned, Margot’s life gets threatened, and we sort of learn something that may or may not be true about the man he used to be.

At this point, whether or not what Allie describes is true is probably up to the viewer’s discretion, because he’s certainly proven to be an untrustworthy narrator in the past. (Also because the background he describes is truly so lame that I can’t imagine how it would spark the international manhunt we’ve seen thus far?)

According to Allie, he was an environmental activist turned government lackey, who invented an algorithm that could track bird migration patterns. He ran apparently ran rather than give them the algorithm for reasons that, naturally, the show doesn’t bother to explain. Why would the government be interested in this at all, let alone enough to throw a man in jail? 

Obviously, there’s more to this story, but in all honesty at this point, I kind of don’t care what the truth is. Unless, of course, it’s going to lead to Margo punching Allie in the face again. 

Truly, Margot’s right hook is probably my favorite moment of the series to date and it’s so satisfying precisely because I’ve wanted to punch Allie f o r e v e r and haven’t been able to. But, truly — allowing your wife to think she was going to die, to believe you had no way out for her, and to watch a man fire a gun next to her head as part of some sort of wild test?

That’s grounds for divorce if you ask me. 

I have so many questions about how Margot ended up with this man, and how Allie convinced her to give up her own life in the service of his…whatever his weird paranoia and mania is. She seems so smart and capable, I just can’t understand it. Was she also an environmental activist? An anarchist? What?

Somehow, even after all this, it’s Margot I still want better for. Allie can jump in the sea.

The episode ends with the Fox family cramming themselves into a stolen car and fleeing the scene of a gunfight, with corrupt cops, a drug cartel, and a gang of street urchins on their trail.

That they have survived this long is nothing short of miraculous, that the show has managed to make it to the doorstep of its final episode without ever truly explaining what it is that they’re really running from is…well, it’s almost impressive in a bizarre way.

How this show will wrap things up — with just an episode to go — is anyone’s guess. Will the Foxes make it to a fresh start? What does a happy ending even look like in a story like this? Is one possible?

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• Points to Dina for finally deciding to turn her family into the Feds. Negative points to The Mosquito Coast for having Dina actually make this decision off-screen. 
• Truly cannot believe this show killed off the U.S. agents before we ever even knew why they were chasing the Foxes. This show is SO FRUSTRATING.
• So…are we supposed to believe that Allie and Margot stole one of their kids? I assume that was a plant to lure Dina in, but since she hasn’t got any memories of a pregnant Margot it still seems as though it might actually be true.
• Charlie remains both an idiot and deeply annoying. 
• The “Then build a wall”/”I am the wall” exchange between Allie and Calaca is one of the few times this show has actually given me chills. Paterson Joseph is the man.
• Apparently, Calaca’s weird anarchist group is helping relocate the family to Guatalama. Why? For what reason would they even agree to help him in the first place? What did Allie do for and/or with them? (I mean, clearly, they aren’t just some message board friends.)

What did you think of this episode of The Mosquito Coast? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of The Mosquito Coast stream Fridays on Apple TV+.

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