The Mosquito Coast Review: Elvis, Jesus, Coca-Cola (Season 1 Episode 5)

The Mosquito Coast Season 1 Episode 5, “Elvis, Jesus, Coca-Cola” is an episode that, taken as a singular installment on its own terms, is pretty fun to watch. After all, there’s a high-tension scavenger hunt through Mexico City as our heroes (?) are unknowingly stalked by a menacing dark force before ending up shoved in the back of a nondescript van. 

There’s constant tension, plenty of near-misses, and a sort of heavy looming dread that makes us, as viewers, feel desperate for Allie and Margot to figure out how to save themselves and their kids. 

The problem is, much like the rest of this season, this hour also feels largely directionless and almost completely disconnected from the rest of the show we’ve been watching. 

The fact that we still don’t know who Allie really is, what he’s done, or who he’s running from is a big problem with just a couple of episodes to go.

Should we be rooting for him to locate his nameless Dark Web friends and escape to freedom when there’s every chance they — and he — are terrible people? Are we supposed to feel bad when he and Margot are thrown in a nondescript kidnap van?

I don’t know — and the worst part is, I’m generally starting not to care. At this point, maybe it’ll be more fun if the show never tells us, and I can just invent my own backstory for the Fox family. With two episodes left after this, how much can that truth even matter anyway?

The nameless cartel fixer Lucretzia sends after the Foxes looks like nothing so much as a cross between Walter White and Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad, and though his gang of street urchin informants has vaguely Oliver Twist vibes, none of the kids even get names so clearly they aren’t sticking around.

Allie and Margot spend the hour without their kids — because I guess leaving your children on their own in a foreign country with no supervision while you’re being chased by multiple sets of sketchy people is a choice anyone might make — racing around Mexico City looking for the mysterious internet friends none of them has ever met but who will somehow help them flee the American government because reasons. 

The Mosquito Coast has driven me deep into “making my own fun” territory, so I spent a big chunk of “Elvis, Jesus, Coca-Cola” imagining all the ways that Allie’s Dark Web friends hate him too and were leading him on a wild goose change around the city for the fun of it all. 

(To be fair, this episode makes Mexico City look great: Colorful and full of personality and like it has markets that would be a lot of fun to visit without tails chasing you through them.)

There are a lot of weird flirty moments between the Foxes here, which is fine because Justin Theroux and Melissa George are attractive people and have nice chemistry, but it seems really out of place while literally running for their lives at several points. Maybe this is as close as they get to date night anymore.

We do learn that the family’s attempt to live off the grid in America was Margot’s idea, which I guess on this show counts as character development, though she never once seems inclined to upbraid Allie for the raft of terrible choices that have landed them all in this mess. 

Elsewhere, the random pair of U.S. Marshalls that were tracking the Fox family back in The Mosquito Coast’s first two episodes finally reappear, after having been inexplicably absent for several weeks. Maybe they’re just really bad at their jobs, I don’t know.

At any rate, they’re on their way to Mexico now too, thanks to Dina’s decision to try and find out on her own what crimes her father committed.

A five-click web search in a Mexican internet cafe has her wondering if her parents are kidnappers and has simultaneously alerted the Feds to her location. (I don’t know if a “digital buoy” is a real thing but it’s certainly no less ridiculous than anything else on this show.) 

If only someone would just tell anyone what it is that Allie did and why it’s enough that all these people are after him. That shouldn’t be too much to ask! And yet, in the world of The Mosquito Coast, it is.

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• There’s no way that a genius like Allie has a son that is as straight-up dumb as Charlie. From last week’s hunting trip with Hugo to his decision to befriend and do drugs with a pack of European tourists before telling them in detail about that time he saw a valley full of bodies and then threatening them with a gun, at this point I have to assume he’s intentionally trying to sabotage the family’s escape for reasons that have yet to be revealed.
• Every scene between Charlie, Dina, and the backpackers was excruciatingly dull. Like, we get it, show, Dina wants something more stable and normal than the rickety life of secrets and lies her parents have given her. At some point, you’re going to have to let her do something about it.
• The long sequence where the backpackers go on and on about Americans and their love of capitalism and fatty foods feels like the show wants me to feel some kind of way about it, like it’s The Mosquito Coast making some kind of big, bold statement about the things that are wrong with the country Allie’s family is running from, but since the Foxes continue to trade on being white Americans with money, it all rings just a little hollow for me.
• Literally, has Dina never tried to Google her parents before? This surely can’t be the first time she’s realized there’s something not quite on the up and up with her family?
• The Federal agent who took herself to dinner at a Japanese restaurant even though she hates Japanese food is truly a mystery to me.

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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