The Mosquito Coast Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Talk About the Weather

The Mosquito Coast Season 2 Episode 3, “Talk About the Weather,” makes what is perhaps the series’ most consequential narrative swerve to date, pushing the show firmly into what feels like domestic thriller territory and (mostly) away from the honestly confusing espionage/chase narrative that drove most of its first season. 

It’s not clear whether this move will ultimately pay off—or even if it will last past an episode or two—but it is certainly fun to feel like the show is at least intentionally fostering the burning dislike of Allie that its audience surely often feels. 

After battling Central American insects, damaging weather conditions, and a giant hole in the side of their boat with little more than duct tape, some spare life jackets, and a random, unlabeled bottle of medicine, the Fox family arrives at a nondescript jungle camp that is apparently ground zero for various stripes of environmental activists and eco-terrorists who are fleeing their respective governments. 

As secret lairs go, it’s not terrible, but it’s certainly a step down in terms of amenities for a pair of kids raised as part of the U.S. upper middle class. They’re all expected to work and earn their keep—Dina trying to milk a goat and hating every second of it is surprisingly hilarious—and it’s clear that while Allie thinks this destination is as good a place as any to start over, the rest of his family is absolutely not feeling it. 

There’s also the issue of the camp leader, who has serious cult vibes and the sort of preexisting physicality with Allie that makes you wonder if they’ve hooked up in the past. She and Margot seem to detest one another, and if there’s anything I wish this episode had gone into in more detail it’s this weird triangle, how these people know one another, and how Allie convinced his wife that this place was the natural next stop for their family. 

If only because it doesn’t really seem like everyone signed off on this. 

Dina is desperate for a passport to help her reenter the United States, and Margot’s uncomfortable reaction to her husband’s “thoughtful” gift of a typewriter so she can get back to her long-abandoned hobby in their new jungle home tells you everything you need to know about how she feels about the prospect of making this relocation permanent. Yeah, Charlie’s learning to play soccer with the other local kids, but he doesn’t exactly seem well-adjusted. Allie, of course, is in his element, building new lighting fixtures out of twine. As usual, he’s the only member of the Fox clan who seems happy, and it’s honestly a shame that The Mosquito Coast decided to just skip over the part where he managed to convince the rest of his family that this was a great idea. 

Knowing how he talked them all into it might have actually helped the surprise twist of the quiet rebellion building against him to land even more effectively. Half the time, this show presents Allie as a less outright insane kind of cult leader, bending the family to his will, and it’s clearly meant to be a huge shock that Margot and Dina have been plotting behind his back in a way that seems for the briefest of minutes that it might succeed. 

To be fair, I absolutely prefer this version of The Mosquito Coast which essentially casts Margot as the heroine of a domestic thriller, desperate to free herself and her children from the control of an obviously controlling and possibly abusive spouse and quietly plotting their escape in the background. But I’m not entirely sure that I buy this in light of the revelation that it was her actions that sent the family on the run in the first place. Maybe being forced to live off the grid for over a decade with a man like Allie is enough to make anyone decide federal prison is preferable, but it’s hard not to wish the show had played this all out a little differently. 

On the other hand, the Allie who discovered that his wife was secretly siphoning gasoline into the boat and sank it in retaliation was genuinely frightening, for what is perhaps the first time in the show’s history. This is…not the behavior of a stable person! Particularly compounded with the revelation that he essentially manipulated and gaslight his wife into going on the run with him in the first place when he found her at what was surely her weakest moment I mean…are we really supposed to be viewing this character as some kind of hero? As someone we should root for?

There’s every chance that The Mosquito Coast itself doesn’t know for sure. After all, last week’s episode cast Allie as a weak, shivering mess, someone whose death would clearly devastate his family—including Margot, who leads the charge to find the medicine to save his life. If he were really a monster whose clutches they needed to slip away from in the middle of the night on a stolen boat, well…not to be crass about it, but they could have certainly let nature take its course and solve that problem for them?

The worst part of the episode, however, had to be the revelation that someone behind the scenes of this show still thinks anyone cares at all about all the cartel stuff from last season. The wannabe Walter White cartel fixer (whose name I don’t remember and cannot be bothered to look up) murders the rest of the drug dealeer representatives and calls his underworld queen Lucretzia with the bad news that the Foxes have given them all the slip.

In truth, I barely remember why she was so interested in Allie and his family in the first place and could not be less interested in any of this, but given that Allie’s camp connection seems to be using their internet condition to rat out his presence, I can only imagine that these stories will sadly intersect again eventually.

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• It’s wild how various members of the Fox clan keep talking about how obviously messed up Charlie is, yet they’ve talked to him about the fact that he killed a man a grand total of one (1) time.
• I feel like this show skipped over a very important talk between Margot and Dina where they agreed to really run this time and came up with the gas-siphoning escape plan and I desperately wish they hadn’t. We need more opportunities to be in Margot’s head because I have no idea what her motivations are at this moment.

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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