FX showed off the first 13 minutes of the pilot episode of “Mayans MC” during its panel at Comic-Con 2018, and if its anything to go by, the huge “Sons of Anarchy”-sized hole left in fans’ hearts is about to be filled.
The “Sons of Anarchy” spinoff starts with a lone rider on his chopper on a remote Southern California highway, through various scenes of empty desolation and exurban decay. He’s wearing a leather vest with no club identification, but the word “Prospect” is written along the bottom in back.
The scene cuts to a warehouse, which we immediately discover is a front for the Mayans M.C. The camera follows Taza, played by Raoul Trujillo, as he moves through a sweatshop staffed with workers making Quinceañera dresses that is run by the motorcycle club. It follows him into a back room, where we learn the real hustle: Mayans are hiding kilos of drugs inside the flowing dresses, then shipping them out in freight trucks.
Taza and another of the Mayans talk about making a run to Las Vegas, and discuss the Prospect — who apparently recently finished probation. Because of his relatively clean legal slate, they figure he’ll be a good fit to ride support for the Vegas shipment.
The Prospect rides into a bordertown called Santo Padre, revealing that he’s EZ Reyes (JD Pardo). As he passes a high school, the episode swaps in a sepia color palette, and we see a younger version of EZ. A sign in front of the high school, which is now packed with kids, reveals that it’s eight years earlier. Young EZ kisses his girlfriend, a redhead, who notes that she can’t wait to get out of school — and then the scene flashes back to EZ on his bike in the present.
EZ heads to a local butcher shop, run by his father, Felipe (Edward James Olmos), and heads inside. There, EZ hands Felipe a package that his father pockets. As they’re talking, another motorcycle rolls up. As EZ starts to leave, Felipe asks, “Does he know?”
“No,” EZ responds, and heads outside where we meet his brother, Angel (Clayton Cardenas).
EZ and Angel speak about their dad, as Felipe closes up the shop. Angel says that the only thing Felipe will ever talk with him about is baseball, and it’s implied they’ve had a falling out. Angel also tells EZ that he’s been tasked by the Mayans to do the run to Las Vegas.
The scene cuts to night on a desert highway. The truck with the drug shipment drives fast, carrying two men in the cab, and two more in the back, armed with guns and guarding the dresses. Outside, three motorcycles follow, with EZ riding one.
Suddenly, another big truck and a pair of pickups zoom up, separating the motorcycles from the shipment truck. The three new vehicles run the dress truck off the road and it crashes, flipping over. Masked gunmen swarm from the three new trucks and rip open the back of the dress truck, yank out the two guards, and force them to their knees.
Meanwhile, in the cab, both the driver and the passenger are still belted into their seats. The driver manages to climb out of the cab. He sneaks around the truck and opens fire on the group of robbers, but they shoot and kill him.
Finally, EZ and the other two motorcycles catch up and fire on the robbers — but they stand down when the masked men put a gun to the head of their hostage.
“Do you know whose s–t you’re jacking?” one of the Mayans asks. The drugs belong to a cartel, he says, and they’ll hunt down the robbers.
The masked men grab the dresses and load them into their truck, before spraying the motorcycles with bullets. As the robbers make their getaway, EZ and the other Mayans scramble to free the passenger from his seat. The truck has caught fire, and they just barely manage to get the passenger clear before its ruptured gas line causes it to explode.
The camera closes in on EZ, illuminated by flames. “S–t,” he says, before everything fades to black.
“Mayans M.C.” follows JD Pardo’s character EZ Reyes and hails from “Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter and Elgin James.
Set in a post-Jax Teller world, “Mayans MC” sees Reyes, a former golden boy now fresh out of prison, as a prospect in the Mayan M.C. charter on the California-Mexico border who must carve out his new outlaw identity.
Along with Pardo, Edward James Olmos, Sarah Bolger, Clayton Cardenas, Richard Cabral, Michael Irby, Raoul Trujillo, Antonio Jaramillo and Carla Baratta also star. Director Norberto Barba is also an executive producer on the series from Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions.
The show premieres September 4.