In the 1st episode of Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, we saw Cora and Emilio waiting outside a military base in Los Trios, Mexico, where, well, 9 bodies were brought into the morgue. Subteniente Ignacio Lopez and Capitan Gabriel Vega were overseeing the investigation into the deaths of these 9 people who had apparently survived a plane crash (probably) in the jungles near Mexico but were then killed off pretty methodically. The show then turned back the clock by around 9 days when the aforementioned crash happened. The flight attendant, Beatriz, died almost instantly because she wasn’t strapped in. The passengers—Amy, Dan, Travis, Lisa, Zack, Kevin, Sonja, and Carlos—were mostly unscathed. The pilot, Octavio, had a punctured lung because a tree branch had gone through the cockpit’s windshield. Since Kevin was kind of a doctor, he managed to stabilize Octavio. However, in the dark of the night, somebody suffocated the pilot to death. In the present day, it was revealed that there had been 10 people on that plane, but there were only 9 bodies in the morgue. That meant that someone had not only survived the ordeal but had also killed the rest of the survivors. Was the mystery person’s identity revealed in the 2nd episode of the show? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Kevin’s Dark Past
Episode 2 of Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue opens with Lopez taking a post-mortem photograph to see if he is able to match the faces of the dead bodies to the ones in the passports. So, by process of elimination, he’ll be able to ascertain who the mystery killer is. But before getting the answer to that, the focus of the episode shifts back to the crash site and shows us the events that unfolded on the 2nd day after the incident. Kevin is understandably heartbroken about Octavio’s death, because he thinks his makeshift surgery is the reason why a person is dead, thereby taking the tally up to 2. Instead of dwelling on it any longer, Kevin and Zack decide to move Octavio’s body. That’s when the deceased pilot’s cell phone drops out of his pocket, and no one but Amy and Dan notices it. Dan slyly pockets the cell phone, and under the pretext of taking a dump, he goes away to use Octavio’s dead body to unlock it. Of course, he can’t do it immediately because Kevin and Zack are having a chat near Octavio’s corpse about Kevin’s failed career as a doctor.
Well, apparently Kevin practiced out of a clinic or a hospital for 6 years in Jacksonville, Florida. He used to cut corners because buying the latest equipment and medication wasn’t cheap. Then, one fine day, a 12-year-old had a severe allergic reaction to a medication that Kevin had prescribed and nearly died. Even though she pulled through, the girl’s parents sued Kevin, which cost him his money, job, and family (he hasn’t seen his daughter for 10 years). So, in order to make ends meet, Kevin goes (or was going) to Guatemala to buy surgical supplies at low prices and then sell them in the US for a profit.
Anyway, as soon as Kevin and Zack vacate the burial site, Dan arrives, cuts off Octavio’s finger, and then uses it to unlock the phone. I don’t know why Dan had to cut off the finger. He could’ve unlocked it with his finger once and changed the settings so that he didn’t need Octavio’s identity to unlock it, which is what he actually did! If it was mandatory to use Octavio’s fingerprint to unlock the phone every time, that would’ve justified Dan’s grotesque actions. However, Dan discarded the severed finger after unlocking the phone. So, either Dan is a psychopath or the writers have taken this route to generate mystery amongst the passengers around the identity of the person who has cut off Octavio’s finger. While the jury is out on that aspect of Dan’s character, it’s obvious that he is a robber, because he unsuccessfully tries to access Octavio’s bank account (Banco Commerciale Guatemala means the Commercial Bank of Guatemala) in the hopes of transferring some money over to his own account. Is he that sure that he is going to make it out of there alive and enjoy Octavio’s money? Is he the killer in question? Let’s see.
Dan’s Dubious Motivations
Back at the crash site, Travis retrieves his hunting rifle from the cargo bay and then sits down for a conversation with his wife, Lisa, regarding the nature of Octavio’s death. Travis believes that the pilot died due to complications caused by the surgery, but Lisa is of the opinion that he was asphyxiated. Travis, despite being a “hunter,” doesn’t understand why someone would resort to murder in such a situation. It clicks for him when Lisa points out that they’ve limited supplies; fewer people means more for the rest; no people means that the killer can make it until help arrives. Travis wonders if they should alert the others, but Lisa says that, by doing so, they’d be painting a target on their backs. Unfortunately, it seems like they already have, because somebody has been eavesdropping on this whole interaction. Given how Sonja walks into the frame and then looks at Travis and Lisa, I guess the show wants us to think that she is the one who was listening in to the couple’s chat. It’s possible that she is the killer, but I can’t say for sure now.
Sonja sits down with Amy to quell her fears about whether or not they’re going to survive. When Sonja brings up Amy and Dan’s honeymoon trip, Amy kind of blanks out. She says that that’s because of the trauma and exhaustion, but this is probably a hint that those two aren’t actually a couple and there’s more to them than meets the eye. Amy says that she was at a clinic in Santa Barbara, probably recuperating from some kind of health complication. Dan was a limo driver who used to, well, drive her around whenever his services were needed. One thing led to another, and they ran off to Vegas to get married. Dan eventually gave up driving and is currently writing a book about making it big after starting from nothing.
Sonja cheekily comments that Amy is definitely going to be in it, but Amy sadly says that the book is not centered around their relationship, even though it seems like that is the primary reason why Dan even has the luxury of writing a book. Slowly but steadily, Sonja figures out that Dan has married Amy for her money because her dad owns a tech company in Silicon Valley. However, they never got around to breaking the news to her parents; hence, his plans to live off of Amy’s trust fund have gone up in flames. That explains why he was trying to hack into Octavio’s bank account. Maybe he wants to get some money, divorce Amy, and then go off to greener pastures. Well, for now he is stuck in a forest; he has to get out of there to live whatever dream life he has in mind.
The Group Gets Paranoid
Kevin, Zack, and Carlos extract the emergency locator transmitter (ELT) from the plane and formulate a plan to link to a big antenna and place it at a location that’s high enough to signal the concerned authorities, who are probably looking for the aircraft, and bring them to the crash site. Given how Carlos runs a family-owned electrical shop back in Mexico, he has some idea about how to turn the wiring in the plane into a functional antenna. That’s not the difficult part, though; the difficult part is reaching the nearby mountain and planting the ELT. Zack proposes they depart at first light the following day because it’s not going to be that hot, and they’re going to have plenty of time to reach their destination and return to the crash site before it gets dark. But, as pointed out by Sonja, they don’t have enough resources to pick and choose the right time to embark on a perilous journey.
Speaking of resources, Lisa is apparently in charge of rationing stuff because she and her husband run a chain of motels, and she knows how to safeguard supplies. This leads to an argument between Lisa and Kevin about how the former doesn’t trust the rest of the passengers, but Zack shuts it down before things get too aggressive. Since water is the main issue, Zack makes a second plan, which is to look around and find a relatively clean source of “Adam’s ale.” We get a brief glimpse (into the future) where Lopez informs Vega that his endeavor to match the photographs in the passports with the faces of the deceased has been a failure because most of them are recognizable, thanks to the maggots and insects who have done the Lord’s work, and one of them doesn’t even have a face. Yes, as per Lopez, the survivor/killer cut off the face of one of the passengers for reasons known only to them.
On that ominous note, the focus returns to the crash site, where Amy seemingly notices a hooded guy looking at her from afar. It’s unclear if that’s the killer or just a manifestation of Amy’s anxiety. Things begin to get complicated for Travis and Lisa as the former notifies his wife that he can’t find some of his meds, called beta blockers, and he only has his naturals (which is something like Ayurvedic, herbal, or homeopathic pills, I assume). Travis insinuates that someone has stolen them. Again, it’s difficult to say if this is Travis’ paranoia talking after listening to Lisa’s allegations about a killer in their midst and he has just lost his meds, or if somebody is actually conspiring against Travis.
Either way, Lisa doesn’t waste a second and goes looking for the beta blockers. The tension escalates when Zack and Sonja find out that someone has been stealing food, which prompts them to seal the lockers shut with wire. Zack wonders why Sonja trusts him so much and isn’t accusing him of stealing, and Sonja claims that her instinct says he is one of the good guys. A few moments later, Sonja tries to learn what Zack actually does, but Zack smartly deflects the question and gets her to reveal her true profession. Sonja doesn’t hesitate to show her work and prove that she is a professional photographer; she also says that she was going to Houston to meet her friends. Zack still doesn’t give a straight answer about his actual profession or the reason for his trip from Guatemala to Houston and instead focuses on procuring water.
Travis Gets Food, Sonja Gets Water
With the exception of Travis and Lisa, everyone heads into the woods to look for a source of water. That’s when Kevin and Sonja come across some mushrooms, which the latter says are poisonous and can kill a person within seconds. I’m not entirely sure, but I think Sonja says that they are Amanita bisporigera and “Black Angel.” Based on my basic research, Amanita bisporigera is highly toxic and is called “Destroying Angel,” but those mushrooms are all white. The ones in Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue are blue, and they kind of resemble the Stropharia caerulea, which isn’t considered poisonous but can cause gastrointestinal issues. I’ll come back to this in a bit. The group does find a small pond, which is dirty and full of barracudas.
Meanwhile, Travis pulls out his rifle and goes monkey-hunting. Kevin is disturbed by the fact that there’s a gun in the mix now, which causes the MAGA-spewing Travis to call him a “libtard” under his breath. Once everyone has calmed down, Lisa begins cooking the monkeys, and Sonja sets up a pretty innovative water-filtration system to make the most of the pond. During dinnertime, everyone eats Lisa’s preparation, except for Amy. Instead of letting that “delicious” food go to waste, Travis volunteers to eat Amy’s portion.
While all this is going on, Zack notices that Carlos never lets go of his luggage, even when he is eating. After some initial hesitation, Carlos gives everyone a lesson on the culture surrounding Lucha libre, what he becomes when he wears his mask, and how he intends to beat his arch-nemesis, The Governor. Sonja gives him a bit of a reality check as she tells him that there’s a good chance he won’t be able to show up for the rematch because of the situation he is in. The scene then shifts to bedtime, where Travis is seen complaining about his stomach. In addition to that, we see someone walking through the plane with a flashlight and someone else talking to Cora via a hidden satellite phone; that second part sort of explains why she and Emilio are there at the military morgue. I don’t know if the person in the plane and the individual conversing with Cora are one and the same or if they are 2 different people. Either way, it’s obvious that this isn’t just some ordinary plane crash, and there’s a larger scheme at play.
Travis Is Dead
At the end of Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, tragedy strikes as Travis chokes on his own vomit and dies. Amy tries to get salt from the plane’s locker, in the hopes that it’ll get Travis to puke out whatever is upsetting his system, but she fails because of Sonja and Zack’s decision to lock it with wire. The group thinks that Travis has suffered from food poisoning due to overconsumption of monkey meat. However, since nobody else has been affected the same way, the theory emerges that it’s not a case of food poisoning, but that somebody had poisoned his food. Dan theorizes that the aforementioned mushrooms were used to kill Travis. Lisa says that someone had overheard her conversation with Travis about the fact that Octavio didn’t die due to postoperative complications but due to asphyxiation. So, as per Lisa, Octavio’s killer assumed that the couple would expose this truth and killed one of them to silence the other. This can’t be proven, but Lisa is right about one thing: there’s a killer in the group, and they are taking them out one by one. The reason behind it is a big question mark.
While Sonja and Zack talk about whether their decision to lock up the food chamber, thereby preventing Amy from getting the salt, caused Travis’ death, they too wonder about why someone would try to eliminate the passengers when they have food and water. Upon unlocking the food storage, they see that it’s all gone, thereby proving that the anonymous killer is trying to starve them to death. The water source is out in the open, and they can’t do anything about that. However, the food is out of everybody’s sight and hence can be stolen. Additionally, Sonja and Zack wonder if the poison in the food was actually meant for Travis or for Amy. Travis probably got his portion directly from Lisa, who also portioned the meat for everyone else. Since nobody else was affected, I can say that Lisa isn’t the killer. Travis got his second helping from Amy. Now, we know that Dan subtly hates Amy, and he wants her off his back. He was eyeing the Black Angel mushrooms, and he strongly insisted Amy eat up. So, it’s possible that he tried to poison Amy and ended up harming Travis. Technically speaking, if those were Black Angel mushrooms, they would’ve instantly killed Travis. Since it didn’t, I think that was the blue roundhead, and it only affected Travis so horribly because he already had a lot of health complications.
Alright, coming back to the topic of why there is a killer in the group, Dan finds the video that Octavio had shot before the plane crashed. Carlos translates Octavio’s words, and the most ominous part of it is where the pilot says that even if they made a successful crash landing, “they” wouldn’t let him or the others live. Octavio even told the intended receiver of the video message to run and hide. Therefore, it’s possible that the killer isn’t one of the passengers but an 11th person who was holding Octavio hostage for one reason or the other. Maybe it’s the co-pilot, whose chair was suspiciously empty, or someone who had boarded the plane in the co-pilot’s stead. Then again, it could be one of the passengers who knew Octavio and was using him to transport something from Guatemala to Houston. And this piece of cargo is probably so controversial that the killer can’t allow anyone who has even the slightest chance of knowing what it is to get out of the crash site alive. We’ll certainly know more about this interesting whodunnit in next week’s episode.
