‘The Mosquito Coast’ Recap: ‘foxes and coyotes’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Two of ‘The Mosquito Coast’.
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Every day, people that live in a nation where they feel their safety is threatened, or where they have no future… make a difficult decision. Stay in their homeland, and deal with potential physical harm and zero fulfillment or leave home and start fresh in another nation, likely the United States. Which is a story we’ve heard time and time again since this is a nation of immigrants, one that truly does offer a better life for those seeking one. But what’s fascinating about this journey and this process, is that only a handful of American citizens have any proper understanding of the outright hell that a great deal of immigrants goes through to get here. Because it is no easy task to scrape up what you have and start over fresh, nor is it easy to endure genuine danger to cross a borer and well… it is understandable as to why so many of us, have little knowledge of this.
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Because we will likely never make that kind of journey since our lives are secure and safe and quite prosperous in just about every single way imaginable. But thankfully, not everyone ignores what others go through and some folks actually ponder upon the gravity of this plight and what it would be like if the roles were reversed, and an American decided to risk life and limb to flee this nation and what that journey would look like and it just so happens, that the next episode of The Mosquito Coast on AppleTV+… takes the time to examine all of those elements. For when we catch up with the Fox family in ‘foxes and coyotes’, they’re reunited at last and making the tough call to emigrate to Mexico in the hopes of getting a fresh start in life and that leads to quite the harrowing journey, one that definitely offers up an interesting prospective on the tough journey that an immigrant goes through.

For this family is forced to make some difficult and dubious choices in order to make their trip happen, such as stealing a boat load of cash in order to pay for the voyage and breaking immigration laws in order to properly free the coyotes, they need to help them get across the border, and of course… they have to face the horrors of humanity on their journey south. Since the family runs into a group of militia members on their way to Mexico, the kind that are eager to capture the Fox family for the authorities to play the hero. An encounter that sadly ends in violent manner, putting the family under further duress since they’re off into the distance on foot, at the end of this nightmare and well, this really was quite the unique plot twist for certain. Since it offered up a fresh spin on the plight of the immigrant, one that helps us to really understand how much terror and danger goes into that journey and it also established the fact… that this family is going to go through hell… all because of Allie.

Because this episode also took the time to establish the fact that Allie Fox really is quite the smooth talker, one that has genuinely sold his family on his belief that America is a corrupt and broken nation. One that has molded its people into monstrous consumers that blindly follow whatever they’re told and that our desire to own has made us hollow and while there is some philosophical merit to that and problems that plague our nation, it’s obvious that taking the time to examine his power with words… lends credence to the central themes present in the premiere revolving around why people give into conspiracy theories. And clearly, being in trouble with the law and seeing ‘America’ turn on him, combined with failure to not be part of the American Dream has indeed driven Allie into the conspiracy theorist and anti-government man we see all too often on the news these days.

In the end however, this was quite the unique story. One that took us in some unexpected directions and offered up a great deal of tension. Since that finale/shootout was nail biting for certain and to top it all off, this also turned out to be quite the quality character study as well. One that really did help us to understand how conflicted this family is about their current situation and their lives in general and how lost they are as well. Since they don’t quite fit in thanks to Allie’s edicts, nor do they really know what their purpose is or what they want to accomplish in this life and one can hope, that this voyage to Mexico and their destination will help them finally gain some clarity on those matters. Provided of course they survive the journey, since the danger is only going to grow, the deeper they plunge into the desert. Until next time.

‘The Mosquito Coast’ is streaming now on AppleTV+.

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