Zorro 1.25 - The Fox and the Coyote

Plot: As the citizens of Los Angeles exit church one morning, they observe a group of children playing some game. It’s like “Duck, Duck, Goose”, but with one kid wearing a mask and playing at being Zorro. Everyone seems quite amused, except the Magistrado, and once he points out that the coyote in the song is Captain Toledano, Raquel isn’t amused either. So Toledano orders Garcia to break it up, and the kids have a merry time running rings around the unfortunate “Senor Elephant”. There’s also a blind man outside the church, and the Magistrado slips a note into his hat. Soon enough, Bernardo observes the blind man approach Figueroa (on guard outside the cuartel), and under the guise of begging, pass the note on to the lancer. Bernardo starts to follow the beggar, but gets distracted by a pretty lady and loses him.

Shortly afterward, the rancheros gather at the tavern to hear a proposal from the magistrate. There is a big festival coming up next week, and he thinks they should have a cross-country horse race. With a cash prize, no less, to which he will contribute 500 pesos. Which encourages Alejandro and the others to chip in, resulting in a total prize of 4,000 pesos. Even Toledano chips in, on the condition his lancers are allowed to enter. On the ride home, Diego wonders why there needed to be a cash prize, when everyone would enter just for the fun, but first he has to come up with an excuse not to ride their prize mare, Princessa, a horse which seems fully prepared to win. So he pretends it threw him, and advises his father to let Manuel, who has been training and caring for her, ride in the race.

The Magistrado hasn’t been idle during all this. We’ve already learned the Eagle has arranged for Relampago, the champion horse of California, to be shipped down, where it will be done up to look like an entirely different horse. This will enable them to gain a substantial sum to fund their enterprises. More importantly, he boards a ship off the coast to purchase a considerable number of muskets, pistols, and sabers, but no powder. When Diego is finally able to get away from his father, he learns what Bernardo saw, and Zorro rides to the pueblo. In town, he sees the blind man speak with the Magistrado, and follows the former, who it turns out can see perfectly well. A close encounter with a yappy mutt nearly gets Zorro caught between the two villains, but he’s able to trail them to their secret meeting place (the local pharmacy, closed for the night). Inside, he learns the magistrate will have men ride up to the cuartel with a wagon, supposedly on orders from Toledano. Since this is during the race, there will only be a few, unfortunate lancers standing guard, including Figueroa, who will give the order to let the wagon in. The soldiers will be overpowered, and the gunpowder stolen.

Diego decides the best bet is to have Bernardo slip another note to Garcia, but the sergeant gets distracted when he sees those kids, and in the process of chasing them, loses the note. Which leads to a bad surprise for Diego when all the lancers arrive at the hacienda for the start of the race. Diego says he wants to find a better vantage point as a way to slip out, and Zorro joins the race right as it starts. He’s able to get the soldiers to chase him back to the cuartel, and the thieves are caught red-handed. Meanwhile, Manuel won the race (despite Gallindo’s rider being a cheat), and Diego can’t resist ribbing the sour-faced magistrate a little.

Quote of the Episode: Magistrado – ‘We must continue to cloak our actions in absolute secrecy.’

Times Zorro marks a “Z”: 1 (11 overall). On the tarp covering the stolen gunpowder.

Other: It made me glad to see Garcia got to be the one who grabbed the two thieves, after those kids made him look so bad earlier in the episode. Admittedly, he was able to grab them because he’d fallen well behind the other lancers and was walking his horse back into town, but still, he stopped both men with one hand on their collars apiece. Not too shabby.

I like that having established Bernardo’s skill at sleight of hand two episodes ago, they’re actually making it a recurring tool they try to use. I also like that it doesn’t always work, or else you’d start to wonder why they don’t try this method more often. But the sergeant unfortunately is not the most reliable courier.

Does painting a horse hamper it? I wouldn’t expect the paint to add significant weight, but it smells, it probably feels uncomfortable on its skin. It’s probably not real paint, though, just mud and such.

I have to say I’m fairly impressed with this week’s plan by our villains. They propose a big horse race, which everyone will enjoy and support, then throw in a cash prize, seemingly just for the fun of it. But it not only gives them a chance to pull in some serious bank (mostly) above board, but ensures as many lancers as they could hope for will be out of the cuartel. With only one soldier in their employ, they have to be clever to leverage that as much as possible, so creating a situation where there are relatively few honest soldiers around was a good first step.

It’s interesting that the muskets Gallindo bought were from France, but the pistols from Germany, and the sabers from Spain. I mean, it’s interesting the pistols were from Germany considering Germany didn’t exist in the early 1800s, so he meant Prussia I guess. But also just the fact it’s from an array of nations. Were each of those really the best in those specific areas? Given the marksmanship the lancers demonstrate shooting at Zorro, we can safely conclude Spanish firearms aren’t worth shit. Or is it easier to only acquire one type of weapon from each nation illegally? Simpler for someone to make sure a shipment of pistols goes “missing”, rather than pistols and muskets.