This huge thing just happened to me,
and the only person that I thought to come tell was you.
I saw a lawyer today about Victor.
I'm starting from scratch with him, and I need you to let me.
Some unsolicited advice...
admit when you don't know something.
Empty vessels make the most noise.
Now that they broke up, I bet Emma's firing Nico.
Emma's a lesbian?
There might have been a Baco the handyman in there, too, so...
I mean, look, Emma, you pass.
Oh, so she should get an asymmetrical haircut
to telegraph it to the world?
I think I'm pregnant.
I'm pretty sure Nico can't get you pregnant.
You're gonna hate yourself tomorrow for this.
And I'm gonna hate that I let it happen.
Oh, fuck.
Mi'ja.
Entonces will I see you tonight, at the Bienvenida del Nuevo Pacto...
the new member fellowship?
Oh, of course.
I did tell Emma that I was gonna help her
with this performance thing at the bar tonight.
But of course.
I'll figure something out.
I'll be there, papi.
The first pill is Mifepristone. That one you can take right away.
And the second one is Misoprostol,
and that one you have to wait after 24 hours,
and the side effects are heavy bleeding, cramping,
nausea, vomiting, and maybe dizziness.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
Can I help you?
Yes, you can, actually.
I have this, like, appearance thing with Rudy today,
and his intense momzilla is gonna be there.
The one whose bowl you broke.
I already got the dress code totally wrong with her once.
It's not going to happen again.
Is Banana Republic all you got?
What's the event?
It's this kind of, like, outside thing, but Rudy's in official mode,
so I need me some Meghan Markle seriousness
with, like, AOC sass.
These are all slacks.
Do you have any actual skirts I can look at?
Far left.
The drag kings need some kind of dressing room setup.
Is that for tonight?
Yeah, Tasha texted over a list of things that they need.
Oh, by the way, Tasha goes by they/them now.
Noted.
By the way, when Nico pitched drag kings,
didn't you say it was gonna be low engagement for us?
Yeah, but they don't just, like, walk in in drag.
They need a place to get ready.
Why can't they just walk in in drag?
I guess they're premiering some songs tonight
and need a place to rehearse before.
Then maybe you should wait to take that pill
until after I come back from Rudy's.
Oh, I already took it.
What?
This is you on the pill?
- Yeah. - Oh, my God.
I'd be totally green by now if I were you.
The one time I took it, I got so sick.
I literally had to curl up in bed with caldo for two days, almost three.
Okay, well, I have a rock for a stomach, so...
Well, and just because I'd be a shitty sister if I didn't ask,
you...
...for sure don't want to tell Baco?
Why would I tell Baco?
Yeah, I wouldn't either.
Can I say something, though?
About drag king night, without you getting offended?
Because I know it's, well, your event.
And I'm pro anything queer that we do because it's, like, on brand for us,
but don't you think burlesque
is a little janky?
It's not janky,
and I don't know if it's, like, actual burlesque.
It just...
I don't understand.
I thought you would like something like this for the bar.
Excuse me, no.
Game nights, dope DJs, amazing Latinx music acts,
that's the kind of stuff I want for our bar.
This, I don't know.
You know what I think?
Is that this councilman wifey act is starting to affect you.
I mean, look at you.
Go look at yourself. Go.
I look like you.
What? You.
Jerk.
Let me give you this brochure.
All the events I mentioned are right here, and in case you lose it,
they're also on the councilman's website.
So looking forward to seeing you at some of the events.
Have a good one. Bye.
También regalitos,
porque ahí les dan un buchito de agua, ¿sí? Okay.
- Sir, hi. - Que esté muy bien.
Que esté muy bien.
And take a chance on these programs.
We can make the changes happen, but together as a community,
we have to make decisions and be stakeholders.
In fact, we're having a town hall next week.
The best way to do that is to know your neighbors.
The councilman has, like I just mentioned,
a lot of great community-building activities planned.
Enjoy the rest of the day. Yeah.
- Corazón... - ¿Qué pasó?
Dale esto a tu novia, porque...
Everyone can bring their favorite dish and share it with the community.
Barbecues, because who doesn't love a good carne asada, right?
Oh, let me tell you about my personal favorite.
Día de Muertos activation,
where we're gonna be able to do our own altars to honor the dead.
Hi! Hi, Councilman.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your support.
- Of course, of course. - Have a good one.
Have a great day.
This is great!
Mami noticed you're cold.
What? Oh, my God, no. I'm so hot.
I should have brought a hat for the sun.
No, Lyn, it looks like you're chilly.
Please cover up.
¡Basura, pa'fuera! ¡Basura, pa'fuera!
¡Cochina! You're such cochinas!
Clean up after yourself, sucias!
You're ruining the neighborhood!
¡Basura, pa' fuera! ¡Basura, pa' fuera!
No wonder everyone around here thinks y'all are trash!
Arthur-looking motherfucker!
Where'd you get your shirt?
Go back to Nordstrom, Coconut Amelie!
¡Basura, pa' fuera! ¡Basura, pa' fuera!
This was supposed to be the first time we rehearsed all together.
We've only run it piecemeal. Tasha, it's so unprofessional.
Amanda, what do you want me to do right now?
It's done. It'll be fine.
Well, no shade, but it's not like she's the best singer anyway.
I don't know why you asked her to be in it.
I know, but she's my cousin's friend, so...
Hey, hey, sorry.
There's no mirrors in the back room,
and I don't know if that's gonna work for us when we're trying to get ready.
Is there any way that we can, like, get something set up for that?
What's going on?
Pues, apparently, they need large mirrors in the office.
We can definitely find you some mirrors.
Hi, Emma.
Thank you again for having us.
Well, we're very glad to have you.
Emma, Rocky has some espejos
from when she used to teach folklórico from her garage
that are, like, normal door mirrors from la Walmart.
Would you ask her, Eddy?
We can open bar as a thank-you to her.
'Ta bueno. I'll shoot her a text.
Yeah.
- Hey. - Hi.
Do you think that we can get some bottles of water for them
in the dressing room?
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, I can do it.
Great.
Emma, do you think that we could talk?
Eddy, is that for the trash outside?
I'll take care of it.
Oh, I got it. I've been trying to go.
It's just been a lot going on before you got here.
Hey, do you guys have any tape?
Someone's gonna break their culito tripping over these cords.
- Yeah. - Emma, I really need to talk to you.
Yeah, I think there's some tape in the storage.
Eddy, do you mind getting the tape and I'll clean up out here?
- I just... - I can help.
Are you okay?
Yeah, I just got a little lightheaded.
I... Thanks.
Well, have you eaten?
- Let me get you some water. - I'm fine. I...
Could you just handle picking up the trash outside?
Thanks.
I'm sorry. I just need a minute.
Yeah. Of course.
Thank you so much. You are the best.
- Aren't they the best? - They are.
Me?
Oh, snap, did I just misgender you?
I shouldn't have assumed your pronouns.
What? What do you mean?
I read you as they/them, but I shouldn't have assumed.
No. I'm a she.
Like, a regular she.
My bad.
Tasha.
Siempre la riegas.
Coño, I thought the '90s P.E. teacher outfit was, like, an ironic throwback,
but she was actually being earnest about it.
She's old school.
You say old school.
I say repressed masc-presenting gender queer.
Kind of bums me out, but whatever.
Respect your elders.
- Wow. - Let's do it one more time.
You know, maybe in the past, but I got a whole plan,
and that's why we're trying to drum up support.
Support like yours because we can make the change happen,
but we can't do it without the community.
- I agree. - Okay?
There's no one that can answer my question?
- He's over there. - Well, thank you.
I appreciate you being out here.
- Thank you, Councilman. - It was a pleasure.
No, I just want to ask a quick question.
- Yeah, but you can send him an email. - It's not gonna take a long time.
I'm sure you can just send him an email.
- You don't have... - He's right here.
It's important. We can't even take her outside.
Excuse me, Councilman, hi.
That nice young woman over there, she pointed you out,
and I just... I wanted to take this opportunity
to talk to you about the abominable status of our sidewalks.
- Yes, of course. Let's talk sidewalks. - Great. I'm a homeowner.
We both are, actually.
And I'm just worried about pushing my baby's stroller
down the sidewalk without having...
Lyn.
Hello, Karla.
Oh, my God. Rudy, this is Karla and Johnny.
We all went to high school together.
Oh, look at that. Any friends of Lyn are friends of mine.
Do you mind if I see your baby?
Qué chula. Es hermosa.
She is gorgeous.
- Thank you. - Congratulations to the both of you.
Babe, come here. Come here.
Vela.
Isn't she beautiful?
She's beautiful.
Disculpen, pero, corazón,
the little children that wrote the poem are here,
and I think you really should take your picture with them.
No, of course. We have to reward creativity, right?
Let's keep talking about how we can tackle those sidewalks, yeah?
It's important.
Nice to meet you.
Of course.
You're a trophy girlfriend now.
Lyn, you're a pinche chameleon.
Always changing your colors for whatever man you have...
Let's go, let's go.
Karla, there's really no reason for us to be like this.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
Look, everything is fine and as it should be.
I promise you, Karla, from, like, the bottom of my everything
that I am no threat to you or your family.
I think I've proven that with my behavior, and Johnny would agree, right?
How would you have proven that to Johnny?
Have you two seen each other?
Oh, gracias, Rocky.
You're a lifesaver.
It's all good.
You know I wanted to see them for myself anyway.
Well, you know how...
Carnala, they called me a gender queer
and an elder.
What the fuck?
And they throw around the word "queer" like nothing.
When did that become okay?
Don't they know when we grew up, those were fighting words?
Well, I'm not gonna tell them that.
Pa' que luego me digan old dinosaur dyke again?
Kids.
Oh, this feels so good.
I think we might need to recruit Nico for the set tonight, just in case.
- Nico. - Nico.
You looked over here! You looked over!
You got to come through.
What? Guys, I'm at my job.
- I'm working. - You cannot resist the power of drag.
- We are dragging you. - We're gonna drag you.
- Drag you to drag! - I don't want to be the drag, man.
I don't have anything.
I have an extra packie, I got plenty of KT Tape.
Yes, friend!
You got to do it! Come on!
He was Argentine!
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Che was Argentine, but he was still problematic.
No, but the concept would be, like, Benicio del Toro playing Che.
Like, I'm Eddie Olmos in Zoot Suit,
and then we got Monica over here,
and she's doing Antonio Banderas playing in Desperado.
So it's not like just she's playing a mariachi.
She's playing Antonio Banderas playing a mariachi in Desperado.
Tasha's Danny Trejo in, well, anything.
- I'm doing Machete, okay? - Oh, baby, don't be so sensitive.
Very specific.
Baby, it's okay.
Come on, guys. Maybe some other time.
I'm just not so much in the mood to play dress-up
and gender bend today.
¿Qué tienes, Nicotine?
If you don't want to be El Che,
you can do a Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy.
- That's good. - Classy.
Or you can do a John Leguizamo in...
Yo, bar people.
The butches.
There we go.
Yo, so, which John Leguizamo character should Nico play tonight?
The theme is toxic masculinity.
Benny Blanco would be an obvious choice for toxic machismo.
Oh, but my favorite Leguizamo movie is To Wong Foo.
Yes!
But I might be dating myself with that one.
No, no, no, no, no. I see you.
That's like a drag on drag. Okay, touché, baby.
- Seriously, no one? - To Wong Foo.
Come on, don't be like that.
I want you to be able to move well.
The first thing I always tell people is take care of our GIs...
Quit looking at each other. Don't touch me!
- Don't lie. - I didn't...
Just be honest!
Isn't Rudy wonderful?
Yes.
He's so natural with people. He always has been.
He was my miracle baby.
Two very painful failed pregnancies,
and finally this tiny little boy arrives
and we didn't even know if he would make it and look at him now.
Whoever ends up with him will have to measure up.
No puede ser una cualquiera.
What I mean is that it will take someone special to...
I know what "cualquiera" means.
I've heard that word several times before.
I'm sure you have.
I'm sorry, Ms. Marquez.
But if you have a specific problem with me,
I wish you'd let me know what it is so that I could fix it.
Lyn. Hey, Lyn.
There's a reporter here from the LA Times.
- Will you come take a picture? - Yeah.
Oh, and let me do all the talking.
You just smile pretty like you always do.
Sorry. Solo les traía unas waters.
No, it's fine. Pásale.
Pásale.
It always takes me longer than the other kings to get ready.
It's very If These Walls Could Talk 2, right?
Butch Chloe Sevigny in a binder.
That's not what you got on.
Well, yeah, but ACE Bandage for binding is old school,
and although I love old school...
...this is easier.
Sports bras are fine for me.
For drag, I find them so uncomfortable 'cause you always have to double up.
But this is pretty comfy.
See?
I would look like Panza Spears in that thing.
¿Y?
But we can find you one a little more masc.
No.
Más butch.
They don't make them like you anymore.
Thank you.
Literally, like, resting bitch face.
- And that's her face... - She's not.
She's not a bitch, man. She's been through a lot.
It's just, like...
- So have you. - Yeah, You've been through a lot.
Yeah, what are you talking about? What you've put up with?
Like, it's not your fault.
You can't just, like, bury down your shit to, like, take care of someone else.
So la Nico's not gonna do drag after all, huh?
Dude, you're so above this place.
It's a good call, honestly.
- I'm not above the place. I just... - Come on.
Something's up.
Parece que she was dating la Emma, and something happened.
Every time you say que she was dating Emma,
oh, qué la.
After saying all that homophobic shit about Vida.
Well, then it must have been more complicated than we knew, right?
¿Y la Emma? ¿Dónde 'ta?
Le duele la panza or something. Ahorita viene.
Hey, there!
Can a king get a drink?
Oh, shit.
Can you tell who I'm doing?
Not yet.
Yeah, you're straight-up Desperado right now.
That's real tight.
Gracias.
So what can I get for you, Antonio?
Whatever's got your hands on it, I want.
How about a mezcalito? Neat.
You got it.
Has this place always been a queer bar?
No.
I guess after I got here and got with the owner...
not this owner, another owner...
it sort of became that.
But we never used to call it that.
I never use that word.
We just made sure it was a safe place for girls like us.
On the house.
To girls like us.
Mira qué coqueta.
I think she's just friendly like that.
No. I'm talking about you.
Me?
'Tas loca.
I'm just doing my job.
Whatever, fool. Stupid.
Emma.
Sorry, I really need to talk to you.
Can we...
I'm sorry about how things happened at the quince.
Oh, my God.
I thought this was about something actually important.
It is important.
Because you should know that I've never taken advantage of someone like that.
I should have stopped it right away.
It's fine. We were both high.
That's the thing.
I wasn't.
I knew exactly what I was doing, and I just let it happen...
...while you were totally fucked up, which is...
- It's kind of rapey of me. - Rapey?
Come on, Nico.
It's not like I was an unwilling participant.
How do you know?
What do you mean?
I just know.
But that's the thing, is that you can't possibly know,
and neither could I.
I mean, Emma, I'm just, like, fucking up everything left and right.
Like, I moved to LA
to get rid of the distractions that I'd racked up in Brooklyn,
and I was gonna write.
I was gonna finish my fucking essays that I've basically already sold,
and then I go to this wedding, I meet you, and now I'm in esta puta boludez, man.
And I did this. I walked myself into this.
Shiny objects.
Yeah, the shiniest.
But...
...I can fix it.
This is basically my two-week notice.
Just because I'm not gonna leave you guys high and dry.
- What? - I'm gonna walk Eddy through everything
that changed while she was gone, and as I promised, I...
I'll walk you all through it.
It's the drink program you first hired me to create.
As a bar, you're basically ready for cocktails,
which I'll allow myself a little bit of pride over.
Nico.
Look, I know it's not ideal.
But my friend has this house,
this big-ass house in San Miguel de Allende,
and I'm just gonna go there, and I'm gonna write,
and I'm gonna finish these essays with no distractions.
Okay? I need that.
Hey, guys, this is running past Latino time.
Is there any way we can get...
Yeah, sure.
Do you have everything you need?
Yeah, no, we're ready.
We just need to be introduced.
Right.
Okay.
- Line 'em up. - Yeah.
Come on, guys.
Get it.
All right.
What's up, party people?
How we doing tonight?
Yeah.
Y'all ready to see some drag kings tonight or what?
All right, okay.
'Cause I hope you got your dollar bills.
I hope you sent your break-up texts.
Get ready, guys.
It's about to get fucking sexy up in here.
Give it up for our drag kings!
Fuck your bar! Fuck your bar!
Oh, my God.
This is, like, my third piece.
Wait, papi, hold on. I'll help you in two seconds.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Ya, ya, ya, ya terminé.
Las hermanas always make sure to clean up after themselves anyway.
They're so good to me.
But wait, didn't you have a thing with Emma?
Yeah.
I still sort of do.
I just wasn't feeling...
I'm not so much in support of this particular event she put on.
Why not? What was it?
Just a kind of performance thing...
...that I think is...
I don't know.
¿Qué pasa, muñequita?
This is gonna sound mean, but...
I don't want to be embarrassed for our bar.
For so long, I was embarrassed of...
...well, just what it was.
House of vice?
Well, no.
Just that it wasn't very upscale.
When I lived in the Bay,
I ran around in certain circles, and I...
I could never point it out to people, you know?
But I shouldn't have been like that. That was shitty of me.
- Ay, Lyn. - Oh, sorry. I mean...
That was not good.
I should have been proud of it.
And the thing is, the way that we've been evolving...
...I have been proud of it.
I guess it's just not evolving fast enough for me or something.
And Emma and I are a little not on the same page about it.
Papi, I want to make it top notch.
Like, the place to be.
And it has so much freaking potential...
Sorry, can I say "freaking"?
Okay.
Well, what I want to say is...
You haven't seen it full of happy patrons.
Gets full, huh?
Oh, absolutely, and it's been staying full.
We're making money every night.
But I...
I want it to be more than that already.
Rudy, my boyfriend...
...he needs it to be more than a freaking dive bar.
He doesn't say it, but...
...I can tell.
I need to be more than his girlfriend
that owns a lame dive bar in Boyle Heights.
Lyn, you're a business owner.
Yeah.
But he never introduces me that way.
Today he could have so many times.
And he never once mentioned Vida.
And it's in his district.
I want him to be proud to mention my bar.
You know?
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.
"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
Plans to give you a hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11.
It's insane how you remember all those verses.
God has a plan for your life, mi'ja.
If He put you in this position with the bar, it's for a reason.
It's all part of His divine and perfect plan for your future.
Tu novio and everyone else will see that soon enough.
You just keep walking your path.
Now, you told your sister that you'd be somewhere tonight
but you're here instead?
Successful business owners always keep their word, muñequita.
I'm already so late, papi.
Come on. It'll be faster if I drive you.
Ándale.
Okay.
Thank you.
Fuck your bar! Fuck your bar!
That...
That is your enemy, you fucking hypocrites.
That space is the definition of gentrification,
and yet you do nothing.
Shame on you for attacking hardworking neighborhood people
while you let big bad corporate move in on your watch,
you fucking cowards!
What, you too chicken shit to fight the real fight?
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Emma, I had no idea you were randomly gonna be out here.
He just offered me a ride.
You liar.
What? No, Emma.
No, I was with Rudy all day and his event, but I had to...
I got baptized today so I had to go to this thing.
What?
What are you saying right now?
Hello, Emmita.
Oh, no, no, no. Oh, papi, please. You have to leave.
- Please just... - Papi?
Emma.
Whenever you're ready, mi'ja, I'll be waiting.
Get the fuck off my property.
Leave.
Emma, I'm so sorry.
I didn't plan on you seeing him.
I mean it.
Today I really needed you.