Soulmates Recap: 1.04 ‘Layover’

Article contributed by Daniel A

This week’s episode of Soulmates ponders: what happens on the way to get to your soulmate?

Jonah (Misfits’ Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) meets Mateo (It’s Bill Skarsgard) at a bar in Mexico, and they spend the night together. The following morning, Mateo returns to his hotel only to find his fanny pack containing his passport and money are missing.

He finds Jonah back at the bar, flirting with another man, and confronts him. Jonah tells him he’ll get him his passport, but that he has given it to a girl, Khaleesi. On their way to retrieve the passport, Mateo asks Jonah if all he does is steal from unsuspecting men, and reveals he desperately needs his passport back so he can go to Colombia to meet his soulmate, Miguel, the next day. They arrive at a fortune teller’s, where Khaleesi works, and she tells Mateo that his passport will be $3000 dollars. Mateo asks how she’d like it if he took her things, so he takes some fireworks, and smashes a crystal ball. She pulls the fire alarm alerting nearby police and Mateo and Jonah flee.

While it’s refreshing to see Skarsgard in more of a fun role, the absurdity of Mateo’s situation, and the characters’ rather calm reaction to his serious dilemma is off-putting. He’s in a foreign country where he doesn’t speak the language, and his passport has been stolen, yet he’s perfectly happy to endure a fortune reading while bickering with Jonah.

Jonah tells Mateo he can get the $3000 they need to get the passport back, and the pair steal some bikes and head to an underground club. On their way, Jonah tells Mateo that he didn’t seduce and sleep with him to rob him, rather only saw the opportunity afterwards. At the club, Jonah pawns Mateo’s watch for $200 and tells Mateo to win the rest back on cockroach racing. The pair keep winning, drinking, partying, and they share a kiss. They get up to $1000 before they lose it all, and have to leave when the police that chased them from the fortune tellers arrive.

At this point, Mateo and Jonah’s relationship is deepening, but as with Mateo’s easy-going nature to the whole ordeal, it seems ridiculous that he would start to become attracted to the person that has stolen all of his money and his passport, which has resulted in them being pursued by the authorities.

Without any other options Jonah suggests stealing Mateo’s passport back. He takes Mateo to a ‘less-legit version of the US embassy’. Jonah enters alone and tells Mateo to keep watch, but Mateo heads inside after him, stumbling into large stashes of cocaine and guns. The pair find Mateo’s passport, but Jonah asks Mateo if he really thinks heading to Colombia will change him, and that from what he’s seen, Mateo is a mess. As Mateo tries to leave, the police arrive, and Jonah reveals that they have been chasing him because they are corrupt and he owes them a lot of money. While they hide, Jonah continues to question Mateo’s motivations, asking him why he slept with him if he was so sure he was heading to his soulmate, with Jonah revealing he wants Mateo to stay with him.

Their argument causes them to be caught and taken hostage at gunpoint, but Mateo is then let go. One of the women who has captured them has also taken her test, and is nervously awaiting her match to do the same. The women do not not let Jonah go though, and he tells Mateo to leave him and have a happy life. Mateo returns to the bikes outside and gets the fireworks, before returning inside to set them alight, scaring the women and saving Jonah. Jonah is shot as they escape, and the warehouse explodes with fireworks. Back at Jonah’s apartment, Mateo pulls the bullet out of his leg and the pair make love.

Mateo leaves in a taxi to go to the airport, and Jonah chases after it to give Mateo a Spanish dictionary so he can talk to Miguel. Mateo starts doubting his decision, saying that Miguel has a really boring job and Jonah tells him, ‘sometimes choosing love is choosing to let it go.’

At the bar, Jonah flirts with another unsuspecting man, but Mateo interrupts him saying that getting off the plane is the only real choice he’s ever made.

While the episode logically explains Mateo’s growing feelings for Jonah in the end, it still revels in the absurdity of the situations the pair find themselves in, becoming increasingly more ridiculous as it goes on. It’s interesting to note that while the episode still has a happy ending, Mateo does not end up with Miguel, which is the first time in the series we have come across someone who has taken the test, but not ended up with their soulmate.

What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments below!