Summary
ZeroZeroZero season 1, episode 6 reveals the scale of Manuel’s plans in an episode that sees our character conflicted by the world he has formed.
This recap of Amazon Prime Series ZeroZeroZero season 1, episode 6 contains significant spoilers.
- Read the Season 1 review.
- Read the recap of Episode 7.
- Read the recap of the previous episode (5)
- Access the archive of all the episode recaps.
ZeroZeroZero Season 1, Episode 6 opens up with Emma looking at a grave — their escort that helped them get this far has died. Chris and Emma continue their journey and reach Casablanca, Morocco. Chris and Emma have reached the border and they are greeted — they’ve got the shipment with them.
Noticeably, there is no sense of relief or celebration as they are likely to be scarred by the events they have suffered through.
ZeroZeroZero Season 1, Episode 6 mostly focuses on Manuel, with his men clearing out another drug den; they wake up a couple in bed and they announce themselves as Leyras soldiers, vowing to destroy all cartels — he threatens a man, asking him to recruit for Leyras army.
And then we see the scale of his ambitions; we are treated to a long scene of Manuel building his new army — we see the base and the number of men that have been recruited. It’s a well-run operation, with constant intense training physically and mentally, and also a dose of target practice. Manuel is forming a large, vicious army — there’s a lot of preaching and brainwashing.
But there is a conflict in Manuel’s brain in Episode 5; he goes to meet the partner of the murdered soldier Diego — the man he killed himself. He’s obviously feeling the guilt of killing his friend and has found himself with feelings for the pregnant woman that was left behind. He gives her a wad of money and sits with her. The woman says she is tired of feeling sorry for herself. Manuel decides to take her to church but she’s deflated by this, believing he was going to take her for ice cream or something fun and ends up going home.
Manuel is causing his own internal conflict at this point.
ZeroZeroZero Season 1, Episode 6 displays Manuel and his army as pure evil and it was impactful to watch. But then business is business and Manuel meets the Leyras brothers to report that everything is going well. Manuel is told that payday will be delayed because they are low in cash due to buying loads of weapons for the war. Though Manuel accepts their excuse, you can tell he’s p****d off.
Manuel once again grows his relationship with Diego’s partner and they head out and slow dance romantically. At the end of the night, he lays down with her. When he returns to the base, he sees that one of his men, Indio, is dead. There’s tension between his army and the Leyras brothers.
We then loop back to before Indio was killed — the army is woken up and gather and they are asked to verify the weapons that have arrived. One of Leyras men is impatient and angry at the lack of cooperation from the army and starts shooting — a brief shootout ensues and Indio is killed. Manuel returns to a dead Indio and asks his men to take him away.
ZeroZeroZero Season 1, Episode 6 closes with Manuel taking one of his soldiers back to Diego’s partner’s house to clean the wounds. But Diego’s partner goes into labor, so Manuel takes her to hospital. He listens to her push out the baby and he gets very breathless, becoming very emotional about the birth of a new baby.
Additional notes
- Manuel starts initiating his new soldiers who have gone through the intense training — we then see scenes of his army taking control of the streets and brutally executing civilians.
