"Vagabundo" is the first episode of the fifth season in the remake version of S.W.A.T., and the eighty-fifth episode overall, which was aired on October 1, 2021.
Summary
In the aftermath of his decision to speak out in the press, Hondo retreats to a quiet town in Mexico to reassess his life and professional future, only to find himself reluctantly drawn into one local family's fight for justice.
Recap
Hondo having left town. He got into some trouble back in LA after he informed the press about the racist cops and how they were able to still hold onto their jobs in spite of being racists. But Hondo’s bosses had a response to this. They wanted Hondo to quit, or they were going to make it as terrible as possible to the point he felt he had no other choice than to quit. Hondo didn’t like it. He also wasn’t going to make things easy for the people covering up for racists and so he took time off. He left town. He retreated to Mexico. He has friends down there who own a ranch and that’s where he stayed until he spotted a different sort of trouble one day. Hondo came across a white man threatening a woman’s farmhands.
The woman is Delfina Reyes. She inherited the farm after her father died in the fields one day and she was being pressured to sell the farm to the white guy and the white guy’s family. The guy’s name is AJ Novak. He and his father are big deals in that part of Mexico. They even had the police on their side and so they had no fear. They were threatening Delfina’s farmhands when Hondo saw it. He responded to the situation. He got Novak to back off and he helped the farmhands get back on their feet. Hondo was later threatened by the cops for stirring up trouble. He said he wasn’t the one responsible for the trouble and that he just wanted to lay low. The Mexican cop said that’s good. He told Hondo to leave things be.
Only he couldn’t. Hondo was always going to be Hondo with the same luck. Delfina invited him over for lunch with her mother and he went because he couldn’t afford to tick off his friends’ neighbors. Hondo went for lunch. He ended up hearing a full rant about AJ Novak. His father Arthur was this wealthy and supposedly dangerous man that no one has ever met because he doesn’t visit, but for some reason, he wanted Delfina’s farm. AJ was just the middleman to handle the transaction. He offered Delfina money. She turned it down. He offered her more and he even bought her fiancé so that the fiancé could convince her to sell, and she still said no. Delfina and her mother didn’t feel safe driving in town for supplies.
Hondo offered to take Delfina into town. She accepted the offer and once again they ran into trouble. AJ and his new favorite henchman Gabriel (Delfina’s former fiancé) were there. They threatened Delfina outright with violence and Hondo stepped in. He knocked out three men. He got Delfina back to her farm. He also tried to get as much information he could about the current situation. In the place where he’s staying, there was a maid/cook there and she told him that Novak’s father was a big mystery. Some thought European. Some thought Irish because the son was Irish. There were also rumors that the father could be a Russian mob. Either way, he was wealthy. He bought up several properties in the area.
One of them was a hotel. He brought in a lot of business and so that’s how he was able to buy off the cops. The same cops that later arrested Hondo for assault. The men who were threatening Delfina had claimed that they were targeted unprovoked, and they already bought the cops. Hondo was arrested. He was in a holding cell when he was told that Mr. Novak is choosing to be generous. He was going to drop the charges if Hondo agreed to meet with him at the hotel and so Hondo got to meet Arthur Novak. The father was Irish. He was also wanted by Ireland and several Eastern European countries. It’s why he and his son fled to Mexico. They couldn’t be extradited there. They were in Mexico, and, for some reason, they wanted to own the whole town. They were already halfway there.
Arthur told Hondo to offer his new deal to Delfina and her mother. He was willing to raise the price by a hundred thousand and Hondo knew he couldn’t protect Delfina forever. He brought the offer to her and her mother. Her mother agreed to accept it. The farm was in her name and so it didn’t matter that Delfina wanted to keep fighting. The fight was over. Or so they all thought. Hondo still had questions about Delfina’s father’s death. Miguel Reyes died from an accident on the farm and then a day later Arthur’s son came around asking to buy. Hondo that was too big of a coincidence. He found out the father was doing some drilling on his land with Delfina’s former fiancé, and he figured out that whatever they found was worth killing for.
Hondo did his research. He was almost killed while doing so and he had Delfina and her mother hiding at his friend’s house as he confronted Arthur. He was confronted with what he found. The farm was on top of a silver mine and was worth a fortune. The Novaks were threatening and even killing people because they were trying to steal the silver mines before the real value could be realized. Hondo told Arthur that the women were willing to sell and that all he had to do was offer them the fair value but Arthur’s response to that was that he was only going to be offering 1 peso for the farm. He knew that Delfina’s mother would agree to it because he had Delfina kidnapped.
Cast
Main
- Shemar Moore - Daniel Harrelson
- Alex Russell - Jim Street (credit only)
- Lina Esco - Christina Alonso (credit only)
- Kenny Johnson - Dominique Luca (credit only)
- David Lim - Victor Tan (credit only)
- Patrick St. Esprit - Robert Hicks (credit only)
- Jay Harrington - David Kay (credit only)
Guest
- Val Dorantes - Delfina Reyes
- Timothy V. Murphy - Arthur Novak
- José-Maria Aguila - Leo Charro
- Adolfo Madera - Ramírez
- Sofía Sylwin - Paloma
- David Arauza - Chief Barrera
- Pilar Padilla - Isabel Reyes
- Luke Cook - A.J. Novak
- Ricardo Abarca - Gabriel
- Arnoldo Picazzo - Willie
- Ricardo Momentey - Pablo
Gallery
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Trivia
- This is the first episode does not have the theme song played and instead have the cast names at the bottom of the television screen during the opening scene.
- Hondo went on vacation to Mexico for two weeks.
- Despite being credited, six cast members (Russell, Esco, Johnson, Lim, Harrington and St. Esprit) do not appeared in this episode.