Season 3, Episode 2 "Blood & Water"

Air date: 3-16-04

Only after several viewings did it jump out to me how much of this two episode arms-race gun story was explained in one short statement from the pre-credits scene at the warehouse. Garza, the head of the Byz-Lats, says to Vic Mackey, "I've already lived five years longer than I ever expected. All the vatos I came up with, they're gone."

In short, this Garza has a strong death wish, which makes him perfectly willing to engage in extremely high risk behavior, and throws off everyone else's calculations. He was the driving force behind starting the whole arms race that we're spending the entire first two episodes of season 3 working through. He's perfectly willing to absolutely start a war with the black gang, including killing the leader's right hand man Slap in the "Playing Tight" episode.

Moreover, Garza's death wish throws off Vic's calculations, notably in this warehouse scene. The Strike Team get compromised, and Vic and Shane absolutely take hits to the nuts, and the whole group could have easily come up massacred. Vic later accepted responsibility for screwing it up, but that screw-up came specifically from the working assumption that Garza wouldn't want to get killed.

Even when his guys got behind Lem and brought him down into the yard, Vic still had Ronnie in a backup position to extract them. Ronnie stood there with a rifle pointed at Garza's head, which should have stopped them.

This didn't work because Garza simply didn't care if he got killed, thus the quote above made while Ronnie's standing there with a rifle pointed at his head. "Go ahead, make me a hero." A sumbitch who would be perfectly happy to get killed over a lousy $100K and a few dozen guns is likely going to be erratic and highly dangerous.

Note the suicidal macho in the cage talking to Dutch. After he's nailed for a double murder for hire, Dutch says that the only bit of a deal available is that the prosecutor won't seek the death penalty if he turns over the 35 missing automatic weapons. Garza lifts his arm and pats the inside of his elbow repeatedly. "Put the needle right here."

Then to complete the gesture, he tells his lieutenant Diagar where the weapons are, intending them to be put into circulation among their gang. Vic ends up with them rather than the Byz-Lats, but the point of how this effects Garza is the same; he's not turning them in. He's willing to face the death penalty over 35 guns.
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