Third Act: the "Faena", or the "Act of the Kill".

You'll notice that the last two photos above have the matador and bull in different directions. That's because the matador didn't make a clean stab from the set up in photo 2. In photo 3 he tries again, but I don't think he got it in either. The sword or "espada" is supposed to go between the shoulder blades and, if done perfectly severs a major artery like the carotid and the bull dies quite quickly thereafter. More often than not, the sword goes in but misses any major artery and the bull can stay alive. In those instances, the second resource is for the matador to stab the bull directly in the back of the head and sever its spinal cord. If that doesn't work because the matador sucks, then the trumpets blast a time warning and the final shameful end is where one of the peones comes out and just stabs the bull in the back of the head with a short dagger after the matador has left the scene. This happened for 4 or 5 out of the 6 bulls that were killed in this corrida. So the success rate for the perfect graceful kill seems pretty low as it depends on many factors, including luck.