According to an old saying, there are only two types of stories in the universe. It’s either: A man goes on a journey. Or, a stranger visits town. However, for the past six year, there has been no change. Narcosfranchise (including the newly-released season of Narcos in Mexico) that Netflix has minted into a consistent ratings powerhouse has also built its gritty, blood-soaked narrative around Lord Acton’s dictum — the one about the corruptibility of power. This, in my opinion, should be added to the storytelling list.
Absolute power can corrupt absolutely. You get the combustible mix of a war without an end when you add money, cocaine bricks and mortar. Only the names can change. So it is with the newly-released Narcos in MexicoSeason 3. The war is the exact same. All that’s different this time around are the men holding the guns — both the good guys and the bad. If there’s even such a thing as a good guy in the drug war.
Narcos in MexicoSeason 3
Mexico is a difficult country to find truth if you are a journalist. It can also be difficult to publish. pic.twitter.com/O8KpizNhU8
— Narcos (@NarcosNetflix) November 6, 2021
The next statement isn’t so bold to make at this stage. Nevertheless, it deserves repeating. The Narcosfranchise (including the original trilogy of three seasons, followed by the Narcos in MexicoSpinoffs) will fall as One of the best Netflix originals ever. And it’s not just because of the propulsive storytelling, the larger-than-life villains, the power struggles, and the explosive violence juxtaposed with the at-times breathtaking beauty of Mexico and Columbia.
It’s also because this series gets the grace notes right. Like, in this season, the character of Andrea Nunez — an idealist, in a dying and deadly profession. That last part is no exaggeration — Reporters Without BordersMexico has been consistently listed as one the most dangerous places for journalists in the world.
Luisa Rubino, a Mexican actress, is the one who narrates the new season and plays Nunez. Her performance is a great example of how to do something. NarcosEvery season, the franchise has excelled. Given us characters you can’t take your eyes off of, who you’d love to spend more time with in the next season. It’s easy, being a journalist, to say that about Rubino’s performance. It’s all she does. The impatience with the bureaucracy of a newspaper and with editors who don’t get it. That thing journalists do, where we sometimes don’t see or feel anything but the job — even when she’s scribbling quietly in her notepad while hiding in a car so that no one sees she’s quietly crashed the drugland wedding of the century.
“It wasn’t declared, but we were living through a war”
Und in war, the quote from Nunez above continues? “The first casualty is the truth.”
It is difficult to count the number of casualties in this violent franchise, which first followed the rise and fall Pablo Escobar. After Escobar’s death, we followed the ascents of his rivals and leaders of Cali Cartel. And then the franchise relocated from Columbia to Mexico for the current spinoff, where we first met the entrepreneurial-minded drug kingpin Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. He convinced feuding cartels that wars were bad for business and he managed to convince them to join forces.
This worked for a time. Until it didn’t.
Gallardo is currently behind bars. Season 3 of the Netflix Original Series, which premiered earlier this month, now focuses on one of his lieutenants.
“Set in the 90s, when the globalization of the drug business ignites, Season 3 examines the war that breaks out after Felix’s arrest,”The official Netflix synopsis says it all. “As newly independent cartels struggle to survive political upheaval and escalating violence, a new generation of Mexican kingpins emerge. Truth is often the first casualty in wars.
“And every arrest, murder, and take-done only pushes real victory further away.”
Also this season, Alejandro Edda turns in another performance as Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán that’s so good, you might catch yourself wondering whether Netflix somehow sprung the real El Chapo out of prison and put him in front of a camera. As with the performance from Rubino, Edda’s work is another catalyst that will make you want to see more of him. In some later, Chapo-centric season that we’re unfortunately not going to get. It’s in his eyes, the way he looks at the camera, the way he carries himself without saying a word. He’s doing that thing that great actors do, which is not so much a performance as it is a magic trick.
The end of this saga
Let’s hope it all works out in the end. Narcos Narcos in Mexico feel, at least to me, like as good an example as any that you can point to and say — a-ha, there. Netflix has its own Netflix Game of ThronesOr nearly. The shows lack heroes in the traditional sense. They reveal all the evils of humanity and their potential. But there’s also depth, and powerful writing, to balance out the violence.
“We have to control this (expletive) world, or it will control you,”Gallardo laments Escobar in one scene, one of the most memorable scenes in film history Narcos in MexicoLast season. “And if you don’t protect yourself, it makes a mess and breaks you.”
Lest that sound like the show trying to find the humanity in monsters, though, I’ll spare you the details. These sinners are not saints. This storytelling tour de force is even better because of it.
