Narcos: Mexico 3: Lives and Deaths

I really enjoyed the third and final season of Narcos: Mexico, and regret that there won't be another season, devoted to Chapo. Yeah, I know there have been other series and movies about Chapo, but his story deserves to be done up in the inimitable Narcos way, especially his ingenious escape via tunnels, which (as I've mentioned before ) I've always admired.  When I was kid living in the Bronx, I used to think that the best way of escaping police if they were after me was to dig a big tunnel under the Hudson and up to the Catskills.  Fortunately, I didn't commit any crimes and they never came after me,

Back to Narcos: Mexico 3, it was great to see Pacho (good acting by Alberto Ammann) again.  He's the only character to appear in every season of Narcos and Narcos: Mexico, and that's quite an accomplishment.  The character and the real person had a hand in the drug traffic in both Colombia and Mexico.

Alas, Pacho ends up dead.  As does Amado (good acting by José María Yazpik), the Lord of the Skies. Though for Amado, there's a hint at the end of the season that maybe he actually escaped from the hospital plastic surgery, or with that plastic surgery that changed his face.  In real history, Amado definitely died.  But the circumstances -- exactly what went wrong in that hospital -- are not clear. In Narcos: Mexico 3, we see his lover -- the love of his life -- walking back to her house after taking a stroll on a beautiful beach in Chile.  We see two glasses of wine on the bureau.  Who was that second glass for?  And we see a model plane, obviously suggestive of the Lord of the Skies.  So ... who knows what that scene was suggesting, and, who actually knows what happened in real history?  Maybe they did plastic surgery on some recent corpse to make his face look like Amado, while the real Amado, not looking like himself after successful plastic surgery, left the hospital and got to Chile unscathed.

The rest of this final season was good, too, hammering home the message that the U. S. barely knew what it was doing in its war on drugs.   I had to laugh in one of the concluding episodes when Barry McCaffrey, U. S. drug czar, says in a real newsclip that we had the situation well in hand.  I know Barry, he's currently a commentator on MSNBC, and if I ever have a chance I'll ask him how he felt about that clip in Narcos: Mexico.

But drugs, though the U. S. badly bungled our declared war on them, are no laughing matter.  And the whole Narcos series stands as a powerful, brilliant portrayal of how and why that war went so wrong.

See also Narcos: Mexico 2: "I Don't Have Partners" ... Narcos: Mexico: A Riveting Prequel ... Narcos 3: The Gentlemen of Cali ...  Narcos 2: In League with The Godfather Saga .. Narcos on Netflix: Outstanding 

 

                   the Neanderthal cartel

Narcos Mexico 2: "I Don't Have Partners"

As I indicated in my review of the first season of Narcos Mexico (itself a prequel to the three-season Narcos), I always admired the tunnel-building savvy of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán.  Not the drug-dealing empire that he inherited and built.  But there's something about those tunnels.  Maybe because it represents a technology that goes back more than 4000 years (the qanats, that carried water) to defeat the high-tech bravado of government.  Hey, when I was a kid, before I even knew that fact about tunnels, I realized that if could build a tunnel from where I lived with my parents in the Bronx, to somewhere in the woods in say, Ellenville, New York, I could pretty much do anything I wanted and then escape with ease to the Catskills.  Of course, I had no idea what I would do once I got there but, as I said, I was just a kid.

So I've always had a special interest in El Chapo's tunnel-building - well, since 2015, when he had a tunnel built to escape from prison a second time (first time was in a laundry cart, not nearly as cool) - and I was very happy to see him building a tunnel in Narcos Mexico 2.  This one was not to escape prison but smuggle more drugs into the United States.  Alas, a rival gang in Mexico destroys the tunnel, and since it says at the beginning of every episode that, although the overall story is based on truth, some facts have been changed for dramatic effect, I can't even say for sure that the young El Chapo actually built such a tunnel.  But it was good to see.

Meanwhile, that overall story was indeed top-notch action and drama, detailing the continuing story of the handsome Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (well played by Diego Luna), as he strives to consolidate his hold on and mastery of the drug trade in Mexico.  This is no easy thing, to say the least.  Gallardo already leveraged his weed empire into in effect becoming a middleman for delivery of Colombian coke to the United States.  Now he has to consolidate all the drug gangs in Mexico, and move ever more massive amounts of cocaine from Colombia.  His strategy is to eschew partners in Mexico - "I don't have partners, I have employees," he tells anyone who will listen.  If you know the drug war history, you know how that works out.

As in Narcos Mexico 1, and all three seasons of Narcos, there's a great group of supportive actors and actresses, playing characters in all facets of the story.  It was good to see Pacho again (well played by Alberto Ammann, the one character who, if I recall correctly, has appeared in all five seasons, playing one of the big shots in the Cali cartel in Colombia, who do believe in partners.  In Narcos Mexico, he's the sole representative of the Kings of Cali to appear on screen.

This season will keep you glued to the screen, and is highly recommended.

 

the Neanderthal cartel