Saturday, December 8, 2018

12/8/18 Narcos: Mexico? (Netflix)

    Say what you want, we all have to admit, Netflix knows how to make a good to great series.  Narcos: Mexico follows the other Narco series which went after Pablo Escobar and then the "Gentlemen of Cali" in the 3rd season.  This Mexico version seems to be its own thing and shows what the DEA was up against with drug trafficking in the 70's and early 80's.  If we are to believe it as real, then it was just a couple of people to blame for how powerful the "gangs" became and a lot of those were assholes in political power.
    The story mostly follows Kiki Camarillo who is pissed at being overlooked for a promotion here in the states, so he "volunteers to go work in the field office in Mexico.  He soon is overwhelmed at the ineptness and overt display of shady police work in support of the drug lords.  He cannot believe that after pursuing a main character and having him in their view, the powers that be call off the manhunt.  In another instance, the same character is caught trying to leave the country in a private plane, the head Mexican police/investigator goes in the plane talks to him and comes out saying "this is not the guy we thought it was."  There is a lot of foreshadowing that it is not going to go well for Kiki, who is a good guy, he just doesn't know when to quit.
    If Kiki is the embodiment of good in this story, Felix has to represent all that is wrong with the world.  It is bad enough that he starts the first Mexican drug cartel in Mexico, the way he does it is the slimiest way possible.  First off, the first chance he gets to kill his boss, he does.  Then his wife threatens to leave him, she wants to go back to Sinaloa, where they came from, and he won't have it.  In the last scene with her, he tells her straight out "I don't need you, anymore."  What kind of cold blooded shit is that?  He then goes and sells out his brother in law who started the weed business with him, when he decided 30million a week wasn't enough, and even sells out Don Neto, who was from the old school and was kind of like his mentor and confidant.
    One has to ask, once you have sold out your family, your friends, and your closest allies, why are you still doing what you are doing, this is what leads to you becoming a cartoon bad guy, without the comedy?  I hated that this a-hole had so much power because without a suit he looks like he weighs 110 pounds.  Powerful men are supposed to be big, I bought Pablo Escobar as a powerful man because he was husky, this guy looked like a teenager could kick his ass, maybe it was just the actor chosen, but he has a bit of a smirk that made him way too weasel-y for my taste.
    The last episode had Felix back in power and the DEA starting a new regime, possibly acting more like snipers and men of action than what they had been doing before, just recording the activity of these troublemakers.  A curious development was the treatment of Isabella, the beautiful Mexican connection to the Colombians, as she had asked and demanded to be taken serious and given a seat at the table, along with the other bosses.  Felix decides to instead treat her like a child and cxcuses her from joining the biggest meeting of its time.

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