With the elimination of Pablo Escobar, it was interesting to see the show continue and see where it went. The first two seasons focused on finding and catching Pablo Escobar, so why continue with a third season after he was caught and shot dead at the end of season two. They focused the camera and storyline on the DEA agent Javier Pena who was the lead on catching Escobar, and reminds me of a new generation Burt Reynolds with his 70's mustache. He also came out in Kingsman as Whiskey, with the lightsaber whip.
Anyways, the powers that be have decided that the new cocaine cartel are the "Gentlemen of Cali" which are a powerful group of 4 men. Two of them are brothers and the "leader" has always controlled and kept them working efficiently and quietly. Within the first few episodes, they announce that they will be retiring in 6 months, giving them time to make as much money as they can manage. This sounds fine to the leader who reasons that they will do minimal sentences, turn over the cocaine routes and operations but keep their billions and legitimate businesses. This has somehow been set up between the cartel and the governor of Colombia. The DEA is working in the dark and not supposed to be as successful as they manage to be, but with minimal manpower, they "accidentally" discover the whereabouts of the main leader, Gilbert, and capture him. This leaves the other brother, Miguel, in charge and he has to deal with the fallback of other smaller cartels trying to step into their position. They get shot at and they retaliate with excessive force every time.
It seems at every point in which the DEA should be thanked for capturing a leader of the cartel, the government gets more pissed, even the American ambassador is not happy with the success of Pena. Along with DEA, there are CIA agents and probably other secret groups running around gathering info, but they suck at sharing it.
Towards the end, when Pena has figured out a big plot point, the ambassador plays him a tape indicating he already knew everything. The CIA guy shows up eating a yogurt, looking as useless as usual, going on about how he warned Pena to just take it easy and not try to be a hero.
Back on the streets, the Cartel is going crazy and killing anyone they suspect of being a mole, the son of the other brother, David becomes obsessed with the head of their security, Salcedo, as being the true mole. Salcedo wants nothing more than to get his family out of the country for their safety. He is instrumental in all of the success of the DEA, and as usual, the US does what the US does.
The show was intense and I kept waiting for it to go bad, Salcedo puts himself at great risk in most every episode to try and help the DEA and I was sure he would get killed by the end of the season. There were a couple of familiar faces from the first two seasons, and as we can see in IMDB, there are what appear to be, plans for a 4th season. Pena retired in disgust at the realities of how the government operates, but his hire ups were trying to talk him back in.
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