Review: Narcos

Zach and I have been incredibly pleased with the Netflix original programming, and have become outright hooked on several of the titles.  With him being gone for so long last year, I was (incredibly!!) patient and waited for him to get back before catching up on OITNB, Narcos, Longmire, Marco Polo... Like I said, we've been pleased with their original programs :)

 

Which means, now that he's back in the states, that we are catching up.  I know Narcos season 3 is already due out sometime this fall, but here you go: my thoughts on the show thus far.

 

 

 

Plot:  The series so far has followed the rise (and eventual downfall) of cocaine king Pablo Escobar and his cartel, and the efforts of the Colombian police and US DEA agents assigned to bring him down.

 

This has been a very well-done series. 

 

The acting was solid.  No big names, though a few familiar faces, and they all did a good job bringing the characters to the screen.  The standout definitely was Wagner Moura as Escobar.  Unfortunately, he won't be back next season, at least in anything other than a flashback (season 2 ending with Escobar's death, and all), but he was definitely worth watching.  And a bit of trivia?  Moura is Brazilian, so his native language is Portuguese, not Spanish.  He actually learned Spanish for this role!

The story is very well paced.  The plot is really what pulls you in, more than particular characters, and the writers paced things very well to keep the action and the tension going pretty consistently.  Definitely got us hooked.  If you're expecting a generic crime drama, prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

 

Historical accuracy?  Well, as the disclaimer at the start of each episode says, some events, characters, etc. have been dramatized for the purposes of television (or whatever the actual legal wording says).  Obviously, some things have to have been based on imagination, because these are conversations where all participants have since died - Escobar talking to his sicarios, for example.  Some minor characters were based on real people, who may or may not have experienced the same fate as their fictional versions.  And some things were streamlined time-wise to fit the pacing of the show, or were sensationalized a bit for TV - all those little changes to turn Real Life into a Show, you know?  I read an article interviewing the two agents featured in the show, and what they thought about the accuracy.  Pena laughed that his love life wasn't nearly as exciting as it was in the series.  That sort of thing - dramatization.

Part of the dramatization, too, is the good-guy-bad-guy dynamic.  Escobar was a truly violent drug czar, but at the same time, was beloved by a lot of people and considered a Robin Hood-type, supporting communities that the government was practically ignoring at the time.  And let's face it, the US was not squeaky-clean, white-horse, white-hat in their actions, either.  In order to bring down the Medellin cartel, drug enforcement agencies were willing to tread in some rather murky waters.  Though it does get more into the grittiness of reality in the second season, the show did, in some ways, have to simplify these issues.  Part of it was the need to water it down for TV audiences, and part is probably just the challenge of trying to capture how complicated reality actually was.

 

And yet, there are a lot of things that they tried to get right.  The make-up and costuming staff did a great job getting many of the actors to look very much like their real-life counterparts.  There are even articles you can find online comparing pictures of the actors and real photos of their characters.  And the two DEA agents, Murphy and Pena, acted as consultants for the series, so there's input from people who were actually there which (for better or worse) does make a difference. 

 

One of the (very) effective techniques they used to emphasize the realism of the series was including real photos and footage from the time.  There were times where it was almost seamless, the blending of old footage and show footage.  They were getting very good at this through the second half of Season 2, as the drug wars were heating up.  Using news coverage of the bombings and murders really drove home the images.  Very well done.

 

Aside from accuracy, the mark of a good historical piece (to me, at least) is that it makes me want to read more about the real events.  Same way that a good movie from a book should make me want to read the book.  And I've definitely been reading on Escobar as we've been watching this - just like I've been reading on Marco Polo and Ghengis Khan, and on Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall).  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but just doesn't film as well, you know?  There are some incredible stories out there, and as I'm a curious little mind and into everything, I like when a series does a good job of planting the seeds.

 

Biggest complaint so far?  The sound.  There was something up with the sound of the second season, where the Spanish dialogue seemed much softer than the English.  Don't know if it was something in the show itself, or in the Netflix streaming, or in our devices, but it was a little frustrating.  A shame too.  Even though we don't speak Spanish, it's still fulfilling to hear the dialogue, the sounds and tones and inflections of it.  The acting is well done, and it's a waste to not be able to hear it.  Hearing the emotion, even if we can't understand the words, is part of the experience, after all.

 

SPOILER (though not really, if you know anything about the history told here, or can look up Escobar in Google):
Escobar does die at the end of S2.  This was an incredible episode, very effective - a good emotional gut-wrench.  The inter-splicing of actual news footage and photos was very well done.  Zach and I both had just a stunned moment as the episode ended, one of those "wow" type feelings.  Like I said, very, very well done.

And the questions circulating now, looking at different websites, are where will they take us for S3 and 4 (both of which have been signed for on Netflix)?  The way things look, the Cali cartel will be the next focus, but we shall see in the fall what else they bring to the table!

 

Overall:  4.5 of 5.  Not a warm and fuzzy show (drug wars, after all), but good cast, well written, and well produced.  The story drives it more than anything else, but you still enjoy watching the characters and their interactions.  A few things that could be improved, but still definitely worth watching.  Consider it another win for Netflix original programming.

 

And because I like character-based poster series, here you go :)

 

        

 

Season 1 (above) had pictures of everyone with cocaine and powder sprays/splashes (is it a splash, if it's powder?).  Season 2 (below) had pictures with bullets.  Pretty appropriate really - Season 1 was the building of the Medellin empire, and Season 2 was the war that resulted.