Spoilers ahead! 

For three years Narcos: Mexico has served as the companion series to the original Narcos, set in Columbia. And for three years it has done a great job of telling the Mexican side of the story. But as much as I loved how it was done, there were a few issues. Three issues, to be precise. 

First, if you’ve read my other reviews you know I get tired of any series after this many seasons no matter the quality. The second is related, and that’s the issue of predictability. You can only have so many years’ worth of a show where drug dealers betray other drug dealers and cops make morally gray decisions to try and stop them. The third problem takes longer to explain but, boiled down, can be summarized as me being irritated when I’m asked to feel good about good things happening to bad guys. Before I jump in let me clarify. I love complex, multilayered villains who feel human, and I do not moralize when I’m watching TV shows. TV shows are entertainment, and Narcos is the last show ever where moralizing has any place. It is far, far too grounded in reality for that. 

Here’s the issue: there are some scenes where the show wants to audience to view the drug lords sympathetically. This season gives us a good example with Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the so-called ‘Lord of the Skies’. Amado doesn’t torture or kill civilians, and when he kills other drug dealers they’re ripping him off, and he’s shown to be pretty decent with his employees. There’s also a subplot where his daughter with his ex-wife dies of asthma, which triggers a slow change of heart that ultimately yields his decision to get out of the business. In other words, he’s (giant quotes around this one) ‘not a terrible guy’. Even the DEA is focused on other much more outwardly destructive drug lords. Towards the end of the series, Amado enacts his plan to escape with a woman he’s fallen in love with. The final scene of the series all but flat out confirms that he succeeded. This is played as a (kinda sorta) good thing and it feels wrong. My suspension of disbelief is broken when a drug lord who killed lots of people (but they’re all corrupt cops or gangsters…so it’s ok right?) smuggled thousands of tons of cocaine, gets a happy ending set to a jaunty Mexican ballad. The show isn’t exactly screaming its approval of Amado’s ending, but it isn’t an unhappy moment. 

Contrast this with another character in this season who didn’t get a happy ending despite a very well-executed redemption arc. An ordinary-ish Mexican police officer named Victor Tapia, who engages in ordinary-ish corruption (including the murder of drug dealers) to supplement his pathetic police salary. At the beginning of the season Victor starts investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl from her job at a sweatshop factory, but only to satisfy his wife who asked on behalf of a neighbor. Initially almost indifferent, he rapidly begins to care when his lukewarm efforts reveal many such young women disappearing and winding up brutally murdered. He realizes that his perfunctory investigation is the only effort that anyone is putting in, and almost nobody cares. But eventually, Victor himself cares enough to volunteer as a DEA informant in exchange for their help. And when that isn’t enough and he’s forced to go it alone. The real tragedy comes when he does get the man he’s looking for, only to find out that this killer was just one of many who are using the female maquiladora (factory) workers like disposable dolls. And in the end, he gets shot in the head by his police partner for being a DEA informant. 

Victor’s depressing and predictable ending works so well because it was both played as a tragedy and felt tragic. It perfectly expresses Narcos’ primary theme; the futility of trying to do the right thing. Amado’s ending is played as a kinda-sorta good thing, but it didn’t feel good because Amado didn’t do anything to make himself good. Get it now?  Not that you shouldn’t watch season 3. It took me 456 words to express my only real problem with this season. It’s excellent and you should watch it immediately. And after that, you can watch Cowboy Bebop, and The Witcher season 2, The Expanse season 6, and whatever Christmas crap Netflix blesses us with this year. Enjoy!