Narcos | |
---|---|
Season 1 | |
Starring |
|
No. of episodes | 10 |
Release | |
Original network | Netflix |
Original release | August 28, 2015 |
Season chronology | |
The first season of Narcos , an American crime thriller drama web television series produced and created by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, follows the story of notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine, while also focusing on Escobar's interactions with other drug lords, DEA agents, and various opposition entities. [1] [2]
It stars Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar – a Colombian drug lord and the leader of the Medellín Cartel, with Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal, Joanna Christie, Maurice Compte, André Mattos, Roberto Urbina, Diego Cataño, Jorge A. Jimenez, Paulina Gaitán, Paulina García, Stephanie Sigman, Bruno Bichir, Raúl Méndez and Manolo Cardona playing various real life based characters. The season was estimated to cost about $25 million dollars, with $2.5 million per episode. [3]
All 10 episodes of the season became available for streaming on Netflix on August 28, 2015, and were met with generally favorable critical reception. Wagner Moura's portrayal of Pablo Escobar earned him widespread critical acclaim including a Best Actor – Television Series Drama nomination at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, while the season itself was nominated for Best Television Series – Drama at the ceremony and received Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Drama, British Academy Television Award for Best International Programme and three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. The series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on September 2, 2016, with 10 episodes. [4]
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "Descenso" | José Padilha | Chris Brancato and Carlo Bernard & Doug Miro | August 28, 2015 | |
Steve Murphy narrates: In Colombia, 1989, the Centra Spike, a US Army Special Ops unit tasked with gathering intelligence, observes a call by Pablo Escobar's sicario, Poison, about a party at La Dispensaria. A Search Bloc team, led by Colonel Carillo, executes everyone in the bar. During the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, several drug makers are lined up and shot; Chilean drug chemist Cockroach survives and brings his product to Colombian smuggler Pablo Escobar, who later executes him. Pablo and his cousin, Gustavo, start transporting cocaine to Miami using their friend the Lion and Carlos Lehder. Their business is booming and they form partners with Gacha and Ochoa brothers. DEA agent Steve Murphy joins the war on drugs in Bogota. | ||||||
2 | 2 | "The Sword of Simón Bolívar" | José Padilha | Chris Brancato | August 28, 2015 | |
With time Pablo's business brings him in so much money that he buries the cash in his fields and employs an accountant, Blackbeard to track the buried cash. Steve Murphy and his wife Connie Murphy has trouble at the airport security, who scans their passports to be faxed to Pablo's sicarios. Pablo makes moves to enter into politics and finds support from an upcoming journalist Valeria Velez,with whom he begins an affair with. The Communist radical group M-19 kidnaps Marta Ochoa, which enrages the whole Medellín Cartel. Pabloccalls a meeting to discuss about safety and operation of the cartel at Las Margaritas. Javier Peña, Steve Murphy's DEA partner, gathers intel about this meeting from his informant and sends her to gather more intel. She falls into trouble causing Javier and Carillo to come to her escape. Steve finds their cat murdered and hung in his apartment. | ||||||
3 | 3 | "The Men of Always" | Guillermo Navarro | Dana Calvo | August 28, 2015 | |
To enter politics, Pablo with help of Valeria meets with lawyer of New Liberals party, Fernando Duque. They put forward a plan to bribe the Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, to buy support for Pablo's campaign, who reluctantly agrees. Pablo's wife, Tata dislikes Valeria. She later goes into labour and gives birth to a girl child. Pablo's campaigns win him the election by a good margin. Javier and Steve comes up with plans to prove Pablo's drug trafficking background and finds the mugshots taken earlier. Minisiter of Justice, Rodrigo publicly testifies in Congress about the bribe and asks Pablo to leave the congress. An enraged Pablo resigns from the position and orders the execution of Rodrigo. | ||||||
4 | 4 | "The Palace in Flames" | Guillermo Navarro | Chris Brancato | August 28, 2015 | |
Despite a new extradition treaty and the anti-narco policy by presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, the U.S. puts more money into fighting communism. Javier and Steve bribe General Jaramillo to bring in Carrillo as head of Search Bloc. Search Bloc receives intel about Pablo's hideout fincas, while raiding Steve finds an address that lead them to Blackbeard and evidence to Pablo's drug trafficking. Some evidence among these prove a link between Communist-ruled Nicaragua and Pablo, leading the DEA receiving more resources. They catch Carlos Lehder and extradite him. Pablo teams up with M-19 guerrilla,Ivan offering him 2 million US dollars to raid and destroy evidence against him at Palace of Justice. Elisa talks to Connie about Ivan's plans. She is hidden at Javier's. The infamous Palace of Justice Siege leaves many victims and no evidence against Pablo. Pablo later kills Ivan. | ||||||
5 | 5 | "There Will Be a Future" | Andi Baiz | Dana Ledoux Miller | August 28, 2015 | |
Pablo's extreme methods put the narcos on the brink of war with Carillo and the government. Peña tries to protect his witness. | ||||||
6 | 6 | "Explosivos" | Andi Baiz | Andy Black | August 28, 2015 | |
Peña and Carillo close in on Gacha. Murphy tries to protect pro-extradition candidate Gaviria from a notorious assassin connected to Pablo. Carillo manages to find Gacha with the help of an informant who is later killed by "Poison" as Pena leads an attack on Gacha's hideout resulting in both sides suffering heavy casualties (including Gacha's own son) before Gacha himself is killed. Pablo manipulates a young man to be a suicide bomber under the guise of recording Gaviria. At an airport Gaviria plans to board a plane for his next campaign speech but Murphy convinces him to postpone it unknowingly saving his life as the bomber then boards Avianca Flight 203 and activates the bomb. | ||||||
7 | 7 | "You Will Cry Tears of Blood" | Fernando Coimbra | Dana Calvo & Zach Calig | August 28, 2015 | |
Pablo goes into hiding as the political tide turns against him, but he finds a way to strike back. Murphy and Peña finally get the CIA to help them. | ||||||
8 | 8 | "La Gran Mentira" | Fernando Coimbra | Allison Abner | August 28, 2015 | |
A tragic mistake forces the government to change tactics in the fight against Pablo. But Pablo faces bigger threats from inside his empire. | ||||||
9 | 9 | "La Catedral" | Andi Baiz | Nick Schenk & Chris Brancato | August 28, 2015 | |
The hunt for Pablo seems to be over after he makes a deal with the government, but Murphy and Peña - and the Cali Cartel - have other plans. | ||||||
10 | 10 | "Despegue" | Andi Baiz | Nick Schenk & Chris Brancato | August 28, 2015 | |
Pablo's activities in prison provoke the government into taking extreme action. Murphy and Peña face a situation of their own. |
The first season received generally favorable reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes a review aggregator surveyed 45 reviews and judged 78% to be positive. The site reads, "Narcos lacks sympathetic characters, but pulls in the viewer with solid acting and a story that's fast-paced enough to distract from its familiar outline." [14] On Metacritic, Season 1 holds a score of 77 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews". [15] IGN gave the first season a 7.8 out of 10 score calling it "Good" and reads "It's a true-to-life account, sometimes to a fault, of the rise of Pablo Escobar and the hunt that brought him down laced with stellar performances and tension-filled stand-offs. Its blend of archival footage reminds us that the horrors depicted really happened, but also manage to present an Escobar that is indefensible but frighteningly sympathetic." [16]
The season received generally positive reviews from many media outlets. Writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer , Tirdad Derakhshani reviewed the season positively, calling it "Intense, enlightening, brilliant, unnerving, and addictive, Narcos is high-concept drama at its finest." [17] The New York Post 's, Robert Rorke said, "Catching Escobar then becomes an exciting and suspenseful story arc, and makes Narcos the first cool show of the new season." [18] Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club judged "Narcos is frequently funny and just stylized enough to amplify the entertainment value without minimizing the gravity of the subject matter. It’s an eminently bingeable show even as it makes a strong case for moderate consumption." [19] Television critic, Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter also reviewed the series positively saying, "The series begins to find its pacing not long after, and we see the strength of Moura’s acting, which to his credit never races, in the early going, toward over-the-top menace or the drug-lord cliches we're all used to at this point. Credit also the fact that Padilha brings a documentary feel to Narcos." [20]
Nancy deWolf Smith of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "The omniscient-narrator device works very well for a complex story spanning many years and varied sets of players." [21] Critic Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said, "It’s built on sharp writing and equally sharp acting, as any good series needs to be." [22] The San Francisco Chronicle 's David Wiegand wrote, "Virtually every performance is equal to the quality of the script, but Moura is especially compelling as he manipulates the seeming incongruities of Escobar’s character to heighten his aura of unpredictable menace.... Brancato does make one significant misstep by having the entire series heavily narrated by Murphy." [23] Chief TV critic Brian Lowry of Variety also lauded the series saying, "The sparely told project weaves together a taut, gripping narrative, in stark contrast with the flatness of its characters and color scheme. All told, this Gaumont production is the kind of binge-worthy TV addiction that Netflix was born to import." [24]
Some were more critical towards the show including chief television critic Mary McNamara of Los Angeles Times who wrote, "It's a grand if inconsistent experiment that, from the moment it opens with a definition of magic realism, wears its considerable ambitions on its sleeve." [25] New York Daily News 's David Hinckley, moderately reviewed the season and said, "One of the strengths of Narcos is its refusal to paint anyone as purely good or bad." [26] Writing for IndieWire , Liz Shannon Miller said, "An unlikeable character, no matter the circumstances, remains unlikeable, but an unlikeable character trumps a bland blonde man whose position of authority appears to be his only really interesting character trait, no matter how much voice-over he utters." [27] Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly quipped, "Mostly the show is a breezy tour through history, sometimes informative but rarely affecting." [28]
Year | Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2016 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Episodic Drama | "Explosivos" | Nominated | |
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actor – Television Series Drama | Wagner Moura | Nominated | ||
Best Television Series – Drama | Nominated | ||||
BAFTA TV Awards | Best International Programme | Nominated | |||
Satellite Awards | Best Television Series – Drama | Nominated | |||
Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Main Title Design | Nominated | |||
Outstanding Main Title Theme Music | Rodrigo Amarante | Nominated | |||
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series | "Descenso" | Nominated |
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death—equivalent to $70 billion as of 2022—while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The Medellín Cartel was a powerful and highly organized Colombian drug cartel and terrorist organization originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia, that was founded and led by Pablo Escobar. It is often considered to be the first major "drug cartel" and was referred to as such; due to the organization's upper echelons and overall power-structure being built on a partnership between multiple Colombian traffickers operating alongside Escobar. Included were Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, Juan David Ochoa Vásquez, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha and Carlos Lehder. Escobar's main partner in the organization however was his cousin Gustavo Gaviria who handled much of the cartel's shipping arrangements and the more general and detailed logistical aspects of the cocaine trafficking routes and international smuggling networks which were supplying at least 80% of the world's cocaine during its peak. Gustavo, also known as León seems to have also had a strong hand in the cartel's unprecedented acts of narcoterrorism, right alongside his cousin Pablo and was considered to be second in command of the cartel and therefore one of Colombia's most wanted men, with both him and Escobar having arrest warrants pending from other nations where their criminal activity had spread to, such as in Spain and the U.S. Meanwhile, Pablo Escobar's brother Roberto Escobar acted as the organization's accountant. The cartel operated from 1976 to 1993 in Colombia (Antioquia), Bolivia, Panama, Central America, Peru, the Bahamas, the United States, as well as in Canada.
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was a Colombian liberal politician and journalist who ran for the Presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time for the political movement New Liberalism that he founded in 1979. The movement was an offspring of the mainstream Colombian Liberal Party, and with mediation of former Liberal president Julio César Turbay Ayala, Galán returned to the Liberal party in 1989 and sought the nomination for the 1990 presidential election, but was assassinated before the vote took place.
José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, also known by the nicknames Don Sombrero and El Mexicano, was a Colombian drug lord who was one of the leaders of the Medellín Cartel along with the Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar. At the height of his criminal career, Rodríguez was acknowledged as one of the world's most successful drug dealers. In 1988, Forbes magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires.
Fabio Ochoa Vásquez is a former leading member of the Medellín cocaine trafficking cartel, along with his older brothers Juan David and Jorge Luis. His role briefly made him a billionaire. After serving a brief prison term in Colombia, he was arrested and extradited to the US in 1999 and is serving a 30-year term in US federal prison.
Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez is a Colombian former drug trafficker who was one of the founding members of the notorious Medellín Cartel in the late 1970s. The cartel's key members were Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Gustavo Gaviria, Jorge Ochoa, and his brothers Juan David and Fabio.
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was a Colombian lawyer and politician, who served as Minister of Justice under President Belisario Betancur, and was assassinated by orders of Pablo Escobar because of his work as Minister in prosecuting cocaine traffickers mainly belonging to the Medellín Cartel.
Juan Pablo Raba Vidal is a Colombian film, TV and telenovela actor, best known internationally for his role as Gustavo Gaviria in the 2015 Netflix series Narcos.
Paulina Gaitán Ruíz is a Mexican actress. She is best known throughout Mexican television and movies. She is more recently known for her role in the popular Netflix series, Narcos, as the devoted young wife of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
The depiction of Colombia in popular culture, especially the portrayal of Colombian people in film and fiction, has been asserted by Colombian organizations and government to be largely negative and has raised concerns that it reinforces, or even engenders, societal prejudice and discrimination due to association with narco-trafficking, terrorism, illegal immigration and other criminal elements, poverty and welfare. The Colombian government-funded Colombia is Passion advertisement campaign as an attempt to improve Colombia's image abroad, with mixed results hoping for more positive views on Colombia.
Sebastián Marroquín is a Colombian architect, author, and the son of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Narcos is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro. Set and filmed in Colombia, seasons 1 and 2 are based on the story of Colombian narcoterrorist and drug lord Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellín Cartel and billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine. The series also focuses on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, and various opposition entities. Season 3 picks up after the fall of Escobar and continues to follow the DEA as they try to shut down the rise of the infamous Cali Cartel.
Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria Rivero was a Colombian drug trafficker. As Pablo Escobar's cousin and right-hand man, Gaviria controlled the Medellín cartel's finances and trade routes. He and Escobar had collaborated in their criminal careers since the early 1970s.
Jaime Ramírez Gómez was an official of the National Police of Colombia, who led a fight against the illegal drug trade in Colombia from the 1970s onwards.
Roberto de Jesús Escobar Gaviria, nicknamed El Osito, is the brother of deceased drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar, and the former accountant and co-founder of the Medellín Cartel, which was responsible for up to 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.
The second season of Narcos, an American crime thriller drama web television series produced and created by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, follows the story of notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine, while also focusing on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, DEA agents, and various opposition entities.
The third and final season of Narcos, an American crime thriller drama streaming television series produced and created by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, follows the story of the Cali Cartel. Pedro Pascal reprises his role from the previous two seasons.
Javier F. Peña is an American former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who investigated Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Peña worked as a consultant on the Netflix series Narcos.
Narcos: Mexico is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro that premiered on Netflix on November 16, 2018. It was originally intended to be the fourth season of the Netflix series Narcos, but it was ultimately developed as a companion series. It focuses on the development of Mexico's illegal drug trade, whereas the parent series centered on the establishment of Colombia's illegal drug trade. The series' second season premiered on February 13, 2020. On October 28, 2020, Netflix renewed the series for a third and final season but announced that actor Diego Luna would not be returning to reprise his role as Félix Gallardo. The third and final season premiered on November 5, 2021.
Hago a Valeria Velez, un personaje distinto basado en la amante de Pablo Escobar, Virginia Vallejo, un personaje importante en Colombia