No Pablo, no problem
Narcos season 3 turns even more bloody, more violent and more dangerous now that Pablo Escobar is dead.
Narcos
Season 3 Tuesdays (from 8 June) SABC3 (*193) 21:00
Biographical drama series Narcos (2015-2017) explored the rise of cult figure Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura, Spider in sci-fi movie Elysium, 2013) as the world’s biggest cocaine producer and most infamous drug lord who was reportedly spending $2 million (R28 million) on elastic bands every month to keep his money in neat piles. For season 3 though, Pablo has been killed by the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) during a sting operation in the finale of season 2, and the law officials are trying to take down his successors: the Cali Cartel.
Heading up the DEA team again is Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian in sci-fi series The Mandalorian, 2020-now), who can taste blood in the water. “This is a brutal and violent story, but at the same time it’s all true. This is how the cartels and drug lords used to operate,” says the 46-year-old actor. “This is real life, this happened. Growing up in Chile in South America, I knew about this Cali Cartel, I knew the stories about Pablo Escobar. But to read about things they did, this is scary stuff!” And the third and final season is only just getting started…
CALI CALM
Season 3 picks up a couple of months after Pablo’s fatal shooting and it starts with a shocker: The Gentlemen Of
Cali, the cartel bosses, are quitting the business. That news doesn’t sit well with the other cartels they work with, and it’s a problem, hints Pedro. “When you’re looking at the money they were making, you can’t just walk away – it’s millions and millions of dollars a week. Now someone wants to take that away from you? Think about it: no one is going to just allow these Cali Gentlemen to leave.”
And that starts a renewed cartel war that could turn the whole of Mexico into a war-zone, adds the actor. “You must remember that these guys are armed like a small army. They have automatic weapons. They have ‘soldiers’ who don’t care if they live or die. It’s like a blood pact, once you’re in the cartel, you’re in it for life. It’s like the mafia, only just more intense.
POLITICAL PROBLEMS
While Peña and his DEA team might seem to have a simple job – to arrest the Cali Cartel and their associates – there is a huge stumbling block, explains Pedro: “Politicians. They’re always sticking their noses where they don’t belong. You look at the political interference in this story we’re telling, because it’s true and it all happened, and you realise that politicians are sometimes in cahoots with drug dealers, they’re helping them. It’s a dirty, dirty, dirty business and political help can mean the difference between smuggling 100kg of cocaine in a tunnel across the USMexican border or getting a diplomatic plane flying in a couple of tons.”
The more Peña investigates the Gentlemen Of Cali, the more he realises how deep the corruption goes that has allowed the drug trade to flourish, and it’s something that continues to this day, not because of political greed but because of the way cartels operate. “You need to remember that these people are violent. They do not care. They know who is in charge of the border posts and they will kidnap these officials’ families and force them to break the law for them or they send body parts until the person listens,” explains Pedro. That doesn’t deter his character Peña though, who continues to push with his investigation “because he started this mission and cannot give up. That spirit to do what is right, I think that Peña will die to keep that fight going. There’s no way that he’s going to just throw in the towel now with the finish line in sight,” says the actor.