Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico Season Three Early Review

In what continues to be one of the best series that Netflix produces, the third and final season of Narcos: Mexico marks a pivotal entry for the series as it continues to showcase the evolving war on drugs from both the cartels and the government perspectives. While some of the storylines seem to follow a familiar pattern of DEA agents seeking justice only to be outmaneuvered in the end, this season focuses on several additional plotlines that show a larger and more looming peril on the horizon of a country that is fighting for its morality.

Season 3 of Narcos: Mexico picks up shortly after the events of its predecessor as Fuentes has taken control of the Juarez cartel after Gallardo’s imprisonment. As the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels war with one another, Fuentes begins to quietly build a drug empire that has evolved with the shifting political climate of Mexico, a shift that serves as a larger catalyst for public factions expressing frustration at political corruption and stagnant drug enforcement. These overarching plots are personalized through returning DEA Agent, Walt Breslin (Scoot McNairy), who is fully committed to bringing down Fuentes’ cartel.

Breslin has served as the narrator in season’s past but is supplanted by a Mexican journalist, Andrea Nuñez (Luisa Rubino), who serves as the mouthpiece for the growing public frustration and refusal to accept the mounting murders that are overlooked by the installed government. Her perspective helps shape the season-long fight as well as set the stage for what is to come. It’s a futile perspective that focuses mostly on the mid-90s but references the current state of the drug trade foreshadowing the hopelessness that is yet to come. But the most important and personal story from this season focuses on Victor, a corrupt Mexican policeman, who is satisfied with using his badge to make money on the side but is quickly pulled into a much darker world as he devotes his time to multiple kidnapped women who are widely disregarded as meaningless. It’s a more subtle story that grows more impactful as the season progresses until the final moments that truly offer one of the larger gut punches of the series.

While the cartels follow similar patterns to that of their predecessors, this season seems to portray them in a slightly different light as they are no longer glorified but almost pitied in thinking that they can break the vicious cycle they are swept up in. The truth is, they can never change and history, in fact, repeats itself, but this season shines more of a light on the people that get caught in the crossfire or ones whose lives are destroyed by even being near the major players. Filled with still intriguing perspectives, the final season of Narcos: Mexico spotlights a deep corruption that runs well below just names and positions and exposes a troubling struggle for a country’s soul that never ceases being tragic as the viewer quickly understands from today’s headlines that it never gets better.

In the end, this story is gripping from beginning to end due to the immense personalities, incredible writing, and amazing actors. The final season of Narcos: Mexico continues the drug trade saga in a familiar way but delivers enough varying perspectives to keep a futile war fresh.

still courtesy of Netflix

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