Life in Wartime

Original review Huge fan of all the previous series (watched each series at least 4-5 times) but this series was very poor. The female narration was bad but for me they had too many side stories going off and not enough of a central character. Each season before it had real depth in terms of the main protagonists but whilst Amado was great, the other component parts were weak.

I could watch any of the previous series again, but this isn't a series I see me revisiting.

Updated My points above still stand but I randomly watched S3 again recently and found it better second time around. I really do think the series was too diluted in terms of the amount of characters.

I haven't heard of a series 4 coming but it would seem a real missed opportunity given the amount of Chapo / Mayo material there must be.

Every single story this season had an unsatisfying ending I understand they seem to be trying to focus on truth rather than their usual suspenseful dramatisations but at a certain point you have to take into account what made this show so popular in the first place. If you know anything about the story of chapo and what happened in Mexico after Amado died then you will be pretty shocked they decided to cut this season how they did leaving so much out for the sake of a 4 hour message about the inadequacy in Mexico's law enforcement. They've left enough material for literally 5/6 more seasons at this pace. I love Narcos but this whole season was much ado about nothing.

I liked this particular episode more than the entire season only cos of Victor.

In the first episode I was wondering why the character of Victor.

The guy who played Victor looked a bit like Robert De Niro, specially the one from Taxi Driver as both characters are somehow troubled.

What I liked best was the way Don Neto was treated by Chapo. Neto thot he is some good advisor. Hahaha.

A somewhat underwhelming finale to what was otherwise another excellent season. Saddened to see there will be no further seasons as there is still such a great story to be told. The DEA segment of the story is probably the weakest part but this show has introduced me to so many excellent South American actors I'd otherwise not have heard of.

So many reviews expressing disappointment are surprising to me. This 3rd season basically ends right before the wildfire that the cartel scene in Mexico entered after the economic crash and the exposure of the drug war's phoniness, and reviewers are complaining that they just don't get it. Nothin is wrapped up neatly as this season ends.

The character of General Rebollo said in Ep#9 that neither country wants to fight the war, they only want to give the impression of fighting a war. That seems very true to me. The drug war seems to have been orchestrated to show a bunch of criminals making huge fortunes in a vacuum without the involvement of any government actors in any of the countries in which the story was told.

The imprisonment of the few bosses who end up in prison reveal the obvious fact that none of them will be charged with actual crimes, since trials would reveal the roles played by the Mexican political and business rulers. What developed after the fall of the Juarez and Tijuana cartels was never actually revealed by the news media. Few people really heard anything true regarding what came to be and what actually exists in Mexico today.

If this is the final season of Narcos: Mexico, so be it, but there's still a story to be told.