Como La Flor
Episode 2 of Narcos: Mexico Season 3 starts with Walt briefing the team on their latest operation. With the FBI helping with 24 hour intel, they’re going to run this off-the-books, intent on making it look like Amado has an El Paso problem. In Tijuana, our narrator, Angela, shows up to work. She’s a reporter as it turns out, and although she’s assigned to the culture section of the paper, she has an interest in a big wedding featuring Enedina Arrelano and a prominent attorney called Claudio. This seems to be the beginning of something much bigger, but it largely flies under the radar with this paper. As the government owns the media, finding the truth – and publishing it – are hard to come by in Mexico. Andrea just so happens to work for one of the few good ones in the country, publishing their papers in San Diego and then moving it back over the border to give out by hand. Andrea refuses to listen to her superior though and continues to investigate the wedding further. Waiting outside the church, while this wedding ceremony gets underway, she manages to squeeze some info from the choir girls. It turns out Father Baiz is pretty close to the family and this wedding appears to be a way of bringing order back to the cartels. Now, the Gulf Cartel and the Tijuanas are the big players here; the ones reaping the biggest benefits from the ongoing drug boom, but they’re not exactly kissing cousins. They actively hate each other but it doesn’t stop them from both showing up at the wedding. At the very bottom of this hierarchy though happens to be the Sinaloan’s, who are squeezed out of every dime on Benjamin’s orders. Joaquin (El Chapo) has no access to the United States and is forced to smile through whatever shitstorm Benjamin and his guys throw his way. As a side note, El Chapo is a three season crime drama that dives into his story in a lot more detail, and it’s also on Netflix too. Not everything is rosy at the wedding, aside from an ill-advised joke from El Rayo. Unfortunately, he’s taken out back by Romeo and a few other men and taught a lesson. Andrea happens to be staking the place out and watches them leave. Unfortunately, she can’t get near them thanks to red-hot security on the scene. During her failed chat with the security guard, she misses El Rayo being mercilessly drowned in a pond out back by Romeo and his buddies. Andrea does, however, manage to jot down a list of names for people coming and going at the wedding. One of those happens to be Judge Soto, accompanied by his wife. Now, their son is pretty chummy with Ramon too, and later on, at a club, it would appear as if he’s being buttered up to join the gang, especially when a drunk punter is beaten down by messing up their new trainers. Meanwhile, Walt’s mission doesn’t go to plan either. Two detectives, Clark and Gomez, show up and mention how Valdez is missing. This could well be connected to a whole bunch of other missing people – the owners of these lots. As his heart sinks, Walk shows up with the other officers but they’re too late. The whole lot has been completely cleared out and they’ve lost their chance to strike. Four months worth of work tumbles down the drain, leaving Walt a frustrated mess. In fact, Jaime tells him to take the rest of the week off, given his priority is winning rather than levelling the playing field and doing their best. Earlier in the episode Dani was given her dream job in Chicago, but Walt was reluctant to let her take it. Well, now that this operation is a bust he decides to take her up on this offer and move, determined to make a fresh start and join the Chicago DEA instead. Meanwhile, Manny feeds back to Amado that they’ve managed to move all the gear out of El Paso and the operation was a success. All the shops are closed for good. Amado is a smart cat and knew ahead of time that Walt and the other officers would move on them. Will he continue to evade the authorities?
The Episode Review
The second episode of Narcos: Mexico tightens things up as Walt’s operation is a bust and Amado moves quicker than his counterpart. Most of the chapter is taken up with this big wedding, as we catch a glimpse of Andrea and her investigative skills too. Through her we learn more about the cartel and the inner workings of these gangs, which helps to add more context to what’s going on. The narration works well alongside this too, although it’s clear that the main conflict at play is still Amado and Walt. It looks like the latter is about to get a fresh start but how long that will last remains to be seen. For now, the wheels are set into motion and it’s only a matter of time before everything explodes into a messy cocktail of blood, gunshots and drugs. Roll on the next episode!
