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Narcos Season 3 Review

Spoilers for Season 2 Ahead!
     Pablo Escobar is dead.  However, that doesn’t mean the DEA can rest easy. Escobar’s fiercest rivals, the Cali Cartel have taken the mantle as the world’s top cocaine distributor.  That means they’re public enemy number one in the eyes of the United States government.  This season is very good but doesn’t live up to the first two seasons.
    The Cali Cartel is a cunning foe for agent Javier Pena.  Unlike Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel, the Cali Cartel keeps a low profile. Instead of assassinating politicians like the Medellin Cartel, the Cali Cartel bribes them.  Instead committing brazen acts of murder against their rivals the Cali Cartel simply kills and dispose of their rivals in secrecy.  They also have a security team that monitors law enforcement which makes their leaders almost impossible to detect.  The leaders of the Cali Cartel also have a get out of jail free card that they can use at any time due to their negotiations with the Colombian government, which wants to avoid more bloodshed. The Cali Cartel’s ultimate goal is to make as much money as they can before they get out of the drug business in six months and turn themselves in for a slap on the wrist.  However, greed and egos get in the way of the Cali Cartel accomplishing this.
    Unlike Pablo Escobar in the first two season, The Cali Cartel does not feel nearly as threatening.  The fight to bring them down doesn’t feel nearly as epic as the hunt to kill Escobar.  Then yet again maybe that was the whole point.  Escobar held the entire of country of Colombia in fear over his actions.  The Cali Cartel are largely underground and very rarely in this season do the people of Colombia get caught up in the crossfire.  When they do it winds up costing the Cali Cartel dearly.       
    
    Steve Murphy isn’t present in this season because in real life he transferred out of Colombia.  This leaves Javier Pena the show’s main protagonist.  I personally enjoyed the chemistry that Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook had in the first two seasons but Pedro Pascal is more than capable of carrying the show on his own.  Focusing on one character allows the show’s just how far Pena has sunk.  Pena in this show is so focused on fighting the unwinnable War on Drugs that he does several unsavory things in order to takedown the Cali Cartel.  This brings up another issue, what are Pena’s true motivations?  Does he genuinely want to do good or does he just want to chalk up a win against the Cali Cartel?
    Another critique I have of this season is the bending of truth that the writers have probably done on this season.  Some of the things that happen in this season seem like they have been more embellished than in the past two. There’s also a female character in the show that is the lover of one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel that is utterly unnecessary to the plot. The actress did a fine job in the role but I am not really sure what the purpose of this character was and seeing that Narcos season four will take place in Mexico I don’t think her story will have a conclusion that makes sense.  This did not affect my enjoyment of the show but I am worried that if this trend continues it may hurt the overall of Narcos in the future.
    While Narcos season three is not nearly as good as the first two seasons I thoroughly enjoyed it and I binged watched it in two days.

    Rating:  ****
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