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Finished Season 2 and two words sum it up

posted 8 years ago by badjesus
7 replies | jump to latest

Awe & Melancholy.
Awe:something I've felt for the show since episode 1, Narcos is something that should be watched and experienced not just told about.
Melancholy: just like finishing a good book i feel i've said goodbye to a good friend.
To say the production, acting writing, etc were outstanding would be redundant. One thing i appreciated was the attention to detail, something unparalleled in recent television. The intermingling of real footage added to its authenticity making it akin to more a docudrama than straight narrative. From simple things like the position of Escobar's body at the end, the food they ate, the beer they drank, the way people walked and even picked up their trousers as they rose from a chair!...BRILLIANT! I don't see any current roles for Wagner Moura on IMBD but i would watch him in a 7 hour documentary about ?The Bus? if he hosted it lol! One thing i noticed myself experiencing (something I'm certain most do when watching Narcos) is my sympathy extended more for Pablo?s plight and his family's than that of the DEA Agents and Colombian Government in finding him. This is the obvious result of the superb acting by Paulina Gaitan and Wagner Moura, look any woman concerned for the well being of her children will draw the sympathy from the most ardent of critics, not to mention the love a Father has for his family...but that sympathy is a red herring and in regards to the REAL Pablo Escobar a fallacy. Imagine your 9 year old daughter was in one of the countless bombed buildings, your spouse aboard the passenger plane brought down, your 20 year old son fresh out of the Colombian Academy shot to death on a city street, etc...and knowing that women like his Wife and Mother, despite ALL their denial, KNEW he was responsible for these atrocities and destruction of families did nothing..then one's sympathy for them soon evaporates; or at least it should. If the show had one fault i believe that it didn't make Pablo the truly evil man that he was. Though we watch him orchestrate murders, bombings, etc..we don't feel a gut-hatred for him like we would for an SS Officer or Middle Eastern Terrorist. Is it because were invited to ?Escobar Sunday Meals??...perhaps, however when it REALLY struck me how much of a bastard Pablo was happened in Season 1 when his 2 Socorios are lookin for the young Mother at her home and one asks what to do with ?the baby? an the other replied ?The Boss said EVERYBODY?...Now thankfully the child wasn't harmed but how many were slain by his indirect hand via bombings or life destroyed by the loss of a parent?? if it were up to Pablo...that newborn child would be dead...THAT was the REAL Pablo Escobar.
I'll miss the show. Think i'll have some fried bananas and white rice for lunch.

[–] tookieuk 8 years ago

Great post, really summed up the whole feel of the series, which is one of the best I have ever seen.

[–] badjesus 8 years ago

Thanx Man! I'll miss that opening track they play at the start, knowing i was in for some amazining 54 minutes! Think ill watch that clip from Season 1 Episode 1 for the 109x tonight in Memoriam for the show (NOT Pablo! lol). It's when Pablo and his Cousin are stopped by Military Police on the bridge and Pablo threatens them by merely KNOWING the names (already!) of not only the solders but their families TOO! An amazing 5 minutes of Film!

[–] britjoz 8 years ago

Excellent post.

Wagner Moura could read the telephone directory and I'd pay good money to see it.

[–] badjesus 8 years ago

HA! I said somethin similar about Sam Rockwell re: Mr. Right, (an otherwise mediocre film minus Sam but WITH?? Pure Awesomeness!

"Sam Rockwell could make a 4 hour Documentary on The Bus FASCINATING! ...and akin to Bubba and Shrimp share my extensive riveting knowledge with those "fortunate enough" to sit beside me on RIDE HOME!: "Ya got your School Bus, Short Bus, Prison Bus, Yellow Bus..."
One more LOL i know this is NARCO territory but who doesn't love Sam Rockwel? lol:

"I'd watch Sam Rockwell's 6 Episode Series on the FOOT & TOENAIL: 1. Cutting: Round or Across? 2. Big Toe: Foot's Jupiter. 3. Toe?s Index: The Middle Child. 4. Pinky: Evolution?s Spare Finger? 5. Stubbed. 6. No Chalkboard?
...but yes Narcos: Both Season 2 of Narcos and Fargo had me captivated like the final episodes of Breaking Bad did Sorta makes one wish they were Pablo's son..or at minimum a lackey Soldier Socorio! $$, Women, All ya can eat Fried Plantains, etc....of course there's the occasional decapitations to perform, risk of violent death but all jobs have their ?goods n? bads?.?

[–] Serenity45 8 years ago

Agreed. Bloody awesome. And the melancholia sets in again.

When I watched the first season I was in awe and shock, I hadn't enjoyed anything so much since Battlestar Gallactica. And everything after NARCOS was just not good enough. No matter what I watched, nothing was good enough; I just wanted more NARCOS !

NARCOS is like a magnet, or a force that sucks you in and wont let go.

If there is any worry now, it is will the next few seasons live up to the first 2 ? Will the Cali Cartel be as mesmerizing as Escobar ? Time will tell but I will certainly watch to see.

I'm not sure the intension was to glamourize Escobar or have him be rooted for but if you love the show, you love the characters. I'm sure the love was more for the simply stunning story telling as opposed to the characters they were based upon.

Of course I have a few complaints and a few things that I welcomed more than expected.

For me this season I was impressed by Don Berna the most, he came from no where and stole the scenes he was in.

I was upset about Carillo though, he was my favourite character last season but this time around he was completely ruined by killing a young boy. When he pulled that trigger, I couldn't move in horror. I felt there wasn't any need for it and I could no longer see him as a good guy.

I'm glad they kept Escobar's father storyline in, his own father telling him he was ashamed of him for who he was and what he had done was much needed because his mother and wife were wearing blinkers obviously.

I think for me the scene where he is on the phone with Tata where she is pleading with him to give himself up and she brings up their children, is when we saw him the most real, as a selfish man who only cared about himself. He had the option to give himself up so that his children could get out of the country and be safe but he didn't.

Another point is how he always thought "others" were the bad guys and were doing bad things and were evil, i.e. the police, and how he was doing good, was another truth in that terrorists believe they are right. That their killing is justified.

Anyway back to the empty feeling lol

[–] Arm_the_Masses 8 years ago

I've made a post about this, but I can't see how a third and fourth season can be anywhere near as big a draw as the first two. This is obviously due to the mesmerizing narrative pull of the story of Pablo Escobar. It's a bit like making a show about Al Capone and the fight on corruption and organized crime in Chicago in the 30s and then, after Capone is locked up, we follow the same law enforcement officers fight on against other lesser known crime figures... It just becomes much less interesting to people in the main stream I think.

Regarding the OP I'd like to touch on your point on Escobar not bringing out gut wrenching hate in us, well, I think it's much more interesting because of this. When we think of people as merely good or evil then it's much too narrow. And honestly, not very interesting. Was Pablo responsible for ruthless evil deeds? Yes, absolutely. And I don't feel like they shy away from that in the show. And we do get flashes of absolute hatred towards him. For instances I thought it was fairly disgusting how he treated Jaime and lured him on to the Avianca plane. Now I don't know how accurate that was... was Jaime really this angelical goodie-goodie boy with a newborn? It did seem a bit forced. But regardless, for what it was I think that was a key point in the show where we got to see just how insanely vicious and ruthless - and yes, evil - Escobar was.

At the end you really saw through his bull$hit, his tantrums about the evil government smearing him and his viewing himself as the victim of the prejudgment of the elite in Columbia. He basically excused himself and his actions by this but I don't think the show buys into this. And honestly, he was a loving father at the same time. He was also just a guy that mourned the loss of his best friend and cousin. He did have the capability of compassion in terms of helping the poor. Now that this was at least in part, if not fully, in order to maneuvre politically is not something that the show tries to shy away from imo. I think whenever a story, be that a book, film, series or whatnot, is able to portray the duality of good and evil in the same person it's very fascinating and much more so than just evil man does evil deed and is eventually punished by good guys.

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

[–] rusty985 8 years ago

ever consider having any kind of punctuation.....capitalization......sentence or paragraph breaks or any other kind of writing beyond a fifth grade level so that normal individuals can read what you have to say......would be BRILLIANT if you did...why not? it would be good? yes?