57. "it’s damn entertaining almost in spite of itself. " In response to In response to 0
S2 can’t rely on pure autobiography and newsreels to fill up 10 episodes, so the focus turns to how much the drug war, and the pursuit of an enemy, takes out of you.
nearly the entire cast has fallen in a hole so dark, they can’t even tell how deep it is. Pena loses his credibility on both sides. Murphy loses his family. Gaviria loses his decency. Carrillo loses his life. Pablo loses everything but his name, which I suppose was always most important -- here we are, two decades after his death, reminiscing about his life through 20 hours of TV.
the format, however, remains very pastiche. too many scenes ape a better drama, from Goodfellas to The Sopranos. and there’s those redundant plot points:
* “we’re about to catch Pablo…next episode” * political vs. populist push-pull on how to handle Pablo. * small vignette showing innocent person, which is an obvious prelude to them becoming a collateral casualty in the drug war
so yeah, entertaining binge-watching for a long week or weekend -- I look at the series as a vehicle for Wagner Moura, who was excellent (I couldn’t tell you about the accent) and worth watching on his own. too bad the rest of the material never really got close to his performance.