Narcos (season 2)


The second season of Narcos, an American crime thriller drama web television series produced and created by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, follows the story of notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine, while also focusing on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, DEA agents, and various opposition entities.
It stars Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar – a Colombian drug lord and the leader of the Medellín Cartel, with Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal, Joanna Christie, Juan Pablo Raba, Diego Cataño, Paulina Gaitán, Paulina García, Bruno Bichir, Raúl Méndez, Manolo Cardona, Cristina Umaña, Damián Alcázar and Eric Lange playing various real life based characters.
All 10 episodes of the season became available for streaming on Netflix on September 2, 2016, and were met with more favorable critical reviews than the first season, with critics particularly praising the performance of Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar. On September 6, 2016, Netflix renewed the series for a third and fourth season.

Synopsis

Season 2 begins where Season 1 ended. Some soldiers find Escobar and his entourage right outside the perimeter of La Catedral, but are too petrified of Escobar to make an arrest. The US sends a new ambassador who brings the CIA into play. At first, there is little change for Escobar as he adjusts to life outside La Catedral since he still has the loyalty of his cartel. However, his control starts to slip since he needs a lot of time and resources to hide from the government. He uses several tricks to avoid being caught. He travels undetected by hiring Limón, a pimp and taxi driver who hires his childhood friend Maritza to sit in the backseat as a decoy while Escobar hides in the trunk and young look-outs report the Search Bloc's attempts to find him. However, as the tide starts to turn against Escobar, Limón and Maritza try to have him arrested by the police and the DEA by having Maritza go to Javier Peña's fiancée's house with intel on Escobar.
In the meantime, the Cali Cartel forms an alliance with the right-wing Castaño brothers, Don Berna, and Judy Moncada, whose husband Kiko was murdered by Escobar in Season 1. Judy vows to have revenge against Escobar after he kills her brother Jaime. In a meeting with the Cali Cartel leaders, Judy reluctantly gives the location of Escobar's drug labs to the Search Bloc, resulting in the arrest of multiple cartel members. Enraged, Escobar ambushes a convoy, killing nearly all of the police officers. Among the dead is the leader of the Search Bloc, Colonel Horacio Carrillo, who had killed Escobar's cousin Gustavo and tracked Escobar for years. Hugo Martínez "Flaco" replaces Carrillo and continues the anti-drug war. Later we learn that Limón was working both sides, selling information to Peña on Escobar's orders and tricking Maritza about the ambush.
The Colombian police and Escobar engage in massive battles, resulting in high tension and unrest in Colombia. Agent Peña starts working with the vigilante death squad "Los Pepes" — who work for the Castaño brothers and, in effect, the Cali Cartel who later kill Valeria Velez and Escobar's lawyer, Fernando Duque. After discovering the Cali Cartel is behind the attacks, Escobar decides to go to war against the Cali Cartel by bombing their goods around Colombia. He sets off a bomb during the wedding reception for Gilberto's daughter, injuring several people, but Gilberto, one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel, and his daughter and companions survive. Angered at Escobar's merciless attack, Gilberto orders his men to kill the remaining men who work for Medellín Cartel. He has Los Pepes follow Escobar's mother, Hermilda, from church and attack the Escobar family in their home, killing Tata's brother, Carlos. Devastated, Escobar attempts to smuggle his family to Germany, but Steve Murphy follows them and has the German customs deport Hermilda, Tata, and her children to Colombia. Enraged, Escobar places a bomb outside a shopping mall near the Presidential Palace in Bogotá, killing hundreds, most of whom are children. The Colombian people turn against Escobar and call for the downfall of his cartel empire. Total war has begun between Escobar's Medellín Cartel and Gilberto's Cali Cartel.
The Cali Cartel meets with León, who agrees to go into business with them, but he is killed when he is of no further use to Cali. Judy plans to seize control of the drug trade and give up her allies to the police, but is betrayed by Berna and the Cali Cartel, so she flees Colombia and becomes an informant for the C.I.A.
Little by little, all of Escobar's men are hunted down and killed. After La Quica and Blackie are caught by the Search Bloc, Escobar goes on the run with Limón. They briefly stay with Abel, Escobar's estranged father. Abel tells Escobar how ashamed he is of his life of crime, so Escobar and Limón leave. In search of money, Limón steals Maritza's earnings and kills her when she threatens to turn him in for a reward. Escobar returns to Medellin with Limón and hides in a safehouse where he celebrates his 44th birthday. When Escobar tries to make contact with his family, the DEA and military track him down via radio triangulation and corner him on the rooftop. In the ensuing chase, Limón is shot as he exits through a window and Escobar is hit multiple times. His injuries are not life-threatening but Trujillo executes him with a shot to the head. Hermilda is devastated by her son's death and Tata meets with the Cali Cartel in a desperate attempt to leave the country. Peña returns to the U.S. and is asked to provide intel against the Cali Cartel.

Cast and characters

Main characters

Reception

The second season of Narcos received more favorable reviews than the first with critics particularly praising the performance of Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 92% positive, based on 16 critic revies: "Narcos' sophomore season manages to elevate the stakes to a gut-wrenching degree in what continues to be a magnificent account of Pablo Escobar's life." On Metacritic, Season 2 holds a score of 76 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". IGN gave the second season a score of 7.4 out of 10 saying it "Good" and reads "It may go overboard with its love of Pablo Escobar, but I can't truly fault the show for taking advantage of its best performer and character – or for scrambling to find an emotional core on a show that can feel rather clinical."
Season two received generally positive reviews from many media outlets. Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club lauded the performance of Moura's and said, "While the show never soft-pedals the havoc Escobar created, it makes him surprisingly sympathetic, thanks in part to Moura’s shrewd, affecting performance." Mark A. Perigard of Boston Herald said, "Moura’s performance anchors this show." Critic Neil Genzlinger of New York Times said, "Mr. Moura is inscrutably brilliant at the center of it all." Writing for IndieWire, Liz Shannon Miller said, "The show has figured out how to balance its ostensible heroes. The buddy cop energy between Peña and Murphy was one of Season 2’s most enjoyable side dishes--enough to make one hope for more." The New York Posts, Robert Rorke said, "Without there’s a gaping hole. So allow yourself to be mesmerized and appalled at one of the most outrageous true crime dramas ever filmed." Emily VanDerWerff of Vox said, "The second season of Narcos, Netflix’s historical drama about drug lord Pablo Escobar and the law enforcement officers who worked to bring him down, is a marked improvement over the first."
Entertainment Weeklys Jeff Jensen also reviewed the series positively saying, "Where season 1 spanned 10 years, season 2 captures Escobar's last days on the loose. Each tightly packed episode moves quickly without sacrificing richness, chronicling the uneasy alliances and gross tactics employed to snare Escobar." Television critic, Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said, "What works in the early going of season two is that the fall is almost always more thrilling, if not engaging, than the buildup. Escobar senses the loss of power and Moura does some of his best work as viewers read the worry and interior thinking on his face." John Anderson of Wall Street Journal wrote, "The sense of desperation among all the characters is heightened; the stakes are higher; the politics more sordid. Other aspects of the series, however, have remained disappointingly the same." However, Writing for Collider Chris Cabin expressed that, "There are potent and provocative ideas that lie frustratingly dormant throughout this series, which seems to be just happy to play a competent but only occasionally compelling Michael Mann riff.