Narcos: Mexico: Season 2, Episode 3 – “Ruben Zuno Arce” (2020)

This is an important episode, as we see different elements of the plot starting to affect one another. We also see hints of Félix’s weaknesses beyond his business concerns. Forward movement happens on all the major plots.

Walt’s team sets their sights on their next target, and their operation has now gotten them on Félix’s radar. In between juggling inter-plaza squabbles, Félix tries to shore up protection for the cartel against the Americans. Elsewhere, Amado reluctantly helps Acosta in his efforts to end an old feud once and for all.

I’ve said before that Amado and Acosta make an interesting onscreen pair, and in this episode, Acosta puts Amado through it. It’s not just that they’re made to remove a guy from his hospital bedroom and beat him for information, and it’s not just that Acosta is pulling Amado into an armed standoff. It’s that Amado is expected to do all these things without Acosta telling him anything. When Amado first pushes him for context at the hospital, Acosta completely ignores it, instead replying, “Just watch my back.” Later in the episode, Acosta tells him, “Enough with the questions,” and Amado explodes, “Then give me some answers!”

The next move is made in the escalating tensions between Tijuana and Sinaloa. At his sister’s urging, Benjamín takes their grievances to Félix in the hopes of securing a better position for their family. After Benjamín thanks Enedina for her suggestions, she replies pointedly, “I’ve got lots of good ideas.” She’s been a good addition this season. As we saw with Isabella in season 1, there are women in this ecosystem who have the intelligence, ambition, and ruthlessness needed for the cartel, but they’re being shut out from being major players. It can be a bit “you could be a great drug trafficker, but sexism is holding you back!”, but I like it when stories show flawed or amoral characters experiencing bigotry. After all, it’s not something that only happens to the blameless.

As per the title, Walt’s team is now after Ruben Zuno Arce. He’s Félix’s friend who introduced him to his uncle in government in season 1, and even though he isn’t that important in and of himself, he’s a very tangible link to some of the big fish the DEA hope to catch, including Félix as well as a number of government officials. If they can get Zuno in their pocket, they stand to open all manner of doors.

Félix is definitely rattled by what he’s hearing of this American operation, but he’s doing his best to convey strength within that, coldly telling his bought-and-paid-for DFS leader to take care of this for him and standing firm against suggestions that he go into hiding. Knowing that the DEA is still on the warpath would be bad news for him under any circumstances, but he’s especially focused on his plans to make an important move with Colombia and doesn’t want anything to get in the way of that.

It's while he’s dealing with all this that he gets Benjamín’s call about the Sinaloans. In what might be Félix’s motto for keeping the cartel together, he tells his nephew, “Jealousy hurts business. Money is lost. This comes to an end, today.” You can feel how done he is in this conversation—if everyone would just put their personal shit aside, they could all get on with raking in money hand over fist, but no one seems to care about that but him.

Another bold move Félix makes to protect the cartel comes when he confronts his government partner directly. Much like his interactions with Cali always seem to back him into a corner, his interactions with the government are frequently a balancing act of dominance and submission. Félix is very assertive in this episode, reminding Mr. X, “You’re going nowhere without my money,” as he insists that the government do their part to keep the DEA away. At the same time, though, he has to keep his cool and not rise to the bait of Mr. X’s insults. Mr. X tells him to lay low, saying, “Run off. Scurry into the hole rats like you crawled out of.” Some of this, yes, is about Félix being a criminal, but it also has a strong classist undercurrent. Félix isn’t just a “rat” because he’s a drug trafficker; his government partner wants to remind him that, no matter how much money he earns, he’ll always be trash simply because of where he comes from. When Félix asks Mr. X what he knows about ancient Rome, borrowing an analogy from the previous episode, he immediately sneers, “I guarantee [I know] more than you.” And even though Félix knows how powerful he is and how much he’s accomplished, he needs to respond evenly, “I’m sure you do.” It’s fascinating to watch how he navigates this rage-inducing dynamic—the way Diego Luna plays it, it’s as if we the audience can see the reaction that Félix isn’t showing to the person who’s insulting him. I’m not sure how he manages that, but it’s really effective.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 2, Episode 2 – “Alea lacta Est” (2020)

My first time watching Narcos: Mexico, I remember I really enjoyed season 1, and of course Diego Luna’s performance was excellent, but season 2 was when things kicked it up a notch. This is a great episode, even as we’re still laying the groundwork for what’s to come.

Félix travels to meet with an opium trafficker from eastern Mexico, but Juan Nepomuceno Guerra’s “let’s get to know each other” approach tests the narco’s business-minded patience. When Amado learns that Acosta has gone awol in Juarez, the search for his boss takes him across the border. In Tijuana, Benjamín tries to hold the line despite increasing disrespect from their partners in Sinaloa and Enedina urging the family to make a deal in the States for themselves. And Walt’s team have abducted Sergio Verdin, ex-DFS and one of the chief men who tortured Kiki, but trying to interrogate a skilled interrogator proves difficult.

There are a good number of moving parts in this episode, and each element works well. Last season, we saw Amado clashing a little with Acosta in Juarez but ultimately coming to respect the old trafficker. In this episode, Acosta is causing headaches for him, disappearing without a word and grinding their plaza to a halt. When he finds out Acosta has gone to Texas, Amado is both annoyed and wary as he crosses the border to try and retrieve his boss. These two are always an interesting pair, because Amado often presents as smooth in a low-key way and just a little intimidating, but Acosta is completely immune to him. When he introduces Amado to his gringa girlfriend Mimi, Acosta refers to his all-black wardrobe explaining, “He’s always dressed like this. Dressed like a crow.”

Benjamín has been not-so-quietly seething for a while over the Sinaloans. They came into the cartel on the growing side, back when they were trafficking marijuana, and because they’re now running cocaine, a plaza that isn’t on the border might feel surplus to requirements. But they have a home connection to Félix, so they stick around, using Tijuana’s warehouses and trucks for their share of the product. The way Benjamín sees it, they should either grovel for the privilege of sharing Tijuana’s stuff, or they should get the hell out. Needless to say, the Sinaloans don’t see it that way. Tensions escalate in this episode, and all the while, Enedina is doing her best Lady Macbeth, encouraging him to make direct arrangements with American dealers behind Félix’s back.

Over with Walt’s crew, they’ve bitten off much more than they can chew. Walt explains in voiceover, “We [Americans] wrote the fucking book on interrogation,” and now trying to interrogate Verdin, who was trained by the CIA, is more than they bargained for. These scenes are so well done—it’s almost embarrassing to watch Walt just fecklessly punching Verdin and saying, “Give me the name,” over and over. He tires himself out long before Verdin breaks, leaving their captive with most of the chips in this situation. Kidnapping the doctor who administered adrenaline to Kiki was one thing. This is a whole different ball game.

Félix goes to meet Juan Nepomuceno Guerra as a man on a mission. He’s someone who almost always has an agenda or a strategy, and he’s thrown off when he encounters someone who seems impervious to that. Don Juan assures him that, while they will get to the business talk eventually, “First, we must talk life.” What Félix envisioned as a focused meeting turns into an all-day affair, complete with a big family party and Don Juan showing him the bridge he takes to traffic opium. Félix doesn’t push too hard, quickly realizing that won’t get him what he wants, but his body language makes it evident that he’s on edge the whole time. Diego Luna does a nice job of continually showing us where Félix’s head is, even as he’s hanging more in the background of a scene.

Félix has always been good at tailoring his approach to give people what they want, but Don Juan is a tough nut for him to crack. Fundamentally, he doesn’t particularly want anything Félix has to offer. Opium is a comparatively safe, reliable product that he grows himself and has control over, and he already has all the money he needs. He’s an older man who doesn’t really get caught up in Félix’s vision of the future. But Félix has a big idea that hinges on Don Juan’s partnership. So how can he convince him?

Throughout much of the episode, Luna’s performance is very understated as Félix hangs back, observing things and trying to figure out how to put his plan into action. But near the end, he has a big spotlight moment as he gives his final pitch to Don Juan. It’s a little reminiscent of Félix’s scene with Pablo Escobar in season 1, where we see him strip back the logic and the numbers and really get real with someone. We see the frequently unflappable man show his passion—it’s a wonderful scene, and Luna is incredible in it.

Joel Fry-days: Death in Paradise: Series 4, Episode 2 (2015)

I’ve been aware of Death in Paradise as a long-running British murder mystery show—when you spend enough time on IMDb, you get used to seeing it pop up on British actors’ pages, along with Midsomer Murders, Marple or Poirot, and stuff like that. This is the first episode of it that I’ve actually watched, though.

Very quickly, the series is set on Saint Marie, a fictional Caribbean island that’s part of the British Commonwealth. It follows the local police force, headed by a white British inspector from Scotland Yard. By series 4, that’s DI Humphrey Goodman. In this episode, he leads his team on investigating a puzzling locked-room mystery involving the murder of a surf instructor.

Besides Joel Fry, there are a few other familiar faces in the cast. Goodman is played by Kris Marshall, who I remember best from playing the horny guy desperate to go to the U.S. in Love, Actually (on the grounds that American girls go wild for sexy English accents.) Needless to say, this is a very different role for him. His fellow officers describe Goodman as “brilliant” but “very English,” a euphemistic catchall for his various eccentricities. It’s kind of standard detective stuff: he takes notes at the crime scene on scratch paper despite offers to borrow a notepad, he climbs onto the counter to examine something while another officer is sharing his theory, and he lapses into non sequiturs while musing on the case. And if we want to get really specific about it, he does a Columbo-esque, “Oh, one last thing,” after his initial meeting with the main suspects, and the episode wraps up with a Miss Marple-style “gather everyone together so I can dramatically explain how I solved the case.”

The murdered surf instructor, Jake, is played by Dean Lennox Kelley—I’ve seen him in all kinds of things now, ranging from Shadow and Bone to guest-starring as Shakespeare on new Who, but I still know him best as Kev on Shameless. And Jake’s best friend Karl is played by Will Mellor, who worked with Joel Fry on White Van Man! That’s right, it’s Ollie himself!

The episode is all right. Rather helpfully for me, one of the officers, Florence, was new for series 4, so there are multiple scenes of other characters giving her the lay of the land, particularly about Goodman and how he operates. Not that it’s a difficult show to get a feel for, but I appreciate the added context as I jump into the middle. Some interesting stuff with the mystery, although I guessed a major part of the resolution some time before Goodman got there and the final twist feels too out-there for me.. Most of the characters on the scene at the time of the murder—Jake’s wife, best friend, and surfing students—have a potential motive, while the locked-room aspect of the mystery keeps posing a challenge for the police. 

Joel Fry plays Steve Taylor, an up-and-coming pro surfer who’d been working on some finer points with Jake. While the police force is mostly Black islanders led by the white English Goodman, Steve is the only “local boy” in the group of suspects, surrounded by white English expats and tourists. The racial dynamics on either side aren’t noted at all, but I noticed it.

Although most of his screentime is either at the start or the end of the episode, the subject of Steve comes up a lot for the police during the investigation. The initial rundown of the suspects mentions that he’s had “the odd run-in as a juvenile, but nothing recent,” and that description kind of follows him through the story. It’s the running question—can he be trusted? Has he really cleaned up his act? But we never learn about what kind of past run-ins Steve had with the law, so we don’t know if it was any type of violent crime. Whatever it is, it’s not enough for the police to really zero in on him over the other suspects, and as a result, they talk about him more often than they talk to him. Also, we see them question the others but search Steve’s van.

It’s hard to review an actor’s guest appearance in a crime procedural without getting into spoilers, so I’ll stay kind of general. I like Steve’s reaction during the discovery of the murder. When Goodman is initially interviewing the whole group together, I like that Steve feels the need to clarify to the cops that he wasn’t really one of Jake’s students, saying, “Actually, I’m a pro. I’m just here for some fine-tuning with the main man.” His later interactions with the police feel logical for what little we know about his character, and Fry’s performance makes them feel genuine. And since it’s a murder mystery that’s kind of a light dramedy, we get some nice physicality with a fun bit of gangly running!

Accent Watch

Caribbean. I’m not familiar enough to pinpoint anything more specific than that, and again, Saint Marie isn’t a real island. I’ll admit, to my untrained ears, it sounds kind of dubious.

Recommend?

In General - Soft maybe, if you’re into detective procedurals. It struck me as fine.

Joel Fry - Not a must, since his role is fairly small. It’s still enjoyable, though.

Warnings

Violence, sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements.