*Episode premise spoilers, which include a few spoilers from previous season 2 episodes.*
Another strong episode. Not as many moving pieces as some—today, the action is centered around a few main plots, with different characters moving in and out of each one.
Walt’s team has received intel about the friction between Sinaloa and Tijuana, and they have a prime opportunity: with the Sinaloans removing all their cocaine from the Tijuana plaza’s warehouse, they hope to catch the Sinaloans trying to move it across the border. While that goes on, Enedina and Isabella make moves on their own operation. Meanwhile, Félix finally has everything in place to get the Colombians where he wants them, and he takes Amado along with him to the meeting. But as we’ve seen with Félix’s dealings with Cali in the past, things don’t go as expected.
Chapo’s big plan in the last episode, of course, was to construct a tunnel to cross the border from below. The Sinaloans toil to set their plan in motion, but as they move their coke, they have both the DEA and a resentful Benjamín on their tail. It’s interesting to watch Walt’s team investigate here. Part of what’s been holding them back is their superior attitude toward some of the traffickers they’re trying to bring down, and we get some nice dramatic irony as we see them laugh about the prospect of the Sinaloans simply trying to drive trucks full of cocaine across the border, when we the audience know what they’re really up to.
Isabella can be a frustrating character. Her whole thing in season 1 was about wanting to be a player, getting angry when she felt like Félix strung her along without ever really intending to give her her due. But watching her try to build her own enterprise this season, her plays aren’t thought through very well; it’s only now that she’s partnering with Enedina that things are starting to happen. Isabella never seems to think big enough, while Enedina is the one who comes up with a savvy, strategic plan. Don’t get me wrong—I think sexism played a definite role in Félix dismissing her in season 1. But I also think he probably recognized that she has more ambition than ingenuity and wasn’t overly useful to him beyond her connections.
In the first half of the episode, we see Félix more from Amado’s perspective than his own, which makes for an interesting shift. Amado is jumpy when Félix shows up unannounced in Juarez, and he quickly tries to cover for Acosta, then gets swept off on a mysterious trip to Panama. We often see how the plaza bosses are intimidated by Félix as they talk about him in their interactions amongst themselves, but when Félix is in the scene, he’s typically the focal point character. Following Amado in these early scenes gives a different insight into him.
This is an instance where Félix’s careful calculations fail him, because they depend on people doing the logical thing. And in their business, where power often has greater currency than money, that just isn’t something he can rely on.
Not that Félix is entirely driven by financial sense, of course. He’s been quietly seething over the Colombians all season, and he thinks he finally has them where he wants them, that he can force their hand into more favorable terms for his cartel. If anything, based on his past dealings with Cali, he’s too confident, calmly telling Amado, “I’ll explain the Colombians’ future to them.” That’s why, when the rug gets pulled out from under him, it hits so hard.
Once again, Diego Luna is fantastic, but in an entirely different way than he was in episode 4. There, Félix knew he was on thin ice from the start with the CIA but had to walk into the belly of the beast anyway, risking his neck with his eyes wide open. Here, he thinks he’s realizing the culmination of months of planning, only for Pacho to knock him so casually off kilter. As with Stechner in the last episode, there’s a sense that Pacho is enjoying taunting Félix, although he’s doing it in a more unspoken manner. And Félix, in turn, has to try not to react, not to let the Colombians see him get rattled.
It's not until after he gets home that he lets his fury out. Félix is definitely a character who holds grudges, but he frequently keeps them contained, plotting instead of lashing out. In this episode, we get one of the rare examples of him truly exploding at someone, venting his anger at the weak link in his chain. He’s incensed about the disrespect, but also the pure fact that someone has upset his carefully laid-out plan, going for the easy money grab and quick dig rather than sticking with his meticulous long-term payout. And this outburst doesn’t bring him any satisfaction or resolution—when he puts down the phone, he’s plainly in distress, physically sick as he tries to figure out what he’s going to do next.
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