Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 2, Episode 1 – “Salva El Tigre” (2020)

*A few spoilers for the end of season 1.*

Season 2 of Narcos: Mexico gets off to an excellent start! It’s an almost deceptively exciting episode—there’s less big action than in some we’ve seen, but there are a lot of moving pieces that all intersect in compelling ways within the larger context of a central event. And Diego Luna is just so good!

Félix was able to avoid consequences with the DEA in the season 1 finale—in part by giving up some old friends, in part by his talent for knowing what people want—but even though the operation appears on solid footing now, he’s still dealing with serious issues. As he prepares for his 40^th birthday party, he’s less concerned about the celebration and more about the between-the-lines implications for his business. The DEA, meanwhile, has launched Operation Leyenda to find and take down everyone involved in Kiki’s abduction, torture, and murder. Headed by Walt Breslin, this mission uses dirty, brutal tactics to work their way up the chain of those responsible for Kiki’s death.

We’ll start with the DEA stuff. It’s revealed at the end of the season 1 finale that the show’s narrator is actually Walt, played by Scoot McNairy (a.k.a. Gordon from Halt and Catch Fire.) As an interesting side note, while most of the major characters in the Narcos franchise are real people, Walt is a fictional character. Anyway, Walt and his team are on a vicious vendetta. They know that, after Kiki’s body was recovered in the season finale, not everyone involved went down—just the people that Félix (and more importantly, the government) allowed to go down. But they’re after everyone, and they’ll do whatever they have to in order to achieve that, including some abduction and torture of their own. “If you want to be a lawyer about it, the whole fucking thing was probably illegal,” Walt drawls in the narration, largely unbothered by that fact.

But so far, their investigation has stayed on the periphery of the cartel, so the big power players aren’t yet aware of them. Instead, everyone is congregating for Félix’s birthday, and everyone is bringing their own agendas to the party. Benjamín, urged on by his sister Enedina, wants a larger piece of the pie for Tijuana. Amado shows up to the party without Acosta in tow, and he’s trying to smooth over any suggestion that this is a slight on Acosta’s part. And the Sinaloan guys are champing at the bit to show off their huge, flashy, impractical gift for the understated, discreet Félix.

As I said, for Félix, this party is about connections, logistics, and business, not fun. In the lead-up to it and at the party itself, he’s constantly doing mental calculations on who is/isn’t there and what sort of message it sends. After the events of last season, he’s determined not to be ignored by the politicians, although by now he knows better than to place any trust in them. “Stay sharp,” he says flatly when several governors show up to the party. “They might steal the silverware.”

Luna is excellent throughout, navigating the party like it’s a dangerously high-stakes chess game. Félix has enough power to be sure in his position, but he doesn’t take anything for granted. “Every one of these assholes would put a bullet in my head if they could get away with it,” he remarks as he manages Benjamín, questions Acosta’s absence, and makes a strategic response to the Sinaloans’ ostentatious gift. But all the while, he waits for news of his most anticipated guest’s arrival.

Pacho Herrera, a partner in the Cali cartel, is one of the recurring characters who’s come over from the original Narcos. I love scenes where Félix is dealing directly with Cali, because they always seem to put him on the wrong foot. Even as Félix’s own plaza bosses line up to talk business with him, he has his own business to put to Pacho. Namely, the Colombians owe the Guadalajara cartel $200 million. As is stated, “Powder is fast, cash is slow,” so the cartel has been receiving plenty of shipments of cocaine to traffic but not the payments they’ve earned for their work. Félix lays out this issue as plainly and logically as he can, but Pacho is thoroughly unimpressed. You can always feel the subtle shift in Félix’s response when someone talks down to him, but with Cali, he also knows how powerful and dangerous their organization is, so he’s limited in what he can do. Luna does such a great job with these moments, clearly showing Félix’s reaction to being disrespected while at the same time having to disguise those feelings with the person he’s interacting with.

Joel Fry-days: Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 9 – “The Dance of Dragons” (2015)

*Episode premise spoilers, which includes spoilers from previous episodes*

It’s the penultimate episode of the season, as well as Joel Fry’s final appearance on Game of Thrones. I hadn’t been sure what to expect revisiting these episodes for Joel Fry-days, but I wound up enjoying myself quite a bit. Let’s get into it!

Stannis has faced numerous challenges trying to reach Winterfell amid the coming winter. The Red Woman has told him what price victory demands, and it’s time for Stannis to decide whether he’s willing to pay it. In Dorne, Jaime and Prince Doran discuss arranging Myrcella’s return to King’s Landing. After training to become a Faceless Man, Arya has been given an assignment, but she’s distracted by the arrival of Ser Meryn Trant, one of the names on her list. Daenerys reluctantly attends the Great Games in Meereen with Hizdahr and Tyrion.

• The episode title comes from Shireen, who’s reading a book about the Dance of Dragons at Stannis’s camp. When the episode first aired, the names and details she shares went over my head, as a lot of the Westerosi historical stuff in the franchise does for me. Now, of course, I recognize this history as the events of House of the Dragon. It’s fun to hear her reference names like Rhaenyra and Aegon.
• As soon as Stannis sends Ser Davos back to the Wall with a message, I knew it was that episode and braced myself for it. Although I’d realized it was coming sometime in season 5, this was another instance where I hoped Joel Fry’s episodes didn’t include this particular scene. Still hard to watch.
• Oberyn will always be my favorite Martell, for obvious reasons, but Doran has his moments. I love his response when Ellaria suggests he’s too cowardly to avenge his brother—“You are mother to four of my nieces, girls I love very much. For their sake, I hope you live a long and happy life. Speak to me that way again, and you won’t.”
• Honestly, I’m glad that these episodes skipped so much of Arya’s plot this season. Because despite her great interactions in the early seasons with Sylvio Forel and Jaqen H’ghar, her storyline in Braavos didn’t live up to expectations for me.
• The most affecting part of Arya’s story here was Meryn Trant’s creepiness at the brothel—looking over each woman the madam brings him and saying in a low, gruff voice, “Too old.” :shudder:
• There were different times in the show when I remember liking Ser Jorah Mormont, but these episodes have not been good for him. One thing that really stands out to me is that his efforts to get back in Dany’s favor reflect how little he understands her. Last time, he came to Daenerys “Breaker of Chains” Targaryen with the announcement that he’s brought her the “gift” of a human being in chains. And now in this episode, we see him taking part in the fighting pits for a second time, seemingly not realizing that Dany thinks the fighting pits are cruel and barbaric. My dude, this is not the way to impress her—stop giving her the “I fight and die for your glory, oh glorious queen” puppy eyes. She doesn’t want that!

Before we get into Hizdahr, a quick note: I knew going into this that Joel Fry and Kristian Nairn wouldn’t be sharing any scenes together, given that their storylines were filmed in different countries! So Our Flag Means Death wouldn’t have been any type of reunion for them. But not only do they have no scenes together—they have no episodes together! Nairn happened to not be in either of Fry’s season 4 episodes, and season 5 was the year that we didn’t get anything at all for Bran/Hodor/etc. So despite both having been on Game of Thrones, Fry and Nairn have just about the least possible amount of overlap between them, which I find amusing.

Fry’s last episode is a pretty good one for him. It’s another episode where the Meereen storyline gets the Big Dramatic Ending, but it’s a nice length—we spend about the last fifteen minutes of the episode on the events surrounding the Great Games. And while the fights in the arena provide a lot of the flash, the conversation up on Dany’s viewing platform provides a lot of the meat.

First, let’s set the scene. Daenerys is plainly disgusted to be there. She’s forced, not just to watch, but to be complicit, with Hizdahr reminding her that she needs to clap to signal the start of each fight. Besides Hizdahr, she’s joined by Daario, Missandei, and Tyrion (now her advisor, having been “gifted” to her by Jorah.) Missandei mostly just watches silently, but the other four interact throughout the fights, and the dynamic between all of them is excellent.

Daario is still on his jealousy thing, talking up his own past fighting in the pits and showing off some light-fingered dagger work—like Jorah, he doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that Dany hates the fighting pits and this is not the way to impress her. He physically crowds Hizdahr’s space to talk to Dany and “playfully” jabs his dagger toward Hizdahr as he demonstrates how he used to beat larger opponents. Hizdahr doesn’t really know what to do with this. While his voice and manner stays mostly polite, he’s definitely not the biggest fan of Daario. Early on, when Darrio talks about betting, Hizdahr coolly replies, “Kings and queens never bet on the Games. Perhaps you should go find someone who does.” And when Daario pulls the move with the dagger, Hizdahr shoots Tyrion a slightly nervous look like, What’s the protocol with dealing with this guy?

Technically Tyrion and Hizdahr cross paths at the end of episode 7, but this is the only time where we see them interact. I guess the good thing about Tyrion’s journey across Essos this season is that it means Joel Fry gets to share one lengthy scene with Peter Dinklage. I just love this bit where Hizdahr smiles at the sight of a bloody death, looks over at Tyrion to “enjoy” the moment together, and realizes Tyrion isn’t having any fun. Hizdahr’s love for the grand tradition of the fighting pits is kind of like people who claim that Confederate flags and monuments are about honoring their “proud southern heritage,” and not one of the other people in this scene agrees with him on that. He engages Tyrion in a philosophical discussion about killing and cruelty, but he speaks in the abstract while Tyrion brings it back to something more immediate and real. As Tyrion listens to Hizdahr, he gives Hizdahr his most polite-sounding insult: “My father would have liked you.”

The Dany-Hizdahr conversation is really great too. She challenges his premise that killing and cruelty are necessary for achieving greatness, looking down on the pit and asking, “That is greatness?” In turn, Hizdahr flips the script, comparing it with her power to wield the might of her army and dragons on any city that she decides deserves it.

As usual, any sense that Hizdahr is the voice of reason or moderation here gets uncomfortable, given the overall racial dynamics of the storyline and his position as a former Master. But while he does make valid points about the bloodshed Daenerys can (and has) wrought, the show doesn’t just rubber-stamp his views here. When Hizdahr asks why Dany gets to be the one who decides what constitutes “a good reason” for people to die, Tyrion responds, “You’re an eloquent man. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong. In my experience, eloquent men are right every bit as often as imbeciles.” Fry’s wordless reaction to this is great!

And that’s a wrap on Hizdahr zo Loraq! Final thoughts on Game of Thrones:

Accent Watch

A light RP.

Recommend?

In General – As before, a cautious yes, provided you can handle the strong explicit content. If you don’t want to watch the whole series and are just interested in Joel Fry’s stuff, it might be best to watch his season 4 episodes, then the whole of season 5. Without the in-between episodes that Hizdahr isn’t in, I’m guessing it’d be a mess to try and follow what’s going on in all these storylines.

Joel Fry – I would, yeah. I wouldn’t have expected that going into this rewatch, since Hizdahr didn’t make much of an impression on me the first time around. But this is a really interesting performance, and it’s quite different from anything else I’ve seen from Fry so far.

Warnings

Strong gore/violence (including sexual violence and human sacrifice,) sexual content, strong thematic elements (including incest,) language (including sexist insults,) violence against animals, and drinking.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 1, Episode 10 – “Leyenda” (2018)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

The season 1 finale of Narcos: Mexico goes hard, and it’s just a stellar episode for Diego Luna. He’s excellent the whole season, but the finale gives him so much great material to work with, and he knocks it out of park.

After Kiki’s abduction, the DEA is out for blood. Félix’s government pals, who’ve been helping to keep the wheels of both bureaucracy and justice turning specifically in ways that would benefit the cartel, are now singing a different tune. Their number one priority is protecting their own asses, and they’ll give up anyone to do so. Félix and Don Neto are both forced to go into hiding, while the plaza bosses speculate about what will happen to the cartel if their leaders go down.

I’m going to preface once more that I’m looking at the show’s version of events which, and the narrative it offers is that Félix’s government allies are the ones who abduct and torture Kiki, going against Félix’s advice and bringing the DEA out in force as a result of their ham-fisted, despicably brutal attempt to keep their association with Félix private. As such, when the DEA mobilizes, the government is now all too happy to facilitate the capture of the right narcos, hoping that the Americans won’t dig too deeply into the cartel’s government ties when they’re pacified with some high-profile busts. The DEA is understandably incensed at what’s been done to Kiki, and after a full season of running up against the brick walls of government corruption, the system finally appears to be working for them.

For much of the season, the narcos have kept the upper hand, but now they’re scrambling. Neto blames Félix for their predicament, saying, “We had a good thing with the weed. And it could have gone forever, but it wasn’t enough for you.” But while the top brass is in the DEA’s crosshairs (with some added assists from the government,) the smaller plaza bosses begin to consider the future of the cartel without the likes of Félix, Neto, and Rafa. Especially in Tijuana, where Isabella plays Cassius to Benjamín’s Brutus.

For a man who’s so often so controlled, it’s fascinating to watch Félix having to scrounge and scramble to try and stay ahead of the DEA. He retains his talent for seeing the angles of a situation, bitterly noting that “the men who should be going down are untouchable,” but he’s brought low in a major way. The ex-cop from Sinaloa, who’s worked so hard to buy a seat at an elite table and demand people’s respect with an unflinching attitude and immense riches, now has to beg for help, a place to lie low while he works out his next move.

Quite simply, Luna plays the hell out of all of this. I like that Félix does blame himself for his predicament, but only to the extent that he should have seen the government’s betrayal coming—“I’m the fool who trusted the wrong people,” he says. While he has more self-awareness than Pablo on Narcos, he still places the largest onus on the people who wronged him.

And even when he’s backed into a corner, gun to his head and only one desperate move left, Félix isn’t ready to be counted out. He declares, “Those men sitting in Mexico City think they’re done with me, but I’m not done with them.” I love watching how he works when he’s out of options. He gets so frantic, but not exactly in a helpless way. He knows someone else has all the power in this situation, and he knows that one wrong word will be the end of him, but his urgency is less about panicking and more about his last-ditch determination to be allowed to make his case once more. Luna is riveting in this scene. (For more detailed, spoilery thoughts, I’ve written about this scene before—just be warned that that post also includes an important scene from season 2.)

Another standout scene from the finale finds Félix talking to the captive Kiki, and again, Luna is can’t-take-your-eyes-off-him fantastic. Here, in contrast, Félix is at his most self-assured, his most powerful. He reminds me of a tiger in this scene, all fluid movements and probing eyes as he metaphorically breaks bread with this DEA agent. Kiki quietly urges Félix to let him go, pointing out that he has a family, and Félix replies, almost conversationally, “Why didn’t you mind your own business then?” So cold, but remarkably understated.

So that’s season 1 under our belt! Onto season 2 next week.