"Narcos: Mexico" El Padrino (TV Episode 2018) Poster

(TV Series)

(2018)

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8/10
Things Start to Take Shape
Samuel-Shovel10 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In "El Padrino" Kiki goes undercover as a day laborer and discovers a giant pot growing operation outside of Guadalajara. Miguel struggles to keep all sides happy in his coalition and seeks the advice of his mentor. Miguel throws a swanky party for the wedding of the man he used to bodyguard and all the crimelords and political bigwigs are there. Knapp and Sears stumble across this and gather photos. The DEA discovers there maybe an organized method behind the stabilization in weed prices and trafficking.

Things are starting to take shape this season. I think the most interesting storyline for me is watching Miguel try to juggle all the different sides to this complex operation. Everyone wants a little piece of the pie and Miguel can't really grasp the power he wants to. There always seems to be someone up the totem pole above him. Rafael seems busy just pining after one particular girl while Miguel deals with the business side of things.
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7/10
Good episode, some miscasting
silverton-3795923 October 2022
With the sinsemilla plantation established, the money has been flowing and with money comes conflict. The DFS big shots want to act as if they established the whole project and that they own it all. Felix puts one of them in his place, or at least starts to do so.

The cast is a very strong one, with some of the best Latin actors from North, Central and South America. The same can't be said of the American cast members. So far the American characters have been DEA and State dept. Personnel, which makes them a group of arrogant and unlikable characters. One big fail in the casting is Michael Pena. Pena is a good actor, as long as his role is comedic or that of a weakling, or both.

Pena can't play a strong character. In every role he plays, he brings his signature look of a spoiled child, on the verge of whining about something. As Enrique Camarena, his character should be a ruthless man, arrogant, of course, but with a violent temper and a lack of fear. Pena can't pull that off. Being pouty and whining doesn't make a DEA agent dangerous enough to get the attention of dangerous men like the Plaza bosses.

Unless the intention of the show creators is to show DEA agents in Mexico as arrogant, clueless meddlers, then the people crafting the story have failed somewhat. All of that aside, Narcos: Mexico is an engrossing story with a good cast and excellent production values.

At first, I didn't think I would be able to buy Diego Luna in the role of El Padrino, but he does a fine job of creating a character which is obviously fictitious but still a fitting part of the partially fictionalized story. Luna manages to bring a different facet of his real self into view. He's an actor who could be hampered by his youthful appearance, but he makes it work in favor of the character he's playing.

Tenoch Huerta turns in a journeyman's performance as Rafa Quintero. Joachin Cosio is a perfectly believable Don Neto, the respected survivor among Sinaloan trafficantes who takes his place as Felix's second in command.

To me, the two best and most able members of the cast are. Jose Maria Yazpik as Amado "Lord of the Skies" Carrillo Fuentes at a point in history when he was still just a pilot; and Gerado Taracena as Pablo Acosta,the Plaza boss of Juarez who sees himself as a bandido rather than a trafficante. The two characters are credibly written and very well portrayed by the actors in the roles.

I enjoy Narcos: Mexico even more than I enjoyed Narcos. Both are good series.
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7/10
El Padrino
bobcobb30112 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
We had a close call with our hero almost being caught during his undercover mission and we also had some comedy thrown in as well courtesy of Scarface.

It was a good episode, but the runtime for this show is simply too long. This did not need to be as long as an episode as it was to get the point across which hurt my review a bit.
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Excellent cinematography and set design
TheDonaldofDoom27 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This extended-length episode of Narcos has all the qualities that makes us watch this show. The visual impressed me the most, with beautiful and immersive shots set in the desert showing us the life of the marijuana pickers. And the wedding Gallardo attends, with its great cinematography and background music, truly immersed me.

It's not just good camerawork though; this episode is full of development of characters and plot. For Gallardo, it's about staying at the top. He faces blackmail, but he uses his good judgement to deal with it in a clever way. We see more of Gallardo's personality at the wedding. His reaction to the governor's son's speech shows in a subtle way how he wants to be perceived. It's a really good moment that succeeds in telling us how our main antagonist's brain works. Other characters get nice development too, especially Rafa. Although Kiki's undercover investigation is fascinating, the way he's letting his job consume his life is a bit of a cliché by this point and I hope there'll be more to him than that. That said I really like him as a character.

This season keeps getting better and better. 9/10
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1/10
Very bad.
salex-2567017 May 2020
Man walking, man looking, people killed, people makes bad conversations no one word important in the story of series, guy going to love lady, guy kissing lady some minutes nothing important either!! what is that 3 episodes no one thing deserve attention in the story!!! so far it's so so so bad.
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