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16th February 2020
11:18am GMT
Does anyone else get the feeling that the shit is going to hit the fan?
Yep, following the demise of Félix Gallardo’s (Diego Luna) empire, that's basically what's in store for any future seasons of Narcos: Mexico.
After rising from nothing to lead the Guadalajara cartel, unifying Mexico’s drug trafficking operations, and evading the DEA, Season 2 of Narcos: Mexico chronicled Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo’s fall from power as the plaza system crumbled from the inside.
The empire is no more as Walt Breslin's (Scoot McNairy) tenacious DEA unit avenged the death of Kiki Camarena (Michael Peña) in Season 1.
This being said, the season ends with one hell of a showdown - albeit a quiet one - as Félix and Walt finally come face-to-face in a scene that's reminiscent of Michael Mann's wonderful drama Heat.
Prior to the show's release, JOE sat down with the showrunner and creator of Narcos, Eric Newman, to get his take on the future of Narcos.
Granted, Season 3 of Narcos: Mexico hasn't been officially approved by Netflix, but if that finale is anything to go by, it's clear that there's an awful lot of story that's still to be told.
"Yeah, if you look at things in real life - and I'm not talking out of school here- the facts show that the next guys who really rise up is the Juarez cartel, then the Sinaloa guys, and the Arellano-Félix guys. They all remain very active in criminal activity and they all benefited from the fall of Felix Gallardo. Then, the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas come in - you know, there's a lot of stuff happening in the true story and they're all compelling stories that we could tell," said Newman.
In Season 2 of Narcos: Mexico, Amado Carrillo Fuentes becomes a far more prominent figure in the show and his life seems like the next logical step for the show to portray. Played by José María Yazpik, the character has been a loyal soldier in the Guadalajara cartel but the Season 2 finale sets up Fuentes as the de-facto successor to Gallardo.
During the conversation between Walt and Felix, it's clear that the seat of power will relocate from Guadalajara to Juarez—the territory Fuentes controls.
In real life, Fuentes would become one of the most powerful cocaine traffickers of his time. Nicknamed "Lord of the Skies," Fuentes was known for transporting cocaine in a fleet of Boeing 727 jets. In 1997, Fuentes died in a hospital the day after getting plastic surgery to dramatically change his appearance and evade capture, as reported by the Washington Post at the time.
When asked about the demise of Fuentes, Newman wasn't so definitive about that account of the events.
"That depends on who you ask? Some people think he didn't die. Take my word for it, we're thinking about all of it," said the Narcos showrunner.
Aside from Fuentes' growing status in the criminal underground, it's also clear that Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is also becoming a far more prominent person in the show, as seen by the start of his system of tunnels.
El Chapo (Alejandro Edda) was first introduced in Narcos: Mexico as one of Héctor Luis Palma Salazar’s (Gorka Lasaosa) gunmen but Season 2 saw him rise through the ranks of the Sinaloa cartel.
He would eventually run logistics for Félix Gallardo’s trafficking operation. El Chapo was first captured and imprisoned in Mexico 1993, but bribed his way out. He was recaptured in 2013, but escaped again in 2014 through a tunnel under his cell. He was captured a third time in 2016 and extradited to the US, where he was found guilty on 17 counts of crimes relating to him running the Sinaloa cartel.
In real life, he's currently serving a life sentence at a U.S. maximum security prison.
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