You’ve seen the posters of a brooding Wagner Moura staring into the distance, or maybe you've heard the haunting, melodic strings of the theme song "Tuyo." At first glance, Narcos looks like just another "cops and robbers" show, but it’s actually something much heavier. It is a gritty, semi-biographical chronicle of the cocaine trade’s explosion in South America and its eventual migration to Mexico.
Basically, it's about the era where billions of dollars started flowing across borders, leaving a trail of bodies and corruption that fundamentally changed how countries like Colombia and Mexico operate today.
The show isn't just about one guy. While the first two seasons focus on the rise and fall of the infamous Pablo Escobar, the series eventually pans out to look at the entire machinery of the drug war. It covers the Cali Cartel’s corporate-style dominance and then spins off into Narcos: Mexico, which explores how a former cop named Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo unified disorganized marijuana growers into a massive empire.
What is Narcos about in the first place?
If you're jumping in for the first time, the core of the original series is the 1980s cocaine boom. It’s told through the eyes of Steve Murphy, an American DEA agent who moves his life to Medellín to chase a ghost.
Escobar started as a small-time smuggler—moving cigarettes and appliances—before he realized that white powder was worth infinitely more. The show tracks how he used a "plata o plomo" (silver or lead) policy to buy off the police or kill them if they wouldn't take the bribe. Honestly, the scale of it is hard to wrap your head around. At his peak, Escobar was spending $2,500 a month just on rubber bands to hold his cash together.
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But it’s also a story of the Colombian National Police and the DEA agents, like Murphy and Javier Peña, trying to fight a war where the enemy has more money than the government. The first season is a decade-long sprint through history, while the second season slows down to focus on the final 18 months of Escobar’s life as he becomes a cornered animal.
The pivot to the Cali Cartel
Once Escobar is out of the picture, the show doesn't stop. It actually gets arguably more interesting in Season 3. While Escobar was loud, violent, and loved the spotlight, the Cali Cartel operated like a Fortune 500 company. They were the "Gentlemen of Cali." They didn't want to fight the government; they wanted to own it.
The story shifts to how they used professional accounting, vast surveillance networks, and political influence to move even more cocaine than Escobar ever did. It's a much more psychological, "cat-and-mouse" game than the explosive warfare of the earlier seasons.
Narcos: Mexico and the shift in focus
A lot of people think Narcos: Mexico is just a fourth season, but it’s really a companion piece that goes back in time to the early 80s. It’s about the birth of the modern Mexican drug war.
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Before the cartels we hear about in the news today—Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juárez—there was the Guadalajara Cartel. This part of the story follows Kiki Camarena, a DEA agent who moved his family to Mexico thinking he was going to do some real police work, only to find himself in a nest of hornets.
Why the Mexico storyline hits differently:
- The Business Model: Unlike the Colombian cartels, the Mexican traffickers started with marijuana. Félix Gallardo’s genius was realizing that if they all worked together as a "federation," they could control the prices and the protection.
- The Kiki Camarena Case: This is a pivotal moment in real-world history. What happened to Kiki Camarena changed the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico forever.
- The Origins of Legends: You see the "origin stories" of people like Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Amado Carrillo Fuentes (the "Lord of the Skies"), long before they became the faces of global headlines.
What the show gets right (and what it doesn't)
Netflix puts a disclaimer at the start of every episode saying some events are "fictionalized for dramatic purposes." They aren't kidding. The show is roughly 50% to 60% accurate, according to the real agents Murphy and Peña, who served as consultants.
The Real Stuff
The archival footage you see—the real news clips of the Palace of Justice siege or the Avianca Flight 203 bombing—is all real. Those tragedies actually happened. The rooftop where they filmed Escobar’s final moments in Season 2? That was the actual rooftop in Medellín where he was shot in 1993.
The Creative License
The show makes it look like Steve Murphy and Javier Peña were the primary duo involved in every single major arrest. In reality, Peña wasn't even on the roof when Escobar died; he was at the airport.
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Characters like Colonel Carrillo are actually composites of several different Colombian officers. Also, the show's timeline can be a bit messy. For example, in Narcos: Mexico, they play around with dates to make the drama hit harder, sometimes moving events by years to make characters cross paths when they never actually met.
Why people are still obsessed with it
The show tapped into a "true crime" hunger that hasn't really gone away. It’s the sheer absurdity of the wealth. There's a scene where Escobar burns $2 million in cash just to keep his daughter warm while they’re hiding in the mountains. While that specific story is debated (Escobar’s son claims it happened), the fact that it's even plausible tells you everything you need to know about the show’s vibe.
It also explores the "Robin Hood" complex. Escobar built houses for the poor and soccer fields for kids, which is why thousands of people attended his funeral despite the fact that he was responsible for an estimated 4,000 deaths. The show does a decent job of showing that duality—he was a doting father and a monster at the exact same time.
Actionable insights for your watch list
If you’re planning to dive into the Narcos universe, don't just stop at the Netflix show. To get a fuller picture of what really happened, you should check out the following:
- Watch the original Narcos (Seasons 1-3) first. It sets the stage for how the cocaine trade moved from the jungles of Peru and Bolivia through Colombia and into the U.S.
- Move to Narcos: Mexico. It provides the context for why the Mexican border is currently the flashpoint for the drug trade.
- Read "Manhunters" by Steve Murphy and Javier Peña. If you want to know what actually happened versus what was "Netflix-ed," this book is the primary source.
- Look into "Sins of My Father" (Pecados de mi padre). This is a documentary featuring Escobar’s son, Sebastián Marroquín. It offers a much more somber, less "action-movie" perspective on the family's legacy.
- Check out "El Patron del Mal." This is a Colombian-produced series about Escobar. It’s much longer and less "glamorous," focusing more on the victims and the Colombian political perspective.
The drug war didn't end when the credits rolled on the final episode. By understanding the history presented in the series—even with its fictionalized edges—you get a much clearer view of the geopolitical mess that still impacts millions of lives today.
To see how the story continues in the modern era, you can look up current DEA reports on the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, which rose directly from the ashes of the groups shown in the series.