I’ve long thought that the key to Narcos‘ success, such as it is, is just the flow of the thing. I’ve said in the past that whatever the strengths of its stars, from Wagner Moura’s taciturn menace as Pablo Escobar to the mustachioed cool of Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal as his enemies, that slow, sly, sexy, slightly sinister theme song is the production’s true lead.
The show follows suit. With its Scorsese-esque narration, provided once again by an unseen Scoot McNairy, and its use of how-the-sausages-get-made montages, it has the same sit back and sink right into this strange new world appeal as the opening reels of GoodFellas and Casino — only over and over again, hour after hour, one season per year. If you think that dilutes the appeal of those kinds of sequences, that’s fair, and it’s probably even correct.
But there’s something soporifically enjoyable about its rhythms nonetheless. You can always count on some tense conversations, some glamorous coke-fueled excess (Neto and Amado in particular find their first big-city coke soirée to be a real hoot), some cops conducting high-risk raids, a lot of murders and executions, a few that are stopped at the last minute, some sweeping shots of the wildnerness and the city streets, and all the other crime-genre thrills and chills you could ever want.
I reviewed episode two of Narcos: Mexico for Decider.
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