Post: #101

My favourite scene is where he burns the piles of money in the fireplace.

Post: #102

(09-06-2016 12:06 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Yeah, that Escobar was one smart dude. It is hard to hate him, he is like the Colombian Tony Soprano, without the psycho babble.

No, it is easy to hate him because he not only wreaked havoc all over Colombia for so long but also went after civilians. The Mafia, or at least fictionalized versions of it like Tony Soprano, don't touch police or civilians - they are off limits (as are drugs I believe). So the Mafia does have some sort of code that it goes by, which is one of the reasons why it's easier to sympathize with them.

Post: #103

(09-07-2016 10:36 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(09-06-2016 12:06 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Yeah, that Escobar was one smart dude. It is hard to hate him, he is like the Colombian Tony Soprano, without the psycho babble.

No, it is easy to hate him because he not only wreaked havoc all over Colombia for so long but also went after civilians. The Mafia, or at least fictionalized versions of it like Tony Soprano, don't touch police or civilians - they are off limits (as are drugs I believe). So the Mafia does have some sort of code that it goes by, which is one of the reasons why it's easier to sympathize with them.

Exactly. Tragic heros are one thing; psychopathic terrorists are another. I'm certain Escobar started off on one of the spectrum and clearly ended up on the other...

Post: #104

Finished season 2. Borders on genius. Symbolism, subtext, foreshadowing etc. Really good. Almost teared up at the end.

Post: #105

I'm up to episode 7 -- this guy playing Escobar is tremendous!

Post: #106

Great season 2! Will be interesting like others have said to see where it goes from here. Coronel Carillo was badass. Legit fighting fire with fire shit.

My only complaint is the white cop was still annoying as hell. Pena killed it.

Post: #107

Great great series. Just finished season 2. I love the Spanish they speak. That Brazilian dude playing Pablo is killing it.

Post: #108

(09-07-2016 10:36 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(09-06-2016 12:06 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Yeah, that Escobar was one smart dude. It is hard to hate him, he is like the Colombian Tony Soprano, without the psycho babble.

No, it is easy to hate him because he not only wreaked havoc all over Colombia for so long but also went after civilians. The Mafia, or at least fictionalized versions of it like Tony Soprano, don't touch police or civilians - they are off limits (as are drugs I believe). So the Mafia does have some sort of code that it goes by, which is one of the reasons why it's easier to sympathize with them.

Yeah dude if you watch the El patron del mar version, then it's really easy to hate him and his family. The dude knocked up a girl and then forced her to have an abortion... Then his body guard fell in love with the girl and he made his bodyguard kill her. Thats some shit man. (I checked it actually happened)

Post: #109

(09-10-2016 06:47 PM)NFallin Wrote:  Great season 2! Will be interesting like others have said to see where it goes from here. Coronel Carillo was badass. Legit fighting fire with fire shit.

My only complaint is the white cop was still annoying as hell. Pena killed it.

Good point. I forgot to mention Pena -- he is solid as well.

Post: #110

Was Pablo white or mixed? What was his ethnicity?

Post: #111

Season 2 was pretty good overall but some of the changes really bothered me and I don't see why they did it.

Spoilers.





In real life Hugo Martinez was pretty much the main badass behind Search Bloc. He survived multiple assassination attempts. They merged Martinez and other incidents that happened to Colombian military/police government officials into the character of Colonel Castillo. Then later they brought Martinez into the story anyways as this watered down bureaucratic military officer. Very odd and distracting choices.

The death of Valerie was gorey over the top nonsense. In real life nothing ever happened to the real woman (Virginia Vallejo) but funny enough the U.S. did end up giving her asylum because a lot of regular Colombians hated her guts. I bet she was a wealth of intel when they debriefed her. The actress and the real Virginia are very close in appearance so they got that right.

I'm not sure if Pablo really bombed the daughter's wedding of one of the Cali cartel leaders. I can't find any reference of it. Pablo did try to assassinate a cali head but at a soccer match. From a story point of view it makes no sense then that the Cali cartel would help Pablo's relatives after that. Although the Cali cartel really did give Pablo's relatives a pass after his death. Some other narcos were not so forgiving though which is why they ended up going to Argentina.

The role of U.S. special forces was downplayed big time. Delta force was involved with the hunt for Pablo. It was even alleged by Bowden the author of Killing Pablo that it was a delta sniper who actually got Pablo with what would have been a fatal shot anyways. In the movie they changed it to a Colombian military sniper. I imagine some of the details of that is probably still classified.


I can understand some of the changes with the sicario names but the real life "Quica" was actually way more brutal and had a brother who was equally brutal and also one of Pablo's sicarios. Pablo's real sicario network was huge..it wasn't just a small collection of assassins in the inner circle but hundreds of buttonmen all over the place.

No mention of other important figureheads too like Griselda Blanco her connections to the Medellin cartel and the chaos she was sowing in Miami and later california. La Madrina is such a colorful character i'm puzzled why she's not referenced really.

Judy Moncada was 100% fiction. Seems like they added her just to add a female foil to the plot. The only high profile female narco was Griselda Blanco. Don Berna is the one who ran the show from the start after his split with Pablo.

Pablo was way more sympathetic in Narcos than in real life. He was an evil piece of shit like others have said and was actually very brutal when it came to killing innocents and going after the family of rivals. There's no doubt about it.

I can't wait to see how they depict the Cali Cartel. The rumor is that the Cali cartel was deeply involved with the CIA anyhow. Stuff like that will probably never be explored fully. That's why most of the Cali heads got off fairly lightly all things considered instead of murked.

If Narcos ever makes it to Mexico that will be something else...it will be non stop gore porn especially when talking about the Zetas. I have yet to see any mainstream piece explore SEA narcos outside of American gangster and that's really ripe territory too. Just google Khun Sa. Then again a lot of the drug lord activity in SEA is still very much classified and intertwined with U.S. intel efforts in the region.

Post: #112

^Good post. Wagner Moura deserves an award for his elecric performance.

Post: #113

(09-11-2016 03:00 AM)Pride male Wrote:  ^Good post. Wagner Moura deserves an award for his elecric performance.

He's really fucking amazing. It's really why people have sympathy for Escobar beyond the writing and even with the extra added effect of horrible incidents overlayed during the end.

Dude is incredible as an actor. The problem is that in real life Esocbar was a truly vile piece of shit.

Post: #114

(09-11-2016 03:07 AM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(09-11-2016 03:00 AM)Pride male Wrote:  ^Good post. Wagner Moura deserves an award for his elecric performance.

He's really fucking amazing. It's really why people have sympathy for Escobar beyond the writing and even with the extra added effect of horrible incidents overlayed during the end.

Dude is incredible as an actor. The problem is that in real life Esocbar was a truly vile piece of shit.

You seem like you know a great deal about Pablo. Is it true that when he was killed he was flat broke and had lost his control of the drug trade?
Did the rival cartels take everything from his family after his death?
Was there a real shootout that involved his family after Pablo's mom goes to church?

Post: #115

(09-11-2016 04:27 AM)Pride male Wrote:  You seem like you know a great deal about Pablo. Is it true that when he was killed he was flat broke and had lost his control of the drug trade?
Did the rival cartels take everything from his family after his death?
Was there a real shootout that involved his family after Pablo's mom goes to church?

I don't have any deeper insight into Pablo or that business. I just read a lot. Personally, my shit is 100% legit and always will be.

I just partially grew up in a shithole neighborhood (Long beach) that I believe was influenced by the colombian trade at the time. That's why it interests me. I just want to know what the fuck went down and how I can prevent it as a small insignificant but determined piece in that bigger picture.

There was one person in particular who was may have been directly connected to that. I already mentioned her. These causal connections all link to the U.S. government in one way or another even now too which is not surprising to any of us but definitely troubling.

To answer your questions though...

Yeah I think they stripped everything and some narcos sent money as (death) tribute to support them. The same narcos sending money would have likely been wiped out by pablo if he were alive but some revered him in some way.

The second part... NO I don't believe that for one bit. Even if the family says so. A real sicario hit by that many armed guys would have wiped them out for sure. I don't believe for one instance that Pablo was even competent with a firearm. He's obviously a bloated shot caller not a door kicking military man.

If you look at incidences which involve full scale hits like that it always ends bad for the party on the recieving end. Sometimes both parties buy it at the hands of the military but it rarely ends up with everyone escaping alive.

Post: #116

If you guys want a Colombian perspective on the time, read the book "News of a Kidnapping" by Márquez. It's pretty detailed and highlights another thing which is completely left out: kidnapping. Those cartel guys held some people of hostage for years. Literally. The victims were high-profile people, who Márquez knew personally. Read it years ago, so I don't remember the details, but it was a good read.

Another book which gives an interesting perspective is "Mi hermano Pablo" written by Pablo's brother, who was oddly enough, a professional cyclist. Don't know if there is an English version, though.

Post: #117

Spoiler alert!!!

I just finished season 2. Very good. So will they continue the show with the Cali cartel/Pena?

Post: #118

If governments really cared about peoples health they would make tobacco cigarettes illegal. But if they are serious they should bring the death penalty on drug merchants.

Post: #119

@El Chinito loco

Was just reading up on Khun Sa's wikipedia page. He apparently offered to sell his whole supply of opium to the Australian government which would have eliminated the supply at the time to Australia and the US for 50million dollars. Same offer to the US Gov but instead, i think it was 200M. Both of them refused. Crazy

Post: #120

Just finished second season. Not as intriguing as the first season, because it lacked the novelty factor, but still enjoyable watching.

Definitely preferred the Pablo character as his peak. Watching him fall was mostly anticlimactic.

I will probably enjoy the third season more, as one can only assume that a new evil villain will be introduced (and humanized for dramatic purposes).

Post: #121

(09-12-2016 08:32 AM)CaptainChardonnay Wrote:  @El Chinito loco

Was just reading up on Khun Sa's wikipedia page. He apparently offered to sell his whole supply of opium to the Australian government which would have eliminated the supply at the time to Australia and the US for 50million dollars. Same offer to the US Gov but instead, i think it was 200M. Both of them refused. Crazy

Yeah he basically proposed the drug lords version of a golden parachute deal which if you think about it is perfectly fair from a business standpoint. I believe it was 50 mill per year for 8 years though. So it would have been a $400 million dollar retirement package. I believe he was raking in billions at the time so that was actually pretty reasonable.

The U.S government has spent billions "fighting" drug trafficking in SEA along with other sketchy drug related activities. They could have bought him out and mined him for intel. I believe the reason the U.S. govt actually wanted him gone is because he wasn't working with the CIA or he went rogue. There's too many unanswered questions and non publicized info related to that dude..not to mention he operated his own nation within a junta controlled nation which makes actual facts hard to gather.

I can kind of understand why the U.S and Australia didn't take that deal though. It would have made for bad publicity.

He knew what that was worth and probably even gave a lowball proposal for them to take considering he was easily worth billions already. He got off scott free at any rate and retired into old age without ever seeing real jail time.

Khun Sa was actually a pretty rational businessman. That Chinese dude in American gangster who Frank Lucas negotiated with is supposed to be Khun Sa. However in reality it's doubtful he would broker deals like that directly. Most likely he always had numerous underlings doing that sort of thing because a lot of people wanted him dead.

He's probably the most successful drug lord by far. There are not many that get off scott free like that and retire into old age with most finances intact.

That's the big difference between drug lords in asia and drug lords in latin america. The ones in asia aren't strutting around with gold AK-47s and diamond encrusted skull rings with big booty bitches hanging off their bentleys. They also aren't rolling severed heads into nightclubs. The drug trade is more civilized in SEA/NEA because there's a certain infrastructure to it.

Post: #122

(09-10-2016 10:36 PM)Pride male Wrote:  Was Pablo white or mixed? What was his ethnicity?

Short answer is white but its really complicated: he is what Colombians call a Paisa which are people from the Colombian department of Antioquia (although Paisas also live in neighboring departments such as Caldas). The people there have more European (Spanish, Basque, German, etc) blood than other areas of the country and are known as the business people of the country, the Jews of Colombia. I guess from an American point of view, Escobar was like that George Zimmerman guy, a white Latino haha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa_Region

Post: #123

I've been all over this show man. Some great shit. I got through the third episode of Season 2, and had to come back to work. Shitty Wifi, so I can't watch it here.

I think the Cali Cartel will also turn into some great stories. The Cali boss Pacho seems like an intriguing character.

I know everyone hates on the DEA agent in Narcos, but I liked what he told the Cali boss Pacho after he offered to help the DEA take down Pablo.

Agent Murphy says, "I can't make any commitments. But I can tell you this: When Pablo goes down - and he will go down - you'll hear a knock at your door, and it'll be me."

Post: #124

Well the actor that played Murphy resembles the real Murphy. Plus I didnt have a problem with the voiceovers.

Post: #125

There seems to be no information, but I'm curious, are his kids living it high i.e like Los Chapitos or are they wage dependants (average joes)?