User Reviews

Now that Pablo Escobar has been disposed of, the focus of war against drugs has shifted to the Cali cartel. While everyone was watching Pablo, the Cali cartel has quietly built its empire up to towering heights. A new strategy must be put in place to combat these new kings of cocaine.

While there isn't too much happening in this episode, it is a nice introduction to Season 3. We get a little refresher on what exactly the score is now that Pablo is gone and we're introduced to new characters, as well as updated on what old ones are doing.

It's interesting that we don't really hear any mention of Steve Murphy and his whereabouts. It's Javier Pena that will be our guide and narrator through this season. I also enjoyed seeing Edward James Olmos of Battlestar Galactica fame, a pleasant surprise.

The seeds have been planted for Season 3 and this episode has a few memorable scenes. Obviously Pacho's dancing scene comes to mind; all those at the dance are clearly unsettled by Pacho's homosexual behavior but their fear of him leaves them no choice but to sit quietly. This shows just how powerful this Cali cartel is; the fact that Pacho can do something so frowned upon in this culture, in open to the public, shows the power of the Cali's reign.

The motorcycle scene Claudio Salazar is particularly brutal. This cartel isn't afraid to get its hands dirty. And unlike Pablo, these men are discreet about their murders, doing their best to hide them from the world.

Conclusion: A good opener to this change from Pablo to Cali. We'll see what Narcos has to offer moving forward.

This opening episode starts with the point of the story at which the super cartel is heading into legitimacy. The CEO is an annoying tyrant who expects all the other drug producers to allow him to surrender their status as kings and to fade into the oblivion of shopkeepers.

The big shots have become unimaginably wealthy but the rest of the cartel's associates are still scrambling for similar wealth. Naturally, only the four bosses are willing to go to prison in order to take up lives of retirement upon release. Everyone else in the cartel will come out of prison much poorer.

At least, on the DEA front, the unlikable Murphy is off the screen, replaced by Pena. On the cartel front, the unlikable Pacho Herrera and the two equally unlikable Orejuelas are front and center.

The overall tone of the series is the DEA as the good guys. At least, this series does allow observations about DEA skulduggery, such as the arm twisting they do to get ordinary Colombians to become de facto undercover operatives for the DEA.

In this episode, they have targeted a young man whose brother is in prison in the US. They lie to him and get him to take photos of the gathering at Gilberto's house. That's a death sentence for this poor guy.

As usual, the insinuation is that doing something evil is OK if it's done to produce good somehow. Remember what Ghandi said about that: When you do evil to produce good, the good is only temporary. The evil is permanent.

Pablo Escobar is gone, but the drug war is far from over. In fact, nothing has really been achieved in stopping the flow of cocaine, an idea that is discussed in the episode. It makes it seem like taking down Pablo Escobar was almost a futile mission, as once you take down one cartel, the next one just takes advantage of the opportunity.

The Kingpin Strategy mostly reintroduces the characters and sets up the plot for the season, but it does so in a captivating and stylish way. It's an unexpected turn that the Cali Cartel have announced they will wrap up their drug production in six months, and that has interesting effects on the characters. It's amusing to see them listen in to phone conversations and decide to kill each one. Also it sets the clock ticking for Agent Peña and the DEA.

This episode's details are great as well -like how the Cali Cartel wraps bodies in wire and dumps them in the river. Pacha Herrera's dance scene is also a good moment, as you can see from facial expressions it makes people feel uncomfortable, but they dare not tell him directly because they know what a brutal man he is (shown minutes after in a brutal scene).

In short "The Kingpin Strategy" gets everything right, acting as a nice reintroduction to the characters and plot.

I think most viewers went into this episode unsure of how the show would follow up its great two first seasons sans Escobar, but they immediately hooked me in. Finally, the more entertaining detective gets the lead role and we have a new group of bad guys to chase after.

The violence is still there too, which is awesome. My only gripe is you have to constantly pay attention as it is in Spanish and I need the subtitles. Most shows you could take your eyes off the screen for a second and not miss a beat, but not this one.

The whole episode is well done an captivating, until we reach the motobike event, which even factual, didn't have to be depicted so vividly. This is traumatising and I wish I had stopped at season 2. Don't recommend watching.

Episode 1 basically shows how clever and cruel the Cali Cartel are. They are good at intelligence and are called Cali KGB. Also, they kill people secretly and make sure that the corpses disappear without anyone knowing. Besides, they pretend to be nice in the eyes of the public. Cali Cartel are much harder to deal with than Pablo Escobar.

I always expected the Cali cartel to come to full power following Escobar's death, but this episode was kind of a slow start into it. This episode went onto several different tangents exploring characters and conflicts: some new, some returning. This will hopefully set up the rest of the season well, even if this episode on its own wasn't all that enjoyable.

New, important plot points are obviously reached, but the characters behind them simply aren't interesting. The Cali cartel may be powerful and vast, but it's simply not the same as the Medellin cartel of the first two seasons. Wagner Moura brought a demanding presence to the character of Pablo Escobar that made the bad guys engaging from the very first episode. We aren't getting the same from Miguel and Pacho and Co. They just seem to be your average dose of narco: killing people, bathing in money, and somehow controlling everything. They lead the biggest criminal empire in the world, but I just don't get that feeling by watching them onscreen.

For me, it remains to be seen what Narcos Season 3 will accomplish to set it apart from the first two seasons. Agent Peña and a random assortment of law enforcement vs. The Gentlemen of Cali, who are looking to give up the very thing that put them in such a position of power. While I am confused about where this season will go, I cannot say this episode was bad by any means. Narcos seldom makes a bad episode, but the negatives simply canceled out everything enjoyable about this episode.