Read all of our “Narcos” recaps.
Season 1, Episode 5: “There Will Be A Future”
“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
Such are the immortal words of Criswell in the director Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” and they apply to the pivotal fifth episode of “Narcos,” which marshals the forces that will determine the future of Colombia. The future is indeed where the characters are going to spend the rest of their lives, but the question that troubles them is what kind of lives they’re going to lead and how long their lives are going to last.
For Pablo Escobar, living in exile in Panama isn’t an acceptable proposition, but returning means squaring off against the Drug Enforcement Agency, the military, courageous politicians, and an angry and fearful populace. For D.E.A. agents like Murphy and Peña, stopping Escobar means averting his omnipresent moles and pulling treasonous end-arounds past American policy makers more concerned with thwarting commies than drug traffickers. For Col. Horatio Carrillo (Maurice Compte), going to war against the cartel means recruiting an “incorruptible” army, becoming a target and even alienating neighbors concerned for their own safety. And for César Gaviria (Raúl Méndez), the would-be successor to the slain Luis Carlos Galán, taking up the same fight for extradition means risking the same deadly consequence.
One of the encouraging things about “Narcos” is that it emphasizes how much the war against Escobar is a Colombian war, not a case of true-hearted gringos sweeping in and bringing justice to a corrupt, hapless narco state. Having an American D.E.A. agent as our humble narrator sets up the expectation that the show might be framed as a “white savior” story, but the writers have been careful to push against that notion from the very first episode. Murphy and Peña have to fight dirty to make any headway, and even then, the substantial risks they’re taking shrink in comparison with those accepted by men like Carrillo and Gaviria, who choose to take the hard road against Escobar and his hidden army. It all goes back to Lara’s line to Murphy in the third episode: “We accept your help, but never your condescension.” It’s nearly impossible for Colombians in power to do the right thing and expect to steer clear of tragedy. Lara dies for it.
Working on a canvas this wide, “Narcos” can’t always accommodate the supporting players that slip in and out of the main story — it’s a shame, for example, that more time couldn’t be spent on Galán’s crusading before his assassination. But it sketches out Gaviria’s predicament quite beautifully in this episode, opening with him as a speechwriter, flinching at Galán’s provocative language, and closing with him adopting the same position on extradition, after a lot of tortured consternation. For Gaviria, getting the blessing of Galán’s family to continue his mission and vie for the presidency is like being issued a death warrant. His choice is either to back away from extradition, which would betray their confidence (and his conscience) in the name of personal safety, or take up the case and offer himself to the wolves. “Narcos” presents it as an agonizing choice that all people who assume power in Colombia have to make, and it’s shaded further by Gaviria’s admission that his temperament is not Galán’s. He’s a pragmatist, not a firebrand.
In contrast, the same choice is posed to Carrillo, but he operates at a much higher temperature. Though José Padilha didn’t direct this episode — so far he’s done the first two, and served as executive producer — the team of “incorruptibles” that Carrillo assembles mirrors the Brazilian favela-sweeping unit of Mr. Padilha’s two “Elite Squad” movies. It’ll be interesting to see how far Carrillo and his men are willing to go in knocking down the Medellín cartel, and what the show’s perspective on their actions might be. As I wrote about Mr. Padilha in the Episode 2 recap, the first “Elite Squad” was dubbed “fascist” by some for championing jack-booted thuggery in the name of the law, but the sequel shifted to the idea that there’s no such thing as an incorruptible force. Cleaning up Colombia is an exceedingly messy proposition.
“There will be a future,” Gaviria says toward the end of the episode, reassuring himself as much as anybody else. But all sides are girding themselves for the all-out war to come. There’s a great structural satisfaction in throwing down the gauntlet at the exact midpoint in the season, which neatly sets the table for a second half that promises to plunge viewers into a bloody civil conflict. It underlines what may be the show’s chief strength: organization. The performances are mostly excellent, its docudrama style is crisp and propulsive, and the scripts have given full weight to the political complexity and moral ambiguity of the drug war. But making narrative sense of all these events, which involves establishing cause-and-effect relationships, a sensible timeline and a good pace, is the mundane but essential work of a good storyteller. And so far, “Narcos” is a story well told.
Parting shots
• The one place where the show needs work is its women. Gaviria and Carrillo are both well-served in this episode, but the character of Elisa (Ana de la Reguera), the M-19 member turned D.E.A. informant, hasn’t come as sharply into focus. The problem that she’s causing Murphy and Peña is explicated just fine — if American officials know they’re harboring a communist, they could be tried for treason — but Elisa’s motives are cloudier. In her conversation with Murphy’s wife, Connie (Joanna Christie), her involvement with M-19 seems mostly chalked up to getting involved with the wrong guy.
• The continued unrest in Escobar’s camp is another source of fascination. His confidants are surprisingly eager to express their doubts about his decision-making openly. To their minds, the hubris of his political ambitions has put their entire operation at risk needlessly, and his habit of making big decisions unilaterally, like ordering the hit on Galán, puts his leadership in question.
• “God made our land so beautiful, it was unfair to the rest of the world,” Gaviria says in his speech to American reporters. On that point, he and Escobar are in agreement. They’re both fierce nationalists, just with competing visions of where the country should go.
• This hasn’t been noted in previous recaps, but it should be mentioned that Stephanie Sigman, the actress who plays Valeria Velez, was the lead in a terrific Mexican thriller from 2011 called “Miss Bala.” The film is about ordinary people swept up by cartel violence, which makes it ideal supplemental viewing to “Narcos.”