TV Review: Narcos Episode 3 “The Men of Always”

Read our review for Narcos’ Episode 2 ‘The Sword of Simón Bolivar’ clicking here

Episode 2 was all about dead cats and sending messages, Episode 3 starts off with Peña and Murphy trying to figure out where the Narcos could get information about Murphy’s address. Murphy remembers that the customs agent at the airport scanned his passport and even though the dead cat was the cartel’s way of saying that they were watching, Peña reassured him that he would be safe because drug traffickers wouldn’t dare kill a DEA agent because of Kiki Camarena. As usual, Murphy’s voiceover explains us about Kiki: he was a DEA agent in Mexico that was killed by the Guadalajara cartel; as a response, the DEA went in full force to Mexico to kill and persecute the people that killed an American DEA Agent. The message was loud and clear: don’t mess with the DEA, and therefore, the cat is DEA too.

The next scene starts off with Pablo talking to Valeria about his ambitions of making it to Congress, he wants to represent the poor since he knows that a man with a poor background like him would never make it in Congress. He complains about “The Men of Always“, the oligarchs and the rich people whose families remain in power for decades that never seem to care about poor people like Pablo was growing up. One thing is clear though: Pablo has more money than all those men, he has enough money to buy the press and a party a political party that supports him to become a Congressman. To the DEA, Pablo was a drug trafficker, but for Colombians, he was the embodiment of the Colombian dream: he helped the poor and expected nothing in return.

Valeria introduced Pablo to Fernando Duque (Bruno Bichir), a lawyer and a member of the New Liberalism party, whom Pablo bribes so he can get into the party. Duque then proceeds to talk to Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (Adan Canto) about letting Pablo become the alternative to another candidate in Antioquia already running for Congress. Minister Lara is worried about Pablo’s trafficking business, but Duque says that he has contributed to society, he has properties in Colombia and the US and he’s willing to donate a lot of money to the party, which if he wins could mean an extra seat in Congress for New Liberalism, which Lara agreed to.

On the other hand, Connie starts working as a volunteer at a community center in the comuna, and we see Elisa, one of M19’s rebels, working there as well. In the meantime, Peña and Murphy meet up with Suarez (Julian Beltrán) one of Peña’s informants that works for both the DEA and the Narcos to help them find the people responsible for killing the cat. After getting paid a hefty sum for his information, Suarez finds the airport customs agents and Murphy and Peña confront them about divulging Murphy’s information to the Narcos. One of the agents confesses to faxing Murphy’s information to Escobar’s sicario, Poison.

Peña and Murphy track down Poison’s satellite phone and think he’s taking drugs with him in his car to Bogotá when in fact he is on his way to deliver money to Fernando Duque. Peña, Murphy, and Carrillo go to prepare a roadblock. Unfortunately, Suarez tips off Escobar about the roadblock set up for Poison and he asks Poison to get back immediately.

(While Poison was driving, he was talking to the other 2 sicarios about his kill count which was at 65, just as a piece of insight in case you might wonder: Poison’s real nickname is Popeye, and he did kill over 65 people, over 250 actually, he served his sentence and is currently under police protection. I know, crazy right?)

Pablo is in full campaign mode, running as an alternate to Jairo Ortega, the first time that an alternate was more important than the main candidate. The scene moves on to Gustavo and Pablo at a hospital. Gustavo tells him that now that he’s on his way to become a Congressman, he can’t look over the labs, so Pablo decides to have Carlos Lehder oversee operations. At the hospital, Tata gave birth to Escobar’s daughter, their second child together after their boy, Juan Pablo.

The DEA is aware of Pablo orchestrating everything to become a Congressman, and decide it’s best to let him run and find a way to get him after he becomes elected. The DEA needs to find something to incriminate Pablo, and they find the mugshot from when he visited the DAS agent back in episode 1. Meanwhile, Jairo Ortega wins by a landslide and as soon as he gets elected he steps down, letting Pablo take over in Congress.

Then, there’s a scene where Pablo is smoking in the mountains with Murphy’s voiceover.  During this scene you get to feel his happiness at achieving his dreams which were bigger than himself: he is finally closer to becoming the powerful man he wanted to be, the man that could change Colombia, the man that could one day become president. This particular scene is powerful because it shows Pablo’s ambitions, and how quickly they can be crushed.

On Pablo’s first day in Congress, Minister Lara humiliates Pablo by exposing his trafficking mugshot, and dismisses him from the room. From then on, Lara began to take down the drug traffickers that owned soccer teams like Gacha, denying flight permits to Ochoa’s planes, even fining Pablo for having exotic animals from Africa at Hacienda Nápoles. Lara ultimately becomes a target for his stance against the Narcos, and he was appointed to be an ambassador to Colombia in Czechoslovakia. Murphy advises him to wear a bulletproof vest on his way to the airport, which Lara didn’t do and he was killed by one of Escobar’s sicarios.

“The Men of Always are wrong if they think that they can defeat Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria”. A good man standing against evil made Lara a target, an evil man pretending to be good exposed Escobar and made him a target when Colombia’s terror period was just about to begin. 

9/10

Catch up with our Narcos Reviews

– Read our review for Narcos Episode 2 “The Sword of Simón Bolivar”
– Read our review for Narcos Episode 1 “Descenso”