'Narcos: Mexico' season 2 may show El Chapo rising to power as the new drug lord after Felix's arrest
The first season of 'Narcos: Mexico' peeped into the cat-and-mouse game between undercover DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Michael Pena) and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (Diego Luna), the leader of the Guadalajara Cartel and founder of the modern Mexican drug trade. The story of the spin-off after the first three seasons of 'Narcos' revolves around the birth of the Mexican drug war in the 1980s.
In the final episode, after a long and turbulent battle, Kiki was torturously murdered and it was revealed that to avenge his death, a new DEA agent Walt Breslin (Scoot McNairy) has arrived in town. What direction will the show's plot take now? If we were to explore all the possibilities, it is quite likely that Felix aka El Padrino or The Godfather will soon be arrested for the murder of Kiki.
Drawing a parallel with real life, Félix Gallardo was arrested in 1989 and began serving his 37-year sentence at the Altiplano maximum-security prison. Later, he was transferred to a medium-security jail in 2014 where the 73-year-old man, blind-in-one-eye still resides. If Felix has the same fate in the show, who will take his place?
Enter El Chapo! Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, played by actor Alejandro Edda, is speculated to become a major player as he founds his own drug cartel after Felix's arrest. It became increasingly necessary for him to break the shackles after Gallardo's imprisonment and slowly, he rose to power with the help of his violent streak and opportunistic measures.
El Chapo was first arrested in 1993 but escaped after bribing prison guards. Reportedly, Guzmán was ranked by Forbes as one of the most powerful people in the world between 2009 and 2013, while the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimated that he matched the influence and wealth of Pablo Escobar. He was finally caught again in 2015 but escaped through a tunnel dug under his cell. He was recaptured and sent to the US in 2017. Currently, Guzman is serving his sentence in jail but earlier this year, he declined to give evidence in his own defense. Reportedly, he is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in another hearing scheduled for July 17.
If seen from a broader perspective, the cat-and-mouse game between the DEA agents and the drug lords is, in fact, an endless complex chase. Not only in the earlier 1970s but even as drug cartel leaders are serving imprisonment, drugs are still being mass-produced and smuggled in the US. 'Narcos', then, could be a never-ending series, couldn't it?