YMMV / Narcos

• Americans Hate Tingle: Narcos and Narcos: Mexico have both received rather lackluster if not outright negative receptions in Colombia and Mexico, mainly for their perceived glorification of drug traffickers. For countries that have suffered massively from decades-long narcoterrorism, this is a sensitive topic.
• Awesome Music:
  • The first trailer's music which is the remix of The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me"
  • Season 3 has what could be called a greatest hits collection of 90s era rap music. And the rap songs played perfectly fit the drama on screen adding to its effect.
• Broken Base:
  • The show's style of having a semi-documentary narration met with some contention. Some find it unique while others are annoyed because they dislike the narrator's voiceover. The issue complicates further when viewers attempt to decide upon the best narrator, although consensus on Reddit has already chosen Andrea Nuñez for the last season of Narcos: Mexico as the worst.
  • Wagner Moura cast as Escobar. Some think he's a solid actor, others think that Escobar should have been played by a Colombian (or failing that, a native Spanish speaker).
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The brutal deaths of Gacha and Gustavo, which are pretty much the only major aversions of Karma Houdini in Season 1. However, Gustavo's death may come as a Tear Jerker to some as he is one of the most sympathetic characters on the Narcos side.
  • Even though it only happens in Pablo's nightmare, Colonel Carrillo shooting Tata to death is immensely satisfying.
  • It's also very gratifying when the Cali Cartel attacks the house with Pablo's mother, wife, and children inside and they see some of his sicarios get killed right in front of them. They're in real danger for the first time, and they finally have a taste of the Colombia everyone else has been living in for over a decade while they've been safe and sound in luxury.
  • In the last few episodes of Season 2, Pablo's bombing that kills numerous children is finally viewed as a Moral Event Horizon by even his strongest supporters. Overnight he's turned into the rat trapped in a corner that he started the season insisting he would never be, and the Search Bloc's job is suddenly a lot easier without the whole country actively impeding them.
  • In the last episode of season 3, David who's been a murderous Smug Snake all season being randomly shot by a Norte Valle crew doing a drive-by and left to choke on his own blood.
• Complete Monster: Seasons 1 & 2: Juan Diego Díaz, better known as "La Quica" ("the Fat Girl"), is a sadistic, cowardly sicario under the employ of Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín Cartel. First introduced gunning down the partner of narrator Steve Murphy, Quica commits several atrocities for his boss ranging from carrying out hits, torture, the recruitment of Child Soldiers, and helping Escobar trick a young Colombian into blowing up both himself and the over 100 passengers on his plane. After corrupting his friend Limon into becoming one of Escobar's hitmen, Quica murders the entire staff of a local brothel as retaliation for almost being arrested. Abandoning his boss when his power base is crumbling, Quica attempts to flee with some of his money before ultimately selling out Pablo's entire organization to the Search Bloc.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gustavo, the only one able to balance the erratic charisma of his cousin Pablo. He appears memorably once again in the Season 2 finale when Pablo has a very crepuscular and emotive conversation with his ghost.
  • Navegante, the brooding, ruthlessly efficient, yet oddly endearing cartel enforcer.
  • Season 4's Don Neto is this by a mile, a sagelike Cool Old Guy with a nice mustache.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Hernin Naranjo. That bowl cut and 70s orange suit? Looks ridiculous even by 70s standards. Some fans even joked that Felix Gallardo actually killed Naranjo not because the latter disrespected him, but because of Hernin's terrible fashion sense.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Star Wars, since Javier Peña and Félix Gallardo respectively share actors with the beloved Din Djarin and Cassian Andor. An Andor Season Two storyline shares a director with the Narcos: Mexico episodes "Jefe de Jefes" and "Just Say No," Alonso Ruizpalacios.
• He Really Can Act: Michael Peña in Season 4, who is mostly known for playing comedic or sidekick characters in movies and television. He does an excellent job playing the dedicated DEA Agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar (Kiki), all the way up to his tragic death at the hands of the Mexican Cartel.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Season two is the first to mention the decades-long war with the FARC guerillas, albeit obliquely. The season was also released the same week a historic peace agreement between the government and the FARC was signed.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Colonel Horacio Carillo is a Colombian police officer and the eventual leader of the task force to bring down Pablo Escobar. Having lost dozens of partners at the hands of the Narcos, he has become utterly ruthless in his pursuit of them, being not above executing or torturing prisoners who don’t talk. Cunning and brutally efficient, he avoids Escobars spies and soon deals him multiple heavy blows from arresting his bookkeeper, to leading a strike team that kills his partner Gacha, to brutally interrogating and killing his cousin and right-hand Gustavo when he refuses to sell Pablo out. Despite the government initially exiling him to Spain for being too brutal, he‘s soon brought back for being the only man Escobar ever feared. A Frontline General genuinely concerned for the lives of his men, he never wavers in his quest to bring him down, calling him a coward to his face even with his last breath.
  • Jorge Salcedo is the Deputy Chief of Security for the Cali Cartel. Faithfully serving the cartel for several years, he often uses his quick thinking and cunning to get out of sticky situations. When his boss/friend and wife are brutally murdered by the cartel Jorge decides to turn informant to the DEA. He manages several times to get them one of the godfather's locations, always using his wits to overcome unforeseen circumstances, even framing his friend as the rat, an act which causes him tremendous guilt. Eventually the godfather is captured and he then uses his skills to find the main accountant for the cartel who brings it down for good.
  • Amado Carillo Fuentes becomes a part of the Guadalajara Cartel as a pilot for his uncle Don Neto and kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. Amado is later promoted by Felix to restore order to the Juarez branch, before building a fleet of planes to transport cocaine from Colombia into the U.S. and effortlessly luring a DEA team targeting him into a deadly trap. Orchestrating Felix's downfall and imprisonment, Amado also assassinates his partner Aguilar to take over the Juarez Cartel. Amado decentralizes the organization to make it harder for law enforcement to target him and makes new deals with Mexico's corrupt kingmakers and the Colombian Cali godfathers to make himself the most powerful of all drug kingpins, even bribing the General leading the Mexican government's anti-cartel operations to wipe out his competitors. Saving his Cuban mistress from assassination, Amado moves his assets overseas before unexpectedly dying during a botched surgery to change his identity, with the suggestion that the "Lord of the Skies" might have actually faked his death.
  • Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is at first a personal driver for Felix-Gallardo in the Guadalajara Cartel. El Chapo undermines the Tijuana plaza by building a tunnel underneath the US-Mexico border on their territory to smuggle in cocaine, resulting in a Mob War before making peace with them in the wake of Felix's removal. When Tijuana continues to provoke the Sinaloans, El Chapo masterminds an assassination attempt on Benjamin Arellano-Felix, killing his brother-in-law in the process. El Chapo later escapes an attempt on his own life despite being outmanned and outgunned. When El Chapo is captured and sent to prison, he outmaneuvers both his more charismatic rival Hector Palma and his ostensible mentor Don Neto, having both men moved to different prisons so he can assume sole control over the Sinaloa Cartel and rebuild it into the deadliest of the narco-cartels.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Sad Pablo.
  • "The disc doesn't skip, man! It doesn't skip!" ^note Don Neto utters that line when he, under the influence of a lot of cocaine, explains Rafa the advantages of a CD over vinyl records.
  • "Tony, how many men have you killed in Vietnam?" "Not enough."
  • Carillo's execution of Gato and his partner through throwing them out of the helicopter had been used for Augusto Pinochet-related "Free Helicopter Ride" memes.
  • "I played the theme song to [noun], and now it's [susantivo]."
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Any sympathy for Escobar nosedives when he orchestrates the bombing of the Avianca flight, and commits subsequent acts of terrorism.
  • Carrillo executing a kid who was conducting recon for Escobar's goons simply for mocking him.
  • Jhon crosses it when he shoots his childhood friend, Maritza, in front of her young daughter before taking off with her money.
  • David crosses it in season 3 when murdering Cordóva and his wife, while forcing Jorge Salcedo to watch, in turn causing him to betray his employers to the DEA.
  • In the eyes of the DEA, Felix Gallardo crossed it with his involvement in Kiki Camarena's murder. In the eyes of his associates in the federation, he crossed it by ordering the murders of Hector Palma's wife and children.
• Rooting for the Empire: Plenty of people root for Escobar thanks to his personal magnetism and straight up badassery not devoid of some of tragic appealing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: "The Spaniard". According to people in Escobar's circle, he was an ex-ETA member that went to Colombia after meeting a narco from a rival cartel in a Spanish jail and was employed to build a bomb to kill Escobar and his family. They survived, and after Escobar learned of him, he was so impressed with his work that he decided to hire him to build bombs and also teach his men everything about it. Unfortunately for him, he was later discovered in a deal with yet another cartel and Escobar ordered his execution. In the show, he is instead some celebrity bomber supervillain hired in one episode to build the bomb in the Avianca flight and is never seen again (but Murphy tells us that he is still at large and selling his services in the modern day). It is also rather unlikely that a guy in a terrorist group whose main claim is that they aren't Spaniards, would use the alias "The Spaniard" (Escobar's people only knew him as "Miguel").
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • The common criticism about this show is that the characters are hard to root for: Escobar may have some sympathy points but he's a drug lord who killed a lot of people and the DEA agents in charge of the case did some questionable actions particularly with Murphy.
  • Combined with Truth in Television, the fall of Escobar only added more drug lords who continue the drug trade which prolonged the never-ending war on drugs. It's even depressing that Peña finds out that the US and Colombian governments themselves are involved in it which causes him to quit his job realizing no matter what he does, the drug war still continues.
• Tough Act to Follow: The Escobar arc. The next villains lack the raw charisma and the flamboyant, erratic moves of Pablo, being mostly driven by Pragmatic Villainy instead.
• The Woobie: Maritza, a simple flower seller who's forcefully dragged against her will into Escobar's war, and is at constant risk from both sides. In a show flooded with Black-and-Grey Morality, she's one of the few major characters without any dirt on her, so of course she has the hardest time.

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