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Narcos may have wrapped up its bloodiest and most heart-pounding season to date, but that doesn’t mean Netflix is done with cartels. Narcos: Mexico‘s relocation means there’s a whole new universe of drug lord stories to tell. And if Netflix has its way Narcos is going to tell them all.
Ever since the series’ third season, Narcos has transformed from a studied drama into more of an anthology series. Each season focuses on another cartel and their particular human rights violations, rise to power, and inevitable fall at the hands of the law. Some of these real-life sagas have endings that are as clean as we’ve come to expect from the Medellín and Cali Cartel seasons of this show. A disturbing amount are messy, horrific, and ongoing. But each of these stories provides a unique look into the United States and Mexico’s law enforcement as well as the devastating effects of the drug trade.
Based the finale of Narcos: Mexico‘s first season and the original version of the show, here’s what we think we know about the series’ future. Here are the cartels most likely to be at the center of Netflix’s bloodiest Spanish-language drama if it gets renewed for a second season.
The Tijuana Cartel
This would likely be the cleanest transition from Narcos: Mexico‘s first season into its second as the Arellano-Félix Organization was basically the drug organization son of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo’s Guadalajara Cartel. The final episode of this season sees Gallardo (Diego Luna) giving a charged speech to the remaining members of the Guadalajara Cartel after his co-founders have been murdered. It’s a moment that lets us know that he’s still in power, but it also hints that he may not stay that way for long.
That bit of foreshadowing is important. Gallardo was eventually arrested for the murder of Camarena. But continuing his story by focusing on the Tijuana Cartel makes sense for two major reasons — its the most obvious successor to the Guadalajara Cartel and it connects to Gallardo’s continued freedom. After his arrest, Gallardo gave the Tijuana route to his nephews Benjamin Arellano Félix and Ramon Arellano Félix. It’s as close to a Gallardo family business as we’re going to get. And keeping Gallardo close to this story is important.
The last episode of Narcos: Mexico doesn’t end with Gallardo’s arrest. It ends with the DEA discovering Kiki Camarena’s body and a Mexican officer releasing Gallardo after a not-so-veiled threat. Because of this timeline, it’s likely that Narcos: Mexico‘s first season ends in 1985, which is roughly four years before Gallardo’s arrest. Though he spent most of these final years running, the drug lord knew when his time was coming to an end. He was so acutely aware of his ending drug empire, he divided up his cartel after his arrest. It’s through this move that Gallardo created the Tijuana Cartel and empowered the other cartels Narcos: Mexico may be eyeing — the Juarez Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.
The Juarez Cartel
Tijuana may may the most sense from a family history point of view, but Juarez seems to be where Narcos secretly wants to go. The series has toyed with this particular crime organization ever since it introduced Amado Carrillo Fuentes (José María Yazpik) in Season 3. The illegal cocaine operation was founded in the 1970s where it worked with Medellín, Cali, Guadalajara, and just about every other cartel under the sun. But Narcos: Mexico has already set up Juarez for its most interesting story — the death of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and the shaky reign of Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
The Juarez Cartel was originally founded by Pablo Acosta Villarreal. But when Villarreal was killed Rafael Aguilar Guajardo took over as leader. Guajardo then passed along the cartel to Fuentes under the tutelage of his uncle Carrillo. That uncle — Don Neto — is the same leader of the Guadalajara Cartel who was arrested in this season’s final episode. He was the one who decided to use his last minutes of freedom to get high while being drenched in the blood of his murdered female friends.
From Fuentes’ botched plastic surgery job which led to his death to the many turf wars the cartel started and endured, there’s a lot of interesting ground to cover if a Juarez season were to happen. Also considering Gallardo’s close relationship with Fuentes both in the show and in real life, there would be ample opportunity for us to finally see Gallardo’s arrest. It’s certainly an interesting option with a lot of storytelling potential. But there’s a bigger name that’s likely on Narcos: Mexico‘s radar.
The Sinaloa Cartel
In the final moments of Narcos: Mexico we finally see Scoot McNairy, the actor behind the unnamed DEA agent who has been narrating this entire season. In his first and final moments he throws down a list of cartel suspects and says, “It didn’t matter if we’d ever met him or not, Kiki Camarena was one of us. He was ours. And when he was killed, we knew we were in a war. Now it was our turn. Pretty soon they were gonna know they were in one too.”
You couldn’t really ask for a bigger neon arrow about what direction Narcos wants to take its drug war in next. And that direction is terrifying. Of the four names on the list three are readable — Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Sergio Espino Verdin, and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno. We already know Gallardo’s story, and Verdin is important because he has yet to be captured for the torture and murder of Camarena. That leaves one name as the most important for the purposes of this list, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel El Azul.
Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, aka El Azul (played by Fermín Martínez), has already appeared in Narcos: Mexico as an ally to the Guadalajara Cartel. He was arrested in 1986 for drug trafficking charges as well as for the torture and murder of Camarena, which he pleaded not guilty. Later in the late ’80s and ’90s he switched alliances, moving to the Juarez Cartel. Why would he make that switch, you ask? Because someone younger and more deadly started to take over the Sinaloa Cartel.
That’s right, Sinaloa is Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán territory. Which means the biggest, clearest hint Narcos: Mexico has given us about its future plans is leading us right to one of the most notorious drug lords in modern history. If that’s not a way to close out a season, we don’t know what is.
