can i really be the only person watching LA REINA DEL SUR?

it is trashy and i like it

on the run from mexcio (where her gangster bf was murdered) teresa mendoza is apparently set to become the most powerful drug trafficker in southern spain (at the moment she works in a crappy bar tho)

she is good at ugly-crying, and generally has plenty of reasons to

(season 1 is on netflix uk: season 2 is being made to be shown next year)

ok, I thought I was going crazy after reading the title and synopsis, but no: it's already been remade as an american show and is currently airing right now!

it sounds pretty cool, I have no doubt the original is probably better

except in flashbacks she's worn the same jeans and black halter-neck top combo for most of all six eps so far

haha just as i wrote this her current nemesis (female) commented on the same thing

she isn't actually in mainland spain yet, she's in mellila (which is a an autonomous spanish city on the north african coast that i only just heard of (and looked up) now

http://www.worldatlas.com/img/locator/city/014/68906-melilla-locator-map.jpg

huh, I kind of want to watch to check that out

for some reason I was researching if there's a cool over land route you can take with public transportation along the north African coast and it turns out if you want to go from Algeria to Morocco, you have to go through another country, like Spain or a neighboring island. The border situation is that contentious

she is proud and spunky

her best friend is called fatima and her nemesis (female) is -- somewhat unexpectedly -- called sheila

Voy a cantar un corrido, escuchen muy bien mis compas
Para la reina del sur, traficante muy famosa
Nacida alla en Sinaloa, la Tia Teresa Mendoza
El guero le dijo a tere te dejo mi celular
Cuando lo escuches prietita, no trates de contestar
Es porque ya me torcieron y tu tendras que escapar
El guero Davila era, piloto muy arriesgado
Al cartel de Cuidad Juarez, les hizo muchos mandados
En una avioneta cesna en la sierra lo mataron
Dijo Epifanio Vargas, Teresa vas a escapar
Tengo un amigo en Espaa, alla te puede esperar
Me debe muchos favores y te tendra que ayudar
Cuando llego a Melilla luego le cambio la suerte
Con Don Santiago Fisterra, juntaron bastante gente
Comprando y vendiendo droga para los dos continentes
Manolo Cespedes dijo Teresa es muy arriesgada
Le vende la droga a Francia, Africa, y tambien a Italia
Hasta los rusos le compran es una tia muy pesada
(Supo aprender el acento que se usa por todo Espaa
Demostro su Jerarquia como la mas noble dama
A muchos los sorprendio Teresa la mexicana)
(A veces de piel vestia de su tierra
Se acordaba con bota de cocodrilo
Y avestruz la chamarra
Usaba cinto piteado
Tequila cuando brindaba)
Era la reina del sur
Alla en su tierra natal
Teresa la mexicana, del otro lado del mar
Una mujer muy valiente, que no la van a olvidar
Un dia desaparecio, Teresa la mexicana
Dicen que que esta en la prision, otros que vive en Italia
En California o Miami, de la union Americana

^^^the lyrics to the theme tune, performed by los tigres del norte

i like the way everyone calls her "mexicana"

Is it all Spain-based Spanish speakers other than her?

character-wise there's also mexicans and americans (but they're now mostly out of the story except in flashbacks) and mainland spanish and north-african spanish speakers -- so yes, she's unusual in being (currently)* the only mexican surrounded by spaniards… i assume there's an accent difference that's really obvious to hispanic speakers, i can't hear it but my spanish is literally non-existent

*there's another 60-odd episodes to come!

it sounds pretty cool, I have no doubt the original is probably better

Both the original book and Telemundo telenovela are fantastic. Haven't seen any of the new series, but the earlier versions are well worth your time.

this is the one i'm watching --> Telemundo telenovela

(new season of same not out till next year i don't think)

run teresa run!

aside from being a bit muddling -- lots fo lashbacks and recaps -- LRDS has no unexciting moments so far (tho some of the catfights are a bit kitschy)

i mean flashbacks

so (as many know but perhaps not non-mexican speaking ILX):

kate del castillo, the actress who plays teresa mendoza la reina del sur, was who putting sean penn in the same room as EL CHAPO, hence semi-responsible for EC's subsequent capture

inadvertently: she seems to approve of what she sees as EC's robin-hood-like ways (penn she now rather despises, she says his rolling stone piece is full of fibs abt her)

el chapo apparently took to kate del castillo
(a) bcz she tweeted something approving (see above) and
(b) bcz he greatly enjoyed la reina del sur (the correct response) and
(c) felt he could trust the character KdC was playing, hence the actress too (flawed critical praxis IMO, will never commission a TV column from him)

meanwhile lRdS itself is currently exploring the ethics (and otherwise) of people-trafficking and generally looking more closely at the dynamics of migrancy in the med than a great deal of much fancier TV

putting s/b put

been compulsively watching this with my niece for a few weeks and it's at once amazing and sometimes silly. thx for rec! have abt 10 more eps to go and shit is getting really real. and i keep falling in love. first it was Soraya, then Veronica. (so many great characters, too - Batman, Pote, Oleg, Fati)

I liked the sound of this and thought I was downloading a torrent of it. Boo! It turned out to be the poxy American remake. Another series that doesn't get mentioned on here is Gomorrah, which is an ultra-violent trashy crime series, with a cast of some impeccably dressed thugs amongst the ruin pron of the crumbling housing projects in Naples. And the death count is ridiculously high - between S1 and s2 more than half the cast are already in the ground. It is good fun though.

episode 19 plot summary: "teresa loses again"

her boyfs are all gorgeous, also dicks

some eps set in a women's prison: assuming dickish and/or dead boys not an issue for a while

"Lieut.O'Farrell is pure oligarchy, honey"

(also not a lieut., i didn't get that bit)

it is more o/g cell block h than orange is the new, that's for sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHnemDkHvgA

actually a better version, fond as i am etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng-eYklcmEM

paty: "where i walk the grass stops growing"

(self-hate rather than threat)

I wish someone would upload an English subtitles rip of this in t0rrentland, it sounds awesome.

tbh the subtitles on netflix are intermittent AND wayward

lol, there's more time displacement in this soap than in inland empire

i predict paty too will die :{

http://68.media.tumblr.com/a92ef861f1c2056ae6a16aa7e8adc7ec/tumblr_inline_mlxzsjMhxw1qz4rgp.gif

we regret to inform you i am back on my* bullshit

*actually kate del castillo's obv

lol she just had her michael corleone MASS-REVENGE moment: "la mexicana says HI"

^^^this ended p badly (tho we are not yet half way thru the 63 eps of the first series)

love the way the only person who actually gets the depth of her UNSPOKEN SOULFULNESS is the top russian gangster

the full name of this character -- usually referred too as pote or el pote -- is POTEMKINE GALVEZ

"if blood has to rain from the sky, we will open our umbrellas"

"it's the beginning of the end for teresa mendoza"

we are on ep 38 of 63, so i guess "… but perhaps the end of the beginning" applies here

pati getting very meta in her jealousy: "what shall we call this telenovella? love in the time of narcotraffic?"

(wd watch, obviously) (am watching)

"you're as mad as a goat, tesa!"

oleg pleased that teresa is happy (for once) but also worried

lots of TV crime dramas and policiers are about migrancy peripherally -- its "problems" as significant plot-driving element etc -- but i've never watched one that centres it the way lRdS does

lol at me being taken aback when the chief russian gangster turns out to have beef with communists -- i'm like "i like him, how can he be a czarist?"

he is in fact a murderous drug smuggler albeit one who likes and more importantly understands teresa mendoza (also a gangster)

every three or four eps someone is sure to say "it's the beginning of the end for teresa mendoza"

s1 still has 18 eps to go

"my aztec version of the count of monte cristo"

paty is drunk and sad at a party

"gentlemen, the end of teresa mendoza has started"

lol ambushed by unexpected disappointment every time oleg* disses soviet socialism

*why, bcz he is a GANGSTER

repeat plot point: that a character is desperately in lust w/someone merely bcz they resemble teresa mendoza physically

"you're a victim of cocaine!"
"i'm a victim of YOU and your LIES!"

"i had to pretend i was in love with you but i fell into my own trap!"

from now on all all scenes of angrily recrimination between loves must take place in a sportscar being driven at high wild speed along a cliff-top road by someone coked out of her head and weeping uncontrollably

i hadn't really paid it much mind as i don't listen to songwords much even when they're not in spanish (which i don't speak) but several times an episode los tigres del norte break in with the sung refrain "la reina del sur! traficante muy famosa" (= "the queen of the south! very famous drug dealer!" )

i love this show with my life

ramiro is very much not my favourite character but i do like actor salvador zerboni's commitment to seeming to be on ALL the drugs ALL the time

ALL THE DRUGS

http://www.telemundo.com/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/styles/promotional_content_4_3/public/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/images/gallery/2014/02/19/reina_rataseductora01_130514439041_2_0.jpg?itok=GqEw1Mzj

trying to think of presidential candidates more obviously evil-looking than epifanio vargas

Series 2 just started

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0mZg6xd9uE

lol i completely missed this (or maybe it only just started on uk netflix)

s2 has 60 eps!! oh my!

https://media.giphy.com/media/BNaETsu7Jqz6I91ZwR/giphy.gif

MUCH higher production values

melodrama index: unchanged based on e1

hadn't noticed this thread all year and had no idea there was going to be a S2. i'm excited, thx! kinda have mixed feelings since Pote is no longer around, but will check it nonetheless

e2 is even more exciting and ridiculous

(i am watching slowly in case my constitution can't take it)

she still has catastrophically bad taste in men lol

i mean they're hot obv but never have her best interests at heart

her daughter is terrific

is it ok to describe her as spunky

wondering where these lawned wooded mexican mini-pyramids are -- is it a deeply meaningful site for her return to mexico (or just a nice fancy backdrop)

so i just started watching this thinking it might be what i wanted and it is.

things i immediately love - the stuff around her bath and in her house. the way she stops putting a spliff in her mouth to sing a lyric she particularly likes. the *relentless* and v crude flashbacks. shit tonnes of high emotion. this is great.

i am ten mins in. there are 60 eps in season 1.

lol i want to rewatch s1 now as well

ok 1 episode down. it really is very good. the way it’s shot, the sense of environment - flats, streets, the city. and the viewer being smashed around flashbacks and emotional escalation like they’re a squash ball. high melodramatic feeling, and she as a character is great. no aspect of her resilience, guts and emotion feels out of place despite being daring, funny and brilliant. totally exuberant and the way the shots are made, up, the sheer amount of colour and mess in each one, is fantastic.

A+ see you in 60 episodes time.

not feeling any need to invest much love in these 3 galician assassins jumping into a little microplane to go kill teresa: this is ep 3 of 60

lol the "in the next exciting episode" teasers are lethal, THE NEXT EPISODE LOOKS VERY EXCITING AND ALSO TOTALLY NUTS

You watching this in the US, mark s.? I haven't found it yet.

You watching this in the US, mark s.? I haven't found it yet. Oh! Yaay Fizzles!

nope, in the UK, sorry

“there are many coincidences between us”
“is that good or bad?”
teresa shrugs
“weird”

both learning fast that you can’t trust how things pan out (particularly since she doesn’t realise how deep she is in the labyrinth of crookedness around her) and also breaking the mark s heuristic.

franklin anderson of the FBI with his business card that identifies him as Cheef Detective is now dead.

i’d love to screencap so many scenes in this. teresa sitting opposite a pimp with a lurid purple shirt and a bright yellow globe lamp on the table to take one example just now. the clothes generally are perfect.

then she goes out and gets trashed drinking tequila from a bottle while crying by a fountain.

in fact all the opening scenes in melilla are great. the interior furnishings beat anything you get elsewhere.

oh god it’s just got on to epifanio’s extremely unlikely political career.

some amazing continuity where epifanio and his sister in law are having a conversation at his ranch and it cuts to teresa getting arrested by the most lenient cop in the world before she gets a flight to and lands in madrid at which point it cuts back to continue the conversation at the ranch.

she needs to stop falling for drug movers tho.

or smugglers as they’re sometimes called.

don't hold your breath (for 60 episodes or more)

the goth stepsister of the kidnapped daughter, the raging bereaved gangster-gran who trains bulls for bullfighting

don't hold your breath (for 60 episodes or more)

the two norteamericano drugs cops back in washington, complaining about "bitches" (with the capitol as a handy backdrop)

teresa flying off to moscow: is she going to find POTE :D ?

(can you even fly to moscow from morroco? teresa mendoza can)

i like the moments when sofia and lupo like each other a bit for a moment, i guess it's classic stockholm syndrome but such strong characters butting heads whatcha gnna do?

ok you can fly from morocco to moscow, and she did

even on brief acquaintance i can see norteamericano drugs cops are going to be an entire sub genre to themselves in this.

correct

ok i lolled at this absurd and marvellous moscow location but i'm not going to spoiler it sorry

pancho villa klaxon

(mention not appearance)

no wait it is a kind of appearance omg (still no spoilers)

I found what I assume is half the first epi of S2 on YouTube. Picked up as bril as it left off. I can not wait til u.s. netflix hooks us up. Seriously best show ever

fabergé eggs klaxon (when in moscow i guess)

oleg is a different actor now, blander imo :(

(also i realised i was getting pote and oleg muddled upthread, bcz potemkine is a russian name)

e8 was a bit of an emo trudge but e9 has picked up some speed

weirdly this is reminding a bit of buffy s7: super-tough 2nd-gen young women en masse (ok there's three of them, teresa's daughter, the goth and her sister)

oh, i was wondering waht up, but didn't wanna spoiler any more than i already. . .that's too bad abt Oleg, my second fave Russian on the show (after Dima). i recall S1 had a episode or two that were lackluster, then it would get back to the goods. too bad the intro. has changed, imo. watching the band play was one of me and niece's fave parts - the facial expression of the bassist literally made us lol every time.

sara vidorreta as rocio aljarafe: best goth in a telenovella?

https://i.imgur.com/1xWUt9w.png

the non-goth is her sister paloma (agata clares)

also lol at the jules verne-ish turn teresa's and oleg's adventures just took :D :D :D

and the swell of some russian-sounding choral music when they hurtle from one absurd scrape to another

"i don't remember you, you're nobody"
"we're the dogs who will feast on your bones"

educational as well as exciting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_crucifixion_legend

the production values and qualoty of film stock have skyrocketed, and it's now set in "the entire world": yet if anything the ambition is even pulpier :)

viz: so far this ep had a v violent middle east scene war scene and a selling drugs in a rave scene and we're less than ten minutes in

i like sofia's watchful patience (so do the scriptwriters and directors, mind you)

https://i.imgur.com/uPw99oT.jpg

Well, I can't spell jefe.

ROMA HOUSE INVASION

juanita does terrific "hold me back! why i oughta… !" (opinion: she oughta)

the war between prisoner sofia and gaoler morgana is hilarious

i've been a bit ambivalent abt the WAY higher production values but now and then (roughly once every other ep) when they frame one of the nuttier scenes it's kind of magnificent

this roma funeral by torchlight with all the grieving is a case in point, it's like something out of peter greenaway ffs

multiple tables turned and yet things don't get better!

(s2e16, for those keeping count or looking forward)

i just watched S1E1 again with a friend to get them on board. i think they were slightly bamboozled. i enjoyed as much if not more the second time around.

on ep10 otherwise. have had a pause due to work and life stuff but aiming to sort my priorities out.

i really like S1 production values. watching the earlier day of the dead parade when she’s on the run some of the shots are just stunning in a v mundane way.

yes i haven't been able to coax my main TV-watching buddies into co-bingeing :{

mundane way is bad words for what i meant which is that the quite cheap and lurid tv values give it a immediacy and realism.

i *should* know what it’s shot in to give it that effect, but i don’t.

ok i just checked “lensed entirely in digital format” it says here.

s2 has a lush HD feel to it, so that the posh locations feel insanely stately and the poorer ones feel art-photographer grungy -- but lunatic nonsense hurtes through both, with not much more than a doorway bead curtain between them, so the immeciacy has become an urgency and the realism is semi-magic

(if it slows down a bit too much sometimes it always picks up speed again, with added wtf acute-angle turns)

yikes this took a dark turn (e20) :0 :0 :0

oh this telenovela is so good at layering the badness of the ppl involved, and getting you to like and even love the "less bad" ones

things really not going epifanio's way

I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH

oh that's good to hear
xpost
hopefully that goes for Ratta, too.

i think Dris Larbi is my favorite character name of all-time

wait who is ratta? dris was great

Ratta is Epifanio's lunatic son

gotcha!

ramiro is very much not my favourite character but i do like actor salvador zerboni's commitment to seeming to be on ALL the drugs ALL the time

― mark s, Sunday, December 10, 2017 10:20 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

ALL THE DRUGS

https://www.telemundo.com/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/styles/promotional_content_4_3/public/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/images/gallery/2014/02/19/reina_rataseductora01_130514439041_2_0.jpg

― mark s, Sunday, December 10, 2017 11:03 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

because greasing your millstones is what

gotcha!

_ramiro is very much not my favourite character but i do like actor salvador zerboni's commitment to seeming to be on ALL the drugs ALL the time

― mark s, Sunday, December 10, 2017 10:20 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

ALL THE DRUGS

🖼

― mark s, Sunday, December 10, 2017 11:03 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink_

oh teresa why are you always horny for the worst (also prettiest) people

spoiler*: teresa sexing a hottie who already sent the entire series extremely betraying her

*i mean obviously not a spoiler if you ever watch this show lol

the sexing is on an aztec pyramid, is where it is

i mean on a blanket but

feeling like everyone's a bit softer in this series?

(not sure this makes total sense, a minor character was burnt at a stake in the previous ep lol -- but the pellmell trashiness is toned down and some of the longtime villains have their nice sides fleshed out a bit) (which is OK!) (also the worst new villains are beasts!)

(but there's no one to match ratta)

flavio medina is a great singer (if it's him singing, i know they can do stuff with overdubs and such these days)

also he won the 2015 TVyNovelas Award for Best Antagonist Actor

so S2 showed up on Netflix the other day!! when i watched half of the first episode the other week, which was all i could find on youtube at the time, i made a prediction to my niece (whom i've watched S1 with two times). for no concrete reason i felt like Abdelkader was gonna show up at some point. still, surprised the **ck outta me when it happened!!

lomg break: back again to note that sofia is also good at ugly crying (and her situation -- kidnapped kid -- merits it)

actress = isabella sierra, and she's excellent

terrific heist-movie type double caper in e30 s2, not sure it's going to end 100% well tho

after [checks previous post] exactly two months too tired in the evening to engage i am BACK ON TERESA MENDOZA'S BULLSHIT

of course as soon as i click into it it leaps into ultra-lurid action: blood AND absurdity AND tangly backstory hurrah

the goth is explaining to the gangster who also owns and runs a very crappy ghost train that vampires can't be black

(tbf he calls her out on this)

meanwhile sofia has escaped lupo but fallen down into a deserted sarlacc pit

oo blimey unexpected headshot and pool bleeding

sometimes the high-def filming in s2 really does work with the story

a thing abt s2 is that it can go long stretches -- lengthened by me not watching for weeks on end -- where all most of what happens is small-bore and even sentimental

and then it remembers it's abt love in the time of narcotraffic and gets v bloody again

i found this season had fewer sentimental boring parts than S1, which had Theresa quoting that poem about twilight all the time, and the scenes of her and whichever lover to whatever that theme song was that got played quite a few times.
freaking awesome show still. i wonder if they'll come back in 8 years again.
also, i wish i were Godoy, irl

lol six months of the rona as hiatus and im back on TM's bullshit ppl (ep32)

in which TM is a lethal boss again

i have got weirdly out of step with myself -- some of the plot i have already seen, other bits not even slightly

(unless sections of the story just repeat themselves competely, which seems unlikely: i guess i realised i'd not been watching carefully at some point -- viz tweeting while watching lol -- and went back and totally forgot i did this?)

ok i am exactly back where i was on 1 March 2020 20:26, i guess i just completely missed one the (extremely um vivid) resolution of one particular strand three eps ago (and also for some reason netflix restarted me three eps ago)

back on my bullshit baby

(this showc goes quite slow and i get distracted but it's hit a high-speed section and i'm still only at e45)

lupo and the sexy assassin suddenly grappling in balaclavas

(lol did they fuck before? looks like they will soon)

probably i shd have watched this all joined up, i no longer know who the sexy assassin is working for

lol jesus, this is all a bit saving private ryan (except i don't give fuck abt this guy whose name i don't even know)

i wish i liked -- or hated -- zurdo more (or believed there was even a spark between him and T), bcz this is a *terrific* pulpy twist

brought abt largely by the fact that all mexican crims live 3 minutes away from one another w/o knowing it but

oh no it's "plan trotsky" that can't be good

gotta say s2 does make good use of the much bigger budget sometimes

even when it makes some of the plot turns seem extremely goofy

love how stubborn and capable sofia is (and how complicated this makes everything for the all adults)

i have got weirdly out of step with myself -- some of the plot i have already seen, other bits not even slightly

s2 has a very different feel

loool a very word-heavy reveal at a fraught everyone-back-together moment suddenly casually tosses in the claim -- i think meant to be true, a man is pleading for his life -- that the US are interfering in mexico's elections by ensuring the president is (a) a legendarily corrupt gangster and (b) a puppet in their pocketses

during the extremely long word-dump recap the approaching threat has once again been the sexy assassin on a bike but the recap-reveal is so detailed that it feels like she's motored across the whole of mexico

oh no

i kind of knew this was on the weay bcz i spoilered myself looking up something abt what else the actress in question had done

don't forget totzi :(

is there no one else in this airport?

anyway lol it's GLOVES OFF now

"there's a reason they call her QUEEN OF THE SOUTH"

thats right

https://radical.town/media/radical-town-media/accounts/avatars/000/000/008/static/d986e9e06e7521c7.png

ok so who ELSE is inexplicably alive and requires fill-in backstory to firm up this fact unconvincingly

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

not that i care, this is exactly what i watch this insane show for

it is effective that -- in this tangled war between very bad gangsters doing murders and stuff -- the overarching baddie who allows us to withhold full judgment is washington, behaving very much more badly

this is a documentary

haha this US agency is out-of-the-box evil

and it's not even the CIA

(well it might be but i *think* it's the DEA)

not helping that i started watching this series 1 x yrs ago, binged like 40eps, stopped for 10 months for various reasons inc 🦠🦠🦠🦠 and am back again and bingeing again -- some of these callbacks are p mysterious to me, like who is this young tied-up man suddenly

(last week he was skateboarding in front of congress in washington and he's kira's nephew but how does he have a plot role, i just entirely forgot)

mexican all-woman shoot-out near the washington monument, we love too see it

¡finally! circled back to this (starting at e54)

lol i have no idea who this young angry grieving goth lady is any more, there is a downside to my very punctuated bingeing style

"sit near the river and you will see your enemy's body float by"

this is also my motto

my enemy is ned raggett

a funny thing abt this show is that they present the DEA as a kind of more focused CIA, all plots and plans and overthrowing the rightful mexican government (a gangster)

teresa has a low opinion of gringos

literally no one is ever dead in this show

i see from five yrs ago i was commenting on the unending interwoven flashbacks, that hasn't slowed down at all

lee harvey batman

this ep has an escape from jail by helicopter as a mere passing element for some minor characters

(i mean i'm sure they'll have a role shortly but in any other show an escape from jail by helicopter would be climactic for a bigwig)

(just checked and s3 of his marvellous show is all ready to run)

o fuk that's eric roberts (as the corrupt and murderous head of the DEA)

season three begun broadcasting 1 x week ago: 6 eps so far tho i have not found them anywhere yet

i keep reading that it's on netflix but it's not on netflix uk yet 😔

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7yh9KOrQpE

https://68.media.tumblr.com/a92ef861f1c2056ae6a16aa7e8adc7ec/tumblr_inline_mlxzsjMhxw1qz4rgp.gif

loooool amazing gif

ok i am SO BACK on my bullshit (= s3 of this marvel), only 32 months late!!

🎵 traficante muy famosa! 🎶

we open very much otherwhere than we closed s2, with teresa IN JAIL IN THE USA

in solitary and losing her mind 😞

tho actually we start with an INSANE credit sequence featuring eagles and mountains and LoTR-music* (apparently a lot of it is set in bolivia and peru, which have mystical resonance to mexicans also, it looks like -- anyway a wild castaneda vibe promises much) (to me, an idiot who learned everything i know abt the andes from tintin and chariots of the gods)

*not los tigres del norte (sadly) but orchestral motion-picture slop, sorry if this offends, it's garbage (but p funny garbage in context)

ps all tv shd happen as fast as this and also be a telenovela, as the story fast-cuts between locations in mexico, spain, bolivia, colombia and the US

mother & daughter both already in unrelated new life-threatening pickles just 2 eps in, they will be out of them by e3 but into others

best repeat characters assemble:

sofia, rocio and paloma, the fake oleg (now a widower and an alcoholic), batman and sheila, plus president epifanio vargas!

(sofia is a young adult now, everyone else looks older, except epifanio who looks the same if not younger lol) (also his power-horny sex life is as relentless as ever, no one does it like him)

isabella sierra (sofia) is such fun as an actress — there is tons of evident affection on this set among the returning cast, with everyone older trying to get her to laugh more than she was quite meant to in the script (and often succeeding)

plot notes so far

teresa mendoza: “so what’s the escape plan?
guy she’s never met: *hands TM a copy of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO*
(plan is indeed a version of TCOMC, well sorta kinda anyway, not that she actually reads it at any point)

I enjoy the low regard this show has for americans (mostly cops & prison guards).
always bracing also how much more corruptly gangsterish pols and police are than teresa the honourable retired crimelord

obviously sofia was going to run into her mum sooner rather than later, why is it in an ethnic colombian theme village (with panpipes and manicured lawns and such)?

deeper peruvian mysticism keeps being hinted at, I want it to involve eagles, aliens or an eclipse (ideally all three) — a real tintin-esque flight 718 shift from political gangsterism into full-on crystal skull stuff

the version of google they use in this show is called TLIMP, is this an irl thing? (google not helping, maybe I need to use TLIMP)

flashback scene in LONDON, where the DEA are apparently allowed to swarm armed: also i have never seen a less English-looking interior, it looks more like something out of naked lunch

the DEA agent they have to track down in la paz is called THE BLACK RIDER so maybe the LoTR callbacks in the credits are already paying off (nice lampshade hanging from epifanio, who says an agent being called the black rider is goofy bullshit)

plus a character called FATHER GONZO has just been referenced, very much hoping to meet him (“teresa mendoza did NOT die”)

translation notes

president of mexico to henchman: “no, compadre!”
subtitle: “no mate”

👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

a grizzled & dodgy villain ending a phone call to similar: “hugs!”
the other villain, replying: “hugs!” (translating “a gracio” I think?)

lol

this is like reading LRB - no need to actually watch the show with reviews like this!

watch the show tracer!

i started this season but didn't finish it for some reason. was having trouble deciding if i thought it was great or just too silly

https://i.imgur.com/WWYqacp.png

back on the very best bullshit after a few weeks pause

to report that we are back in some kind of london for reasons not yet clear -- might be more oleg backstory? -- and there's a gang of london thugs with ATTEMPTED COCKNEY ACCENTS

meanwhile teresa, oleg et al are scoping out bolivia & peru supposedly to meet up with the so-called "black rider", by pretending to be mexican documentary-makers -- tho so far sadly they are kind of dancing round the wild made-up folkloric feast real documentarians wd surely be making a bee line for (needs more nazca lines, traces of aliens etc) but i have HIGH HOPES (tbf they have been dwelling on women's wrestling, in historical costumes)

contempt for US shenanigans in mexico is as intense as ever -- they will not leave the lizard alone -- while president epifanio vargas remains the greatest ever to do it (have sex non-stop every ep with difft beautiful young women), he is such a complete bastard god i love this show

a nice thing (if perhaps unstartling in long-running melodramas) is that her nemesis as first mentioned in post 3 back in July 2017 (jesus) aka the implausibly named sheila (she's spanish), is now her inseparable wise buddy, in trouble last ep for filming herself and her boyf (the legendary batman, see also upthread tho not so far) having extremely talkative sex atop the official documentary van on the official documentary tapes which the colombian police just examined (bcz official van turned out to be stolen, tho not by anyone in the story)

ok ppl we got there, teresa is now a prisoner of the sun (= the "black rider", who smuggles girls and also tin ! and plus runs the lady wrestling shows)

https://cdn001.tintin.com/public/tintin/img/static/prisoners-of-the-sun/C13_Temple-p45-c3-color.png

they teased it but we haven't had more than a couple of sentences yet: i *think* the worst attempted london accent in the history of television (that ive watched anyway)

i need to update this: all but one person -- a very favourite character 😔 -- have escaped from every scrape so far

well every scrape except the andean panpipe outfit active in every single boiuvian cafe, none of us are escaping that it seems

question two: what was the last action thriller you watched based round the purchase of TIN (in spanish: estaño)

rereading this thread last night i clicked on the youtube for the original themetune -- which flashes us through scenes from the first half of s1 -- and despite what i say above epifanio also looks much younger than then (he has a boyish indie mop of black hair)

these days he looks more like an animated aztec mummy (despite which he has more onscreen sex than any two other characters put together) (in the most recent instance delivered over 2 x eps w/2 x hot young ladies none of them his wife)

otherwise the update is p much:
i) tesa is interested in a hot grizzled someone who does not have her interests at heart
ii) the gang has lost one of their number and everyone is sad (so am i)
iii) not quite in keeping with the theme (mexican tourism brochure for the andes) this is the first time i've even seen altitude sickness as a side-story in a glamorous crime-based TV show (as they drive high among the mountain sheila makes batman stop the car so she can vomit) (were there plot reasons to do this? NOT REALLY)
iv) colombian outer decor is like 20 gingerbread houses in every street (is this factual or are they selecting their camera set-ups to amplify this) (this show loves its locationwork!)

epic 2-ep gunfight set in bolivia's train cemetery in salar de uyuni, the world's largest salt flat

this looks as striking as you might imagine (tho the actual exchange of fire was confused: are the senior gang the BLACK RIDER or killing him?) (this may be my fault: the mission has taken so long that i've forgotten what was originally expected of them). the bolivian folkoric element swerves between deep brujo magic and panpipes shit

meanwhile the palace intrigue round epifanio remains vastly boring, even tho he's as saltily disgusting and fun as ever

(junior gang currently hiding out licking their wounds after a complicated sidequest to keep them busy without achieving much)

https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/dam/imageserve/177859499/0x0.jpg