Season one of Narcos: Mexico follows DEA Agent Kiki Camarena as he moves
his family from California to his new post in Guadalajara. Kiki is ambitious and wants
to bring real justice to the drug trade in Mexico, but he quickly learns that there
are many roadblocks in the Mexican government preventing him from doing his job correctly.
Just as Kiki is arriving in Guadalajara to make a name for himself, so too is Miguel Angel Felix
Gallardo. Felix is an ex-cop from Sinaloa working under Pedro Aviles. But the Mexican government is
constantly interfering with their enterprise, and Felix has his eyes set much higher.
He convinces his boss to let him travel to Guadalajara to unify the various plazas and
form the first Mexican cartel. And when Aviles lacks the forward thinking vision of Felix and
tries to have him killed for stepping out of line, Felix has his former boss killed.
Felix’s Guadalajara Cartel, also known as the Federation, not only had all of the
various plazas under its control, but also was in the pockets of important figures in
government and law enforcement, making the whole organization practically untouchable.
Helping Felix lead this cartel was his longtime friend and partner, Rafa,
and Aviles’ old partner Don Neto. Rafa has developed a seedless strain of marijuana,
making it lighter and easier to transport. With the resources of the cartel behind him,
Rafa is able to plant a marijuana super farm covering over 1300 acres in the Mexican desert.
There were three main plazas in the Guadalajara cartel: Sinaloa, Juarez, and Tijuana. In Sinaloa,
Felix appointed Palma as leader, with Chapo and Cochiloco working under him. Juarez was led by
Pablo Acosta, but Felix sent Don Neto’s nephew Amado to help run things. And in Tijuana, Felix
passed up his old friend Isabella to let Benjamin Arellano Felix and his family lead the plaza.
With the power of his super farm and his network of aligned plaza leaders, Felix Gallardo quickly
becomes known as the Godfather and begins drawing the attention of the DEA. But that doesn’t stop
his plans for expansion, and he’s soon got his eyes set on an even more lucrative drug:
cocaine. Felix heads to Colombia to meet with both the Cali Cartel and the Medellin Cartel,
run by Pablo Escobar, and cuts a deal to use his resources to transport their cocaine
into the US. This deal would bring in billions of dollars for the Federation.
But it’s not all smooth sailing for Felix, as he is constantly having to
solve problems created by his associates. Rafa becomes addicted to cocaine and grows
increasingly frustrated and erratic as Felix’s focus shifts from Rafa’s weed
to the Colombian’s cocaine. Rafa even forms a violent rivalry against Amado.
When Kiki Camarena and his fellow DEA agents, aided by the Mexican army,
raid Rafa’s marijuana plantation and burn the whole thing to the ground,
the conflict between the cartel and the DEA escalates into an all out war.
Felix wants to move past losing the marijuana crop, knowing the real money was now in the
cocaine deal anyway, but his allies in the government pressure him into retaliating by
kidnapping Kiki. When Felix refuses, not wanting to escalate a war with the US government, El Azul,
the Director-General of Mexico’s corrupt Federal Security Directorate, or DFS,
turns to Rafa to get the job done. Rafa,
on a cocaine bender and feeling resentful that his farm was destroyed, agrees to the plan.
And so, DEA agent Kiki Camarena is kidnapped by the cartel and tortured for information on what
intel the US has on the Federation. Knowing his government allies had turned on him,
Felix implores Rafa and Don Neto to flee. Hoping to make peace on all sides,
Felix makes the decision to tip off the DEA to Rafa’s whereabouts. This leads to Rafa’s arrest,
which Felix hopes will also lead to Kiki’s rescue and put an end to the DEA’s manhunt. Felix then
decides to retreat back to Sinaloa, and asks the Governor, a father figure to him, to aid in
his protection. The governor agrees, for a steep price, but later betrays Felix to the authorities.
Kiki’s boss at the DEA’s Guadalajaran bureau, Jaime, is doing everything in his power to
rescue his friend, but at every step in the process, corrupt members of Mexican government
and law enforcement impede his attempts. After taking the obstruction to the media and making
international headlines, Jaime is finally able to make progress, but unfortunately it’s too late,
and Kiki’s dead body is discovered. When law enforcement goes to arrest Felix following the
Sinoloan governor’s tipoff, Jaime is forced to sit on the sidelines after being deemed too emotional.
And so, when Felix’s hideout is raided, it’s not Jaime or any other DEA agent making the arrest,
it’s the Mexican police, led by Commadante Calderoni, who Felix is able to cut a deal with.
We learn that Felix had ultimately decided to take part in the torturing and killing of
Kiki Camarena, which led to a lot of incriminating evidence. Felix offered up enough evidence to put
away ally Don Neto while he kept evidence he could use to blackmail Mexican government officials,
re-solidifying his position as head of the Guadalajaran cartel. And so, Felix escapes
arrest and regains the backing of his corrupt political allies. In Felix’s weakened position,
old friend Isabella had tried to stage a coup to have Tijuana leader Benjamin Felix
take over the entire Federation. But the newly re-empowered Felix Gallardo
arrives to crash the meeting, dismisses Isabella, and reclaims ultimate control.
As season one comes to a close, a defeated Jaime is set to return to America, but before he leaves
he is reassured that Kiki Camarena’s death would not go unpunished, and the Mexican drug war would
be played by very different rules moving forward. The DEA was beginning Operation Leyenda and
sending a special task force, led by Agent Walt Breslin, previously the unseen narrator of the
first season, to avenge Kiki’s death and bring down the Guadalajaran cartel once and for all.
And that's everything that happened in narcos season one. let me know
some of your favorite moments from season one in the comments below.
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