Narcos: Get rich or die trying (Colombian version)

On the eve of a new Narcos season from Netflix, we must take a look back to Season 2 and the shockwaves it sent through society and my life.

Never before has a story stuck with me like the saga of Pablo Escobar in the Netflix original series Narcos.

So, it is no surprise Narcos is a popular show. The real surprise is the amount of heart squeezed into this Netflix original that makes you want to become a Colombian citizen. The magical realism genre seduced my sense of sight, sound, and imagination. Colombia’s sensual, mystical, and passionate aura pulled you into a world that you never wanted to leave, no matter how many bombs Pablo set off.

As Americans, we can be, well, obsessed with criminal activity. Near life-size posters of Scarface and his big gun are plastered on the wall of dorm rooms in Universities throughout the U.S. So our best and brightest who are financially putting themselves into indentured servitude to follow the “right path”  worship the stories about a man with little to no education who goes against the system to become larger than life.

This is the country where the O.J. Simpson trial stopped the lives of every American as we waited for a verdict. Now over 20 years later we replay the scenario on FX because it is still so interesting to us that a black man got over on the system. He beat the odds. The Godfather is one of our most celebrated cinematic works and I personally have studies this script in one of, my classes at the top communications school in the world.

For about a year I had heard whispers of this show, I even watched an episode. However, I was not captured. The killing and constant subtitles seemed too much for this overly sensitive, drunk, and high girl to handle on any given Saturday binge night. Then I heard from a really hot guy it was great. After 8 hours on set with him, he was not so hot and I had no need to follow up on the tip. Then I went on a date with someone I had nothing in common with. He again mentioned Narcos. Yes, it was a shallow and attempt at connecting with the hottie but, experiencing Narcos is the best thing that came out of that relationship.

Though watching Narcos was not enough to get me a boyfriend I gained a whole new family in the Escobars. We laughed, cried, and pondered the world together till the end. Pablo is the family man, the businessman, the charitable man, the macho man, El Patron! His character was all of these things and deserves a damn Emmy. From that moment Pablo straight up punks some border police, I knew he was the only man for me.  Unfortunately for us ladies standards of beauty can be hard measurements to live up to, but lucky for men they are not measured in the same way. Pablo Escobar is nowhere near model status, but his machismo, power, confidence, and goddamn commitment to his moustache and comb-over make him one sexy motherfucker.

Mama was ride or die for sure. From day one when she stole shoes for Pablo so the kids at school would not make fun of him to sewing extra pockets in people’s jackets to smuggle cocaine.No one can deny Pablo’s wife TaTa was a bad bitch. She risked everything to stand by her man till the last day. Then she had to look out for her children, and there is no shame in that mama.

Now, he wasn’t all long looks, family barbeques, and the occasional joint.

Pablo was a criminal. He killed kids, set off bombs in the streets and even brought a plane down with a bomb earning him the Terrorist label. One of the original scenes of the show depicts young pregnant women swallowing small bags of cocaine to smuggle to us. At this point, you are like this is horrible, this guy is evil. This scene is essential to unwrapping you from the seductive and temptation filled life that Escobar basks and flourishes in. However, his power and reputation soon make him a legend and his infamy begins to overshadow his everyday actions.

The way Pablo lives for his family and his community tears my moral compass in two as I see the bombs he set off, and the addiction he spread throughout the world. He also built schools, entire neighborhoods, houses for the poor and started handing out stacks of cash on the basketball court.  He helped people. People who the government had given up on. He was a poor person that everyone gave up on. And there is nothing an American audience likes more than a character making something out of nothing. He grew up without shoes and managed to make the Forbes list of the most wealthy people in the world. You have to be impressed.

This man evaded authorities until he could build his own prison, and then turned himself into to his own custody! This was not an ordinary prison as it featured all the glamour of a five-star casino including; pool table, a roulette wheel, a stocked bar and family visits. Ohh yea, and a golden toilet.

Say what you will about Pablo, but no one can deny his hustler’s spirit. The hustle is a trait I find very endearing. Mostly because my father constantly insisted my brother and I lacked the art of the hustle. My father was born to a poor family in Trinidad, moved to America and spent his adolescence in Brooklyn New York, got a college scholarship to a school in the south and makes over 6 figures to this day. The man knows how to Hustle. I am a millennial who is working on it. (I got a blog a full-time corporate job and side job with Uber).So to see the lengths and feats of Pablo’s hustle is nothing less than extraordinary. My dad had it rough, but his talent for sports and American opportunity gave him the chance to be successful. Pablo did not have that opportunity.

This series questions the idea of opportunity. It is clear that Pablo was a great businessman. He saw an opportunity and was able to create an infrastructured empire worth billions. In this world, it seems poor people are deemed naturally inclined to criminal enterprise, but we have to ask are those the only opportunities afforded to them. If Pablo Escobar was born into a wealthy family in a neighborhood with great schools maybe he would have had a better chance. He may have been student body president and championed the young Business leaders of Columbia club at his local high school. He could have went on to college and in a perfect word, business school. And today he could be CEO of a fortune 500 company or a Colombian politician. Instead, he ended up dead on a roof while the cops held him up like a wild deer they shot.

To this day I sit at the stop light thinking of Pablo and trying to pinpoint strategically where it all went wrong. Was it Pablos quest for political power? Everybody knows drug dealers are supposed to be the silent donors, to take a seat in office brings the heat. Was it the loss of his most trusted confidant? Pablo seemed to become irrational after his best friend and partner was beat to death by police (the cops had their reasons too). Or does the empire just have to fall eventually? Romans thought their reign would last forever. America is humbled every day as the rest of the world catches up and sometimes surpasses our might. No one can be top dog forever. So as I say good Bye to Pablo and the Escobar family with a full heart. Now my heart awaits being captured by the new season of Narcos starring the Medellin Cartel. To follow Pablo, they better bring it!

Shannon O’Connor is a writer, Actress, and comedian in Los Angeles. Tweet her what you think @SoShananigans or hit her up on the gram so.shananigans!