Season 2 was pretty good overall but some of the changes really bothered me and I don't see why they did it.
Spoilers.
In real life Hugo Martinez was pretty much the main badass behind Search Bloc. He survived multiple assassination attempts. They merged Martinez and other incidents that happened to Colombian military/police government officials into the character of Colonel Castillo. Then later they brought Martinez into the story anyways as this watered down bureaucratic military officer. Very odd and distracting choices.
The death of Valerie was gorey over the top nonsense. In real life nothing ever happened to the real woman (Virginia Vallejo) but funny enough the U.S. did end up giving her asylum because a lot of regular Colombians hated her guts. I bet she was a wealth of intel when they debriefed her. The actress and the real Virginia are very close in appearance so they got that right.
I'm not sure if Pablo really bombed the daughter's wedding of one of the Cali cartel leaders. I can't find any reference of it. Pablo did try to assassinate a cali head but at a soccer match. From a story point of view it makes no sense then that the Cali cartel would help Pablo's relatives after that. Although the Cali cartel really did give Pablo's relatives a pass after his death. Some other narcos were not so forgiving though which is why they ended up going to Argentina.
The role of U.S. special forces was downplayed big time. Delta force was involved with the hunt for Pablo. It was even alleged by Bowden the author of Killing Pablo that it was a delta sniper who actually got Pablo with what would have been a fatal shot anyways. In the movie they changed it to a Colombian military sniper. I imagine some of the details of that is probably still classified.
I can understand some of the changes with the sicario names but the real life "Quica" was actually way more brutal and had a brother who was equally brutal and also one of Pablo's sicarios. Pablo's real sicario network was huge..it wasn't just a small collection of assassins in the inner circle but hundreds of buttonmen all over the place.
No mention of other important figureheads too like Griselda Blanco her connections to the Medellin cartel and the chaos she was sowing in Miami and later california. La Madrina is such a colorful character i'm puzzled why she's not referenced really.
Judy Moncada was 100% fiction. Seems like they added her just to add a female foil to the plot. The only high profile female narco was Griselda Blanco. Don Berna is the one who ran the show from the start after his split with Pablo.
Pablo was way more sympathetic in Narcos than in real life. He was an evil piece of shit like others have said and was actually very brutal when it came to killing innocents and going after the family of rivals. There's no doubt about it.
I can't wait to see how they depict the Cali Cartel. The rumor is that the Cali cartel was deeply involved with the CIA anyhow. Stuff like that will probably never be explored fully. That's why most of the Cali heads got off fairly lightly all things considered instead of murked.
If Narcos ever makes it to Mexico that will be something else...it will be non stop gore porn especially when talking about the Zetas. I have yet to see any mainstream piece explore SEA narcos outside of American gangster and that's really ripe territory too. Just google Khun Sa. Then again a lot of the drug lord activity in SEA is still very much classified and intertwined with U.S. intel efforts in the region.
Spoilers.
In real life Hugo Martinez was pretty much the main badass behind Search Bloc. He survived multiple assassination attempts. They merged Martinez and other incidents that happened to Colombian military/police government officials into the character of Colonel Castillo. Then later they brought Martinez into the story anyways as this watered down bureaucratic military officer. Very odd and distracting choices.
The death of Valerie was gorey over the top nonsense. In real life nothing ever happened to the real woman (Virginia Vallejo) but funny enough the U.S. did end up giving her asylum because a lot of regular Colombians hated her guts. I bet she was a wealth of intel when they debriefed her. The actress and the real Virginia are very close in appearance so they got that right.
I'm not sure if Pablo really bombed the daughter's wedding of one of the Cali cartel leaders. I can't find any reference of it. Pablo did try to assassinate a cali head but at a soccer match. From a story point of view it makes no sense then that the Cali cartel would help Pablo's relatives after that. Although the Cali cartel really did give Pablo's relatives a pass after his death. Some other narcos were not so forgiving though which is why they ended up going to Argentina.
The role of U.S. special forces was downplayed big time. Delta force was involved with the hunt for Pablo. It was even alleged by Bowden the author of Killing Pablo that it was a delta sniper who actually got Pablo with what would have been a fatal shot anyways. In the movie they changed it to a Colombian military sniper. I imagine some of the details of that is probably still classified.
I can understand some of the changes with the sicario names but the real life "Quica" was actually way more brutal and had a brother who was equally brutal and also one of Pablo's sicarios. Pablo's real sicario network was huge..it wasn't just a small collection of assassins in the inner circle but hundreds of buttonmen all over the place.
No mention of other important figureheads too like Griselda Blanco her connections to the Medellin cartel and the chaos she was sowing in Miami and later california. La Madrina is such a colorful character i'm puzzled why she's not referenced really.
Judy Moncada was 100% fiction. Seems like they added her just to add a female foil to the plot. The only high profile female narco was Griselda Blanco. Don Berna is the one who ran the show from the start after his split with Pablo.
Pablo was way more sympathetic in Narcos than in real life. He was an evil piece of shit like others have said and was actually very brutal when it came to killing innocents and going after the family of rivals. There's no doubt about it.
I can't wait to see how they depict the Cali Cartel. The rumor is that the Cali cartel was deeply involved with the CIA anyhow. Stuff like that will probably never be explored fully. That's why most of the Cali heads got off fairly lightly all things considered instead of murked.
If Narcos ever makes it to Mexico that will be something else...it will be non stop gore porn especially when talking about the Zetas. I have yet to see any mainstream piece explore SEA narcos outside of American gangster and that's really ripe territory too. Just google Khun Sa. Then again a lot of the drug lord activity in SEA is still very much classified and intertwined with U.S. intel efforts in the region.