END OF THE BEGINNING (NARCOS MEXICO, SEASON THREE)

So it looks like this is it.

After three series documenting the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar and the Cali cartel in Colombia and another three following Mexican drug trafficking, Carlo Barnard, Chris Brancato and Doug Miro's Netflix series 'Narcos' is coming to an end.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Barnard signalled the third season of the 'Narcos' spin-off 'Narcos: Mexico' felt like the right time to sign off 

Describing 'Narcos' and 'Narcos: Mexico' as origin tales, Barnard indicated that series three of the Mexican adventure brings us to where we are now with the war on drugs despite focusing on events in the 1990s.

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

At the end of series two, Diego Luna's Felix Gallardo has been knocked off his perch and was effectively handed over to the authorities by the other cartels.

Jose Maria Yazpik's Amado Carrillo Fuentes in Juarez had emerged as the strongest figure, running a sophisticated trafficking operation with a fleet of planes ferrying Cali cartel cocaine from Colombia into the United States.

Alfonso Dosal's Benjamin Arrellano, his trigger happy brother Manuel Masalva's Ramon and Mayra Hermosillo's sister Endellia were also operating another lucrative cartel out of Tijuana.

But there was friction between them and the Sinaloan cartel led by Gorka Lasaosa's Hector Luis Palma and Alejandro Edda's Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Meanwhile Scoot McNairy's DEA agent Walt Breslin had returned to El Paso in Texas after Gallardo's incarceration, having been warned by the former drug kingpin of the chaos that would ensue in Mexico following his downfall.

At the start of series three, a jaded Breslin is in a relationship with Kristen Gutoskie's academic Dani and is contemplating a transfer from El Paso to Chicago after his girlfriend is offered a job there.

Working undercover in an operation exposing a trucking business's links to the Mexican cartels, he has the reluctant blessing of his boss Matt Letscher's Jaime Kuykendall to go to Chicago.

However some interesting developments occur south of the border.

Amado winds up behind bars after crashing a plane in the desert and being pursued by the military while driving a truck carrying a cargo of drugs.

He spends three months in jail and during his incarceration suffers the loss of his young daughter from his first marriage as a result of an asthma attack.

Returning home to his palatial compound which is under construction, Amado picks up where he left off and seizes control of the Juarez cartel by gunning down Noe Hernandez's Rafael Aguilar Guajardo.

Meanwhile the tension between the Sinaloan Cartel and the Arrellanos reaches boiling point, with the latter taxing the former for moving their product through Tijuana to the US border.

Palma and El Chapo seek the assistance of Alberto Guerra's Ismael "El Mayo" Zambado, an independent drugs trafficker who uses his fishing business as a front for his activities.

However El Mayo seems reluctant to take sides.

In Tijuana, the Arrellanos are enjoying their clout with politicians, the law, the military and the Catholic Church and recruit young people from well to do backgrounds to carry out their dirty work.

These include Ivan Aragon's judge's son Alfredo Hodoyan and his younger brother Lorenzo Ferro's Alex.

As Endellia marries an attorney, her brother Ramon is openly dismissive of the Sinaloans.

It isn't long before the two cartels start openly feuding, with El Chapo leading a daring attack on the Arrellanos at a lavish party which results in the death of Endellia's new husband.

Acting on a tip off, Ramon and his goons try to assassinate El Chapo at the airport in Guadalajara when all hell breaks loose during a car park gun battle.

Several civilians are inadvertently killed and also a Cardinal, resulting in the Church putting the squeeze on the country's politicians to take a stand against all of the cartels.

With Mexico engaged in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Clinton administration taking an interest, Jose Zuniga's General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo is appointed to head up the war against drugs and capture the Arrellanos and El Chapo, with Walt Breslin being dispatched from El Paso to represent DEA interests.

While El Chapo ends up in prison, the Arrellanos manage to avoid capture while waging their own war against the Sinaloans and other cartels including Amado's.

Helping them is Bobby Soto's ruthless, high ranking San Diego Logan Heights Gang member and hitman, David Barron Corona.

Will Walt break up Amado's empire?

Will the Arrellanos' grip on the Mexican establishment finally break?

Who will emerge the strongest from the cartels' bloodletting?

With episodes written by Carlo Bernard, Clayton Trussell, Maggie Cohn, Wes Taylor, Iturri Sosa, Alec Ziff and Isaac Gomez, 'Narcos Mexico' remains a classy affair, comfortably blending fact and fiction and occasionally bringing to life the characters it depicts with archive footage of them and the atrocities they committed in real life.

The writers introduce other new characters like Luis Gerardo Mendez's Victor Tapia, a Juarez beat cop who ends up becoming obsessed by the disappearance of a factory girl and trading information with the El Paso DEA so he can track a serial killer down.

Luisa Rubino surprisingly takes over the role of narrator from McNairy, playing Andrea Nunez, a diligent, brave young reporter for the anti-establishment newspaper La Voz edited by Alejandro Furth's Ramon Salgado.

Her investigations lead her to trying to expose the malign influence of another new character, Manuel Uriza's corrupt politician Carlos Hank Gonzalez.

Yessica Borroto Perryman also portrays a Havana cocktail bar singer Marta who becomes Amado's love interest and offers a potential path out of a life of crime.

Impressively directed by Colombian Andrez Bais, Mexicans Amat Escalante and Alejandra Marquez Abella, Argentine Luis Ortega and Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who played Pablo Escobar in the first two series of 'Narcos,' the final series celebrates the 40 journalists in Mexico who have lost their lives exposing political and financial corruption involving the cartels.

The extent of that influence, as depicted in the show, is truly disturbing and the show suggests the war against drug gangs waged by the Clinton administration and the Mexican authorities was so rigged, it was never going to be won.

Stylishly shot by Adrian Teijido and brilliantly edited by Garret Donnelly, Jon Otazua, Hugo Diaz, Joaquin Elizondo and Chris Cavanagh, 'Narcos: Mexico' boasts some stunning set pieces like the airport massacre and a gun battle by the Arrellanos and the Army in a suburban neighborhood built around the perspective of bystanders.

However the show mostly thrives on terrific performances from its cast.

McNairy remains compelling as the morally compromised Walt, desperate to strike a blow against the cartels but being drawn into questionable tactics to achieve his goal.

Rubino is a worthy successor as narrator, immediately engaging our respect as a driven, enthusiastic young reporter.

Luis Gerardo Mendez turns in a haunting performance as Victor - a cop who is just as obsessed by the disappearance of women in Juarez as Walt is by the cartels.

Yazpik is still strangely charismatic as Amado, the ruthless and intelligent "Lord of the Skies" who becomes one of the world's wealthiest drug traffickers and often proves adept at getting out of a tight corner during gun battles.

His relationship with Perryman's Marta opens up a new side to the character, as he contemplates a life away from the savagery and betrayal of the cartels.

Edda handles El Chapo's transformation into a ruthless drug lord with considerable skill, while Uriza impresses as the wily businessman and politician Hank Gonzalez.

Dosal, Masalva and Hermosillo are also excellent as the Arrellanos whose arrogance and confidence is rocked by the Sinaloans and the fallout from the airport massacre.

In the end, though, you cannot find fault with any of the performances in 'Narcos Mexico' as its dazzling and disturbing tale unfolds.

If this is the end for the show, then it and the three Colombian tales that preceded it bow out on a high.

Barnard, Brancato and Miro's creation has been one of the finest TV series to emerge over the last decade.

A thrilling bilingual fusion of 'The Sopranos' and 'The Wire,' its real innovation is its mix of real life TV news footage with stirring drama. 

'Narcos' and 'Narcos Mexico' was a tough but compelling watch.

It boasted some of the best writing for television of recent times.

It will be sorely missed.

(Season three of 'Narcos Mexico' was made available for streaming on Netflix on November 5, 2021)

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