The Series That Will Save Sonatine's TV

[gut]

good read outside of the shoddy transcription:

http://www.deamuseum.org/education/t...ena_Murphy.pdf

[sonatine]

my concern with the cali plot shift is that its really pretty fucking boring compared to the escobar narco-terrorism festival of death.

if they dont phase in the mexican cartels, its going to be a pretty brutal slog.


also can someone remind me why viper dox'd murphy to the cali cartel again?

[ToasterOven]

Narcos is not very good. I'm an episode and a half into it and I'm probably done. They rely too heavily on narration because they are hacks that have never done anything decent.

Here's a random in a bowling alley. OK, that's my wife now. There's no connection made between the characters, there's just the narrating hick saying "And then we're married".

The cockroach was stealing. OK, but there's no tension built around the theft and fear of Escobar, there's just a hick saying "He was stealing" and then cut to the guy getting shot. That's not storytelling.

How do we prove Luis Guzman is the craziest? Have him shoot a dog because that's something that's never been done before to prove a guy is awful. Hacky, hack, hacks.

Fuck Narcos.

[SrslySirius]

I think you're being kinda harsh, ToasterOven, but I agree with your overall point. It's a symptom of what I mentioned before about time whizzing by so fast. The thing with Murphy's wife struck me as weird too. I would rather be seeing things happen than be told that they did.

I'm still enjoying the show, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if they had taken their time with the story.

[gimmick]

Yea they didn't really have to go the Underbelly route of covering a single era/crimefamily per season. They could have stretched Escobar so much longer esp. since the show is only very loosely based on historical events.

[sonatine]

Narcos is not very good. I'm an episode and a half into it and I'm probably done. They rely too heavily on narration because they are hacks that have never done anything decent.

Here's a random in a bowling alley. OK, that's my wife now. There's no connection made between the characters, there's just the narrating hick saying "And then we're married".

The cockroach was stealing. OK, but there's no tension built around the theft and fear of Escobar, there's just a hick saying "He was stealing" and then cut to the guy getting shot. That's not storytelling.

How do we prove Luis Guzman is the craziest? Have him shoot a dog because that's something that's never been done before to prove a guy is awful. Hacky, hack, hacks.

Fuck Narcos.

im not at this point yet in terms of dismissal, but as ive digested/reflected on the series as a whole, im having a lot of similar feels.

its just kinda amateurish, its MUCH too drawn out, and if the point is that pablo was the worlds first narco terrorist, the way to tell me that isnt necessarily by making 1 of every 10 minutes of footage a close up of him smoking dope and glowering.

[ToasterOven]

I think you're being kinda harsh, ToasterOven, but I agree with your overall point. It's a symptom of what I mentioned before about time whizzing by so fast. The thing with Murphy's wife struck me as weird too. I would rather be seeing things happen than be told that they did.

I'm still enjoying the show, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if they had taken their time with the story.

Maybe it's harsh because I was expecting to really like it. It might be watchable, but that's about it.

In my defense, Murphy spent more time worrying about his illegal cat than he did his machine gunned partner. It's just so sloppy and ham fisted.

[Sloppy Joe]

I liked it, but way too much narration from a character that I couldn't have cared less about.

Agree with other criticisms from this thread: lurching plot, some awful characters, money discrepancies, etc. Good though, 8/10

[sonatine]

also Murphy treats his wife like a white slave.

[x] unloads a random baby on her.
[x] gets kidnapped and basically fucks around at the office for an hour before telling her hes ok.
[x] my personal favorite ... the wife wants to go home; shes terrified, shes tired, fuck this hell hole, and murphy's like "THIS IS HOME" without even looking at her.

[sonatine]

netflix confirmed season2 contract signed.

[gimmick]

Out of 450 minutes they had to fill in the first season i prolly would have used 300 differently. It's understandable to combine characters and factions to save time but it's not really needed if you end up using the time you saved to completely worthless crap.
It's just oversimplifying for no reason.

And the narrative of good guys vs bad guys really has no place in story about a 3rd world shit hole that has been in a state of low key civil war for more than 6 decades. With every key player it's just varying degrees of scum. You're simply never in position to do anything meaningful by being a good guy.

Also if they were angling for second season after Pablo's death there's really no excuse to cut Don Berna's character out of the 1st season. Don Berna was a traditional scumbag with a knack for self preservation and he was a clean link to most of the key players in 3 decades. Deserted EPL (left-wing guerrilla movement) to work for Pablo, ended up running the militia wing of the Medellin cartel, bounced to Los Pepes (Cali, Castanos, Search Bolc, etc), then ended up running 2 paramilitary blocs and rising as the 3rd in command in AUC (umbrella group for a variety of right-wing blocs). Was extradited in 2008 to US for a single charge of drug trafficking and at the same time dodged all murder related charges and pesky investigations in Colombia. Somewhere around that time 60ish former senators ended up getting linked to AUC.

Oh well 7/10 for the 1st season and will most likely watch the second season.

[sonatine]

deeply flawed but its a fascinating topic so im in.

hopefully it improves. i dont see how it cant at this point.

[limitles]

[Crowe Diddly]

Y'all are some picky motherfuckers fo sho. I thought it was a very fun show, great episode lengths, lots of great tits, beautiful landscapes, calling each other fags with gonorrhea and whatnot...

Murphy's bodycount in season 2 has to include plenty of innocents and shrapnel, I would think. Guy's lost most of his humanity by the end.

also can someone remind me why viper dox'd murphy to the cali cartel again?

ham-fisted attempt to try to get the cali cartel and the US govt working together via blackmail? probably the one part of the season that I thought was dumb, if we're supposed to believe that Oberyn didn't think murphy would finger out who was responsible.

[sonatine]

Real talk; am I crazy or is King of New York's Frank White basically a redux of Pablo Escobar?

[x] philanthropist bandit drug dealer
[x] wanted to create a charitable super-PAC of affiliated drug dealers
[x] wanted to get into politics but was shunned
[x] killed by cops