NARCOS
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: Today on Netflix, the entire first season of Narcos is available for streaming. It’s the story, based on actual events but strongly fictionalized, about the rise of cocaine in the 1970s – and, in particular, the rise of ruthless drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. “Pablo says the gringos will fall in love with this sh**,” one of his couriers tells another the first time a packet of the white powder makes its way to Miami. Brazilian actor Wagner Moura plays Escobar, and while he’s not as instantly magnetic as James Gandolfini was in The Sopranos, he’s certainly interesting to watch, and the details of how these drug kingpins rose to power, and were investigated by authorities, make for an interesting narrative. Much of Narcos is either narrated in English, by the DEA agent (played by Boyd Holbrook) charged with bringing down Escobar, or presented with subtitles. The target audience here, for Netflix, is global more than local – but it’s a show worth sampling anyway, to see if it pulls you in.