can i really be the only person watching LA REINA DEL SUR?

she is proud and spunky

her best friend is called fatima and her nemesis (female) is -- somewhat unexpectedly -- called sheila

Voy a cantar un corrido, escuchen muy bien mis compas
Para la reina del sur, traficante muy famosa
Nacida alla en Sinaloa, la Tia Teresa Mendoza
El guero le dijo a tere te dejo mi celular
Cuando lo escuches prietita, no trates de contestar
Es porque ya me torcieron y tu tendras que escapar
El guero Davila era, piloto muy arriesgado
Al cartel de Cuidad Juarez, les hizo muchos mandados
En una avioneta cesna en la sierra lo mataron
Dijo Epifanio Vargas, Teresa vas a escapar
Tengo un amigo en Espaa, alla te puede esperar
Me debe muchos favores y te tendra que ayudar
Cuando llego a Melilla luego le cambio la suerte
Con Don Santiago Fisterra, juntaron bastante gente
Comprando y vendiendo droga para los dos continentes
Manolo Cespedes dijo Teresa es muy arriesgada
Le vende la droga a Francia, Africa, y tambien a Italia
Hasta los rusos le compran es una tia muy pesada
(Supo aprender el acento que se usa por todo Espaa
Demostro su Jerarquia como la mas noble dama
A muchos los sorprendio Teresa la mexicana)
(A veces de piel vestia de su tierra
Se acordaba con bota de cocodrilo
Y avestruz la chamarra
Usaba cinto piteado
Tequila cuando brindaba)
Era la reina del sur
Alla en su tierra natal
Teresa la mexicana, del otro lado del mar
Una mujer muy valiente, que no la van a olvidar
Un dia desaparecio, Teresa la mexicana
Dicen que que esta en la prision, otros que vive en Italia
En California o Miami, de la union Americana

^^^the lyrics to the theme tune, performed by los tigres del norte

i like the way everyone calls her "mexicana"

Is it all Spain-based Spanish speakers other than her?

character-wise there's also mexicans and americans (but they're now mostly out of the story except in flashbacks) and mainland spanish and north-african spanish speakers -- so yes, she's unusual in being (currently)* the only mexican surrounded by spaniards… i assume there's an accent difference that's really obvious to hispanic speakers, i can't hear it but my spanish is literally non-existent

*there's another 60-odd episodes to come!

it sounds pretty cool, I have no doubt the original is probably better

Both the original book and Telemundo telenovela are fantastic. Haven't seen any of the new series, but the earlier versions are well worth your time.

this is the one i'm watching --> Telemundo telenovela

(new season of same not out till next year i don't think)

run teresa run!

aside from being a bit muddling -- lots fo lashbacks and recaps -- LRDS has no unexciting moments so far (tho some of the catfights are a bit kitschy)

i mean flashbacks

so (as many know but perhaps not non-mexican speaking ILX):

kate del castillo, the actress who plays teresa mendoza la reina del sur, was who putting sean penn in the same room as EL CHAPO, hence semi-responsible for EC's subsequent capture

inadvertently: she seems to approve of what she sees as EC's robin-hood-like ways (penn she now rather despises, she says his rolling stone piece is full of fibs abt her)

el chapo apparently took to kate del castillo
(a) bcz she tweeted something approving (see above) and
(b) bcz he greatly enjoyed la reina del sur (the correct response) and
(c) felt he could trust the character KdC was playing, hence the actress too (flawed critical praxis IMO, will never commission a TV column from him)

meanwhile lRdS itself is currently exploring the ethics (and otherwise) of people-trafficking and generally looking more closely at the dynamics of migrancy in the med than a great deal of much fancier TV

putting s/b put

been compulsively watching this with my niece for a few weeks and it's at once amazing and sometimes silly. thx for rec! have abt 10 more eps to go and shit is getting really real. and i keep falling in love. first it was Soraya, then Veronica. (so many great characters, too - Batman, Pote, Oleg, Fati)

I liked the sound of this and thought I was downloading a torrent of it. Boo! It turned out to be the poxy American remake. Another series that doesn't get mentioned on here is Gomorrah, which is an ultra-violent trashy crime series, with a cast of some impeccably dressed thugs amongst the ruin pron of the crumbling housing projects in Naples. And the death count is ridiculously high - between S1 and s2 more than half the cast are already in the ground. It is good fun though.

episode 19 plot summary: "teresa loses again"

her boyfs are all gorgeous, also dicks

some eps set in a women's prison: assuming dickish and/or dead boys not an issue for a while

"Lieut.O'Farrell is pure oligarchy, honey"

(also not a lieut., i didn't get that bit)

it is more o/g cell block h than orange is the new, that's for sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHnemDkHvgA

actually a better version, fond as i am etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng-eYklcmEM

paty: "where i walk the grass stops growing"

(self-hate rather than threat)

I wish someone would upload an English subtitles rip of this in t0rrentland, it sounds awesome.

tbh the subtitles on netflix are intermittent AND wayward

lol, there's more time displacement in this soap than in inland empire

i predict paty too will die :{

http://68.media.tumblr.com/a92ef861f1c2056ae6a16aa7e8adc7ec/tumblr_inline_mlxzsjMhxw1qz4rgp.gif

we regret to inform you i am back on my* bullshit

*actually kate del castillo's obv

lol she just had her michael corleone MASS-REVENGE moment: "la mexicana says HI"

^^^this ended p badly (tho we are not yet half way thru the 63 eps of the first series)

love the way the only person who actually gets the depth of her UNSPOKEN SOULFULNESS is the top russian gangster

the full name of this character -- usually referred too as pote or el pote -- is POTEMKINE GALVEZ

"if blood has to rain from the sky, we will open our umbrellas"

"it's the beginning of the end for teresa mendoza"

we are on ep 38 of 63, so i guess "… but perhaps the end of the beginning" applies here

pati getting very meta in her jealousy: "what shall we call this telenovella? love in the time of narcotraffic?"

(wd watch, obviously) (am watching)

"you're as mad as a goat, tesa!"

oleg pleased that teresa is happy (for once) but also worried

lots of TV crime dramas and policiers are about migrancy peripherally -- its "problems" as significant plot-driving element etc -- but i've never watched one that centres it the way lRdS does

lol at me being taken aback when the chief russian gangster turns out to have beef with communists -- i'm like "i like him, how can he be a czarist?"

he is in fact a murderous drug smuggler albeit one who likes and more importantly understands teresa mendoza (also a gangster)

every three or four eps someone is sure to say "it's the beginning of the end for teresa mendoza"

s1 still has 18 eps to go

"my aztec version of the count of monte cristo"

paty is drunk and sad at a party

"gentlemen, the end of teresa mendoza has started"

lol ambushed by unexpected disappointment every time oleg* disses soviet socialism

*why, bcz he is a GANGSTER

repeat plot point: that a character is desperately in lust w/someone merely bcz they resemble teresa mendoza physically

"you're a victim of cocaine!"
"i'm a victim of YOU and your LIES!"

"i had to pretend i was in love with you but i fell into my own trap!"

from now on all all scenes of angrily recrimination between loves must take place in a sportscar being driven at high wild speed along a cliff-top road by someone coked out of her head and weeping uncontrollably

i hadn't really paid it much mind as i don't listen to songwords much even when they're not in spanish (which i don't speak) but several times an episode los tigres del norte break in with the sung refrain "la reina del sur! traficante muy famosa" (= "the queen of the south! very famous drug dealer!" )

i love this show with my life

ramiro is very much not my favourite character but i do like actor salvador zerboni's commitment to seeming to be on ALL the drugs ALL the time

ALL THE DRUGS

http://www.telemundo.com/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/styles/promotional_content_4_3/public/sites/nbcutelemundo/files/images/gallery/2014/02/19/reina_rataseductora01_130514439041_2_0.jpg?itok=GqEw1Mzj

trying to think of presidential candidates more obviously evil-looking than epifanio vargas

Series 2 just started

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0mZg6xd9uE

back on my bullshit baby

(this showc goes quite slow and i get distracted but it's hit a high-speed section and i'm still only at e45)

lupo and the sexy assassin suddenly grappling in balaclavas

(lol did they fuck before? looks like they will soon)

probably i shd have watched this all joined up, i no longer know who the sexy assassin is working for

lol jesus, this is all a bit saving private ryan (except i don't give fuck abt this guy whose name i don't even know)

i wish i liked -- or hated -- zurdo more (or believed there was even a spark between him and T), bcz this is a *terrific* pulpy twist

brought abt largely by the fact that all mexican crims live 3 minutes away from one another w/o knowing it but

oh no it's "plan trotsky" that can't be good

gotta say s2 does make good use of the much bigger budget sometimes

even when it makes some of the plot turns seem extremely goofy

love how stubborn and capable sofia is (and how complicated this makes everything for the all adults)

i have got weirdly out of step with myself -- some of the plot i have already seen, other bits not even slightly

s2 has a very different feel

loool a very word-heavy reveal at a fraught everyone-back-together moment suddenly casually tosses in the claim -- i think meant to be true, a man is pleading for his life -- that the US are interfering in mexico's elections by ensuring the president is (a) a legendarily corrupt gangster and (b) a puppet in their pocketses

during the extremely long word-dump recap the approaching threat has once again been the sexy assassin on a bike but the recap-reveal is so detailed that it feels like she's motored across the whole of mexico

oh no

i kind of knew this was on the weay bcz i spoilered myself looking up something abt what else the actress in question had done

don't forget totzi :(

is there no one else in this airport?

anyway lol it's GLOVES OFF now

"there's a reason they call her QUEEN OF THE SOUTH"

thats right

https://radical.town/media/radical-town-media/accounts/avatars/000/000/008/static/d986e9e06e7521c7.png

ok so who ELSE is inexplicably alive and requires fill-in backstory to firm up this fact unconvincingly

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

not that i care, this is exactly what i watch this insane show for

it is effective that -- in this tangled war between very bad gangsters doing murders and stuff -- the overarching baddie who allows us to withhold full judgment is washington, behaving very much more badly

this is a documentary

haha this US agency is out-of-the-box evil

and it's not even the CIA

(well it might be but i *think* it's the DEA)

not helping that i started watching this series 1 x yrs ago, binged like 40eps, stopped for 10 months for various reasons inc 🦠🦠🦠🦠 and am back again and bingeing again -- some of these callbacks are p mysterious to me, like who is this young tied-up man suddenly

(last week he was skateboarding in front of congress in washington and he's kira's nephew but how does he have a plot role, i just entirely forgot)

mexican all-woman shoot-out near the washington monument, we love too see it

¡finally! circled back to this (starting at e54)

lol i have no idea who this young angry grieving goth lady is any more, there is a downside to my very punctuated bingeing style

"sit near the river and you will see your enemy's body float by"

this is also my motto

my enemy is ned raggett

a funny thing abt this show is that they present the DEA as a kind of more focused CIA, all plots and plans and overthrowing the rightful mexican government (a gangster)

teresa has a low opinion of gringos

literally no one is ever dead in this show

i see from five yrs ago i was commenting on the unending interwoven flashbacks, that hasn't slowed down at all

lee harvey batman

this ep has an escape from jail by helicopter as a mere passing element for some minor characters

(i mean i'm sure they'll have a role shortly but in any other show an escape from jail by helicopter would be climactic for a bigwig)

(just checked and s3 of his marvellous show is all ready to run)

o fuk that's eric roberts (as the corrupt and murderous head of the DEA)

season three begun broadcasting 1 x week ago: 6 eps so far tho i have not found them anywhere yet

i keep reading that it's on netflix but it's not on netflix uk yet 😔

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7yh9KOrQpE

https://68.media.tumblr.com/a92ef861f1c2056ae6a16aa7e8adc7ec/tumblr_inline_mlxzsjMhxw1qz4rgp.gif

loooool amazing gif