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

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

lol i completely missed this (or maybe it only just started on uk netflix)

s2 has 60 eps!! oh my!

https://media.giphy.com/media/BNaETsu7Jqz6I91ZwR/giphy.gif

MUCH higher production values

melodrama index: unchanged based on e1

hadn't noticed this thread all year and had no idea there was going to be a S2. i'm excited, thx! kinda have mixed feelings since Pote is no longer around, but will check it nonetheless

e2 is even more exciting and ridiculous

(i am watching slowly in case my constitution can't take it)

she still has catastrophically bad taste in men lol

i mean they're hot obv but never have her best interests at heart

her daughter is terrific

is it ok to describe her as spunky

wondering where these lawned wooded mexican mini-pyramids are -- is it a deeply meaningful site for her return to mexico (or just a nice fancy backdrop)

so i just started watching this thinking it might be what i wanted and it is.

things i immediately love - the stuff around her bath and in her house. the way she stops putting a spliff in her mouth to sing a lyric she particularly likes. the *relentless* and v crude flashbacks. shit tonnes of high emotion. this is great.

i am ten mins in. there are 60 eps in season 1.

lol i want to rewatch s1 now as well

ok 1 episode down. it really is very good. the way it’s shot, the sense of environment - flats, streets, the city. and the viewer being smashed around flashbacks and emotional escalation like they’re a squash ball. high melodramatic feeling, and she as a character is great. no aspect of her resilience, guts and emotion feels out of place despite being daring, funny and brilliant. totally exuberant and the way the shots are made, up, the sheer amount of colour and mess in each one, is fantastic.

A+ see you in 60 episodes time.

not feeling any need to invest much love in these 3 galician assassins jumping into a little microplane to go kill teresa: this is ep 3 of 60

lol the "in the next exciting episode" teasers are lethal, THE NEXT EPISODE LOOKS VERY EXCITING AND ALSO TOTALLY NUTS

You watching this in the US, mark s.? I haven't found it yet.

You watching this in the US, mark s.? I haven't found it yet. Oh! Yaay Fizzles!

nope, in the UK, sorry

“there are many coincidences between us”
“is that good or bad?”
teresa shrugs
“weird”

both learning fast that you can’t trust how things pan out (particularly since she doesn’t realise how deep she is in the labyrinth of crookedness around her) and also breaking the mark s heuristic.

franklin anderson of the FBI with his business card that identifies him as Cheef Detective is now dead.

i’d love to screencap so many scenes in this. teresa sitting opposite a pimp with a lurid purple shirt and a bright yellow globe lamp on the table to take one example just now. the clothes generally are perfect.

then she goes out and gets trashed drinking tequila from a bottle while crying by a fountain.

in fact all the opening scenes in melilla are great. the interior furnishings beat anything you get elsewhere.

oh god it’s just got on to epifanio’s extremely unlikely political career.

some amazing continuity where epifanio and his sister in law are having a conversation at his ranch and it cuts to teresa getting arrested by the most lenient cop in the world before she gets a flight to and lands in madrid at which point it cuts back to continue the conversation at the ranch.

she needs to stop falling for drug movers tho.

or smugglers as they’re sometimes called.

don't hold your breath (for 60 episodes or more)

the goth stepsister of the kidnapped daughter, the raging bereaved gangster-gran who trains bulls for bullfighting

don't hold your breath (for 60 episodes or more)

the two norteamericano drugs cops back in washington, complaining about "bitches" (with the capitol as a handy backdrop)

teresa flying off to moscow: is she going to find POTE :D ?

(can you even fly to moscow from morroco? teresa mendoza can)

i like the moments when sofia and lupo like each other a bit for a moment, i guess it's classic stockholm syndrome but such strong characters butting heads whatcha gnna do?

ok you can fly from morocco to moscow, and she did

even on brief acquaintance i can see norteamericano drugs cops are going to be an entire sub genre to themselves in this.

correct

ok i lolled at this absurd and marvellous moscow location but i'm not going to spoiler it sorry

pancho villa klaxon

(mention not appearance)

no wait it is a kind of appearance omg (still no spoilers)

I found what I assume is half the first epi of S2 on YouTube. Picked up as bril as it left off. I can not wait til u.s. netflix hooks us up. Seriously best show ever

fabergé eggs klaxon (when in moscow i guess)

oleg is a different actor now, blander imo :(

(also i realised i was getting pote and oleg muddled upthread, bcz potemkine is a russian name)

e8 was a bit of an emo trudge but e9 has picked up some speed

weirdly this is reminding a bit of buffy s7: super-tough 2nd-gen young women en masse (ok there's three of them, teresa's daughter, the goth and her sister)

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