The second season of Narcos, an American crime thriller drama web television series produced and created by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, follows the story of notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine, while also focusing on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, DEA agents, and various opposition entities.
It stars Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar â a Colombian drug lord and the leader of the MedellÃÂn Cartel, with Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal, Paulina Gaitán, Cristina Umaña, Joanna Christie, Paulina GarcÃÂa, Raúl Méndez, Manolo Cardona, Bruno Bichir, Eric Lange, Florencia Lozano, Damián Alcázar, Alberto Ammann, and Francisco Denis playing various real life based characters.
All 10 episodes of the season became available for streaming on Netflix on September 2, 2016, and were met with more favorable critical reviews than the first season, with critics particularly praising the performance of Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar. On September 6, 2016, Netflix renewed the series for a third and fourth season.
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The second season of Narcos received more favorable reviews than the first with critics particularly praising the performance of Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 92% positive, based on 16 critic revies: "Narcos sophomore season manages to elevate the stakes to a gut-wrenching degree in what continues to be a magnificent account of Pablo Escobar's life." On Metacritic, Season 2 holds a score of 76 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. IGN gave the second season a score of 7.4 out of 10 saying it "Good" and reads "It may go overboard with its love of Pablo Escobar, but I can't truly fault the show for taking advantage of its best performer and character â or for scrambling to find an emotional core on a show that can feel rather clinical."
Season two received generally positive reviews from many media outlets. Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club lauded the performance of Moura's and said, "While the show never soft-pedals the havoc Escobar created, it makes him surprisingly sympathetic, thanks in part to MouraâÂÂs shrewd, affecting performance." Mark A. Perigard of Boston Herald said, "MouraâÂÂs performance anchors this show." Critic Neil Genzlinger of New York Times said, "Mr. Moura is inscrutably brilliant at the center of it all." Writing for IndieWire, Liz Shannon Miller said, "The show has figured out how to balance its ostensible heroes. The buddy cop energy between Peña and Murphy was one of Season 2âÂÂs most enjoyable side dishes--enough to make one hope for more." The New York Posts, Robert Rorke said, "Without [Escobar] thereâÂÂs a gaping hole. So allow yourself to be mesmerized and appalled at one of the most outrageous true crime dramas ever filmed." Emily VanDerWerff of Vox said, "The second season of Narcos, NetflixâÂÂs historical drama about drug lord Pablo Escobar and the law enforcement officers who worked to bring him down, is a marked improvement over the first."
Entertainment Weeklys Jeff Jensen also reviewed the series positively saying, "Where season 1 spanned 10 years, season 2 captures Escobar's last days on the loose. Each tightly packed episode moves quickly without sacrificing richness, chronicling the uneasy alliances and gross tactics employed to snare Escobar." Television critic, Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said, "What works in the early going of season two is that the fall is almost always more thrilling, if not engaging, than the buildup. Escobar senses the loss of power and Moura does some of his best work as viewers read the worry and interior thinking on his face." John Anderson of Wall Street Journal wrote, "The sense of desperation among all the characters is heightened; the stakes are higher; the politics more sordid. Other aspects of the series, however, have remained disappointingly the same." However, Writing for Collider Chris Cabin expressed that, "There are potent and provocative ideas that lie frustratingly dormant throughout this series, which seems to be just happy to play a competent but only occasionally compelling Michael Mann riff.