Netflix’s ‘Drug Lords’ Is A Cheat Sheet To Some Of The Worst Criminals In Modern History

Exploring the shocking history of real-life drug dealers has probably made Netflix a lot of money. Currently, the streaming service has two original-branded series directly related to the the rise and fall of of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel — its dramatic hit Narcos and the Spanish-language series Surviving Escobar — Alias JJ. However, Netflix has recently added another great watch to its ever-expanding library of druggie dramas. Say hello to Drug Lords, a docu-series dedicated to depicting some of the most brutal and cartels and gangs in recent history.

Format-wise, Drug Lords is a fairly by the numbers docu-series. Each episode is equally filled with talking head interviews from officers, surviving gang members, and journalists as well as dramatized re-enactments of each organization. Each 45-minute episode stands as more informative rather than revolutionary. If you’re someone who spends their free time scrolling through Wikipedia pages of hardened criminals, it’s unlikely that you’ll see anything on Drug Lords you didn’t already know. However, watching the interviewed accounts of these men and women does a good amount to emphasize the horrors of the series’ profiled criminals. That’s what makes Drug Lords an interesting watch. It puts a real-life face to the stories that have been largely imagined in today’s current pop culture climate.

That’s certainly true of the show’s first two episodes, which focus on Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel, respectively. Due to the show’s time limits, neither episode is nearly as informative as Narcos‘ coverage of Escobar in Seasons 1 and 2 or its coverage of the Cali Cartel in Season 3. That’s partially what makes what the show chooses to highlight and ignore so interesting. For example, while Drug Lords largely rushes through the role Los Pepes played in Escobar’s fall from power, a significant amount of time is dedicated to La Catedral, the luxury prison Escobar designed for himself on his own dime. There are so many twisting elements to Escobar’s story, it’s easy to forget that at a period in history, a cartel leader was allowed to carry out his prison sentence in what essentially was a self-designed clubhouse. Likewise, “The Cali Cartel” opens with an interviewee recounting how the cartel once ripped apart a traitor limb by limb by tying him to a group of motorcycles. As that  story stands as one of the more ridiculous-seeming elements of the Netflix original, it’s sobering to see it presented as factual.

However, Drug Lords doesn’t merely act as an abridged fact checker for Narcos. The other two episodes in the docu-series focus on lesser known gangs, namely Frank Lucas of New York and the Pettingill Clan of Australia. Whereas the show’s first two episodes deal with empires built on cocaine, the latter two are bound by heroine. During his time, Frank Lucas and the country boys were known as the Heroin Kings of New York, and Pettingill family is referred to as Australia’s heroin dynasty. It’s in these episodes focusing on lesser known drug lords that the series really shines. The rise and fall of any drug empire and drug lord is inherently interesting. Opening up these narratives to include more than just the same few stories that have been told and interpreted a countless number of times is even better.

Drug Lords isn’t ground-breaking, must-watch TV. There are no larger, overarching themes to the series other than the scandalous reminder that these leaders existed. On a production level, the series wouldn’t be out of place on truTV or similar networks. However, it is a solid, somewhat educational background binge that increases Netflix’s collection of true crime originals. If you’re in the mood to learn about a horrific drug dynasty you’ve never heard of, check out Drug Lords.

Stream Drug Lords on Netflix