Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Til Jail Do Us Part’ on Peacock, Where Four Wives Band Together When Their Criminal Husbands Get Nabbed

In the eight-episode Peacock original ‘Til Jail Do Us Part, the wives of four drug traffickers become unlikely allies when their husbands are arrested and the cartel boss they all work for comes after the ladies for some misbegotten money. Kate del Castillo of La Reina del Sur and Ingobernable co-stars, alongside Roselyn Sanchez of Fantasy Island; ‘Til Jail is part of a larger content sharing agreement with Telemundo that Peacock announced earlier this year.

‘TIL JAIL DO US PART: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: It’s a coordinated sting. Police vehicles surround and intercept three vehicles, yank three husbands from behind the wheel, and leave three wives standing alone and wondering what the hell just happened.

The Gist: It’s not that Angela (Kate del Castillo), Sofia (Roselyn Sanchez), Esmeralda (Jeimy Osorio), and Viri (Sylvia Saenz) don’t know how their husbands make so much money. As Angela tells Viri when the neighbors around her Coral Gables-style mansion boycott the birthday party of her daughter Elena (Vanessa Diaz), “they’re scared of us.” Pablo (Matias Novoa), Sebas (Mauricio Isaac), Miguel (Ivan Arana), and Carlos (Leonardo Ortizgris) are all part of a lucrative Miami criminal organization run by Suazo (Rodrigo Murray) and elderly matriarch Enriquetta (Julieta Egurrola). And everything’s great – fancy homes, cool cars, bank accounts in the Caymans – until one of the guys steals five million bucks from the boss and the cops suddenly break up the party. Now their husbands are in custody, getting sweated by a hard-driving detective (Jessica Lindsay), and Suazo is sending thugs after the women, looking for his absconded cash.

Their husbands are criminals, so it’s natural that the women would socialize together, somewhat like the insular world of mafia wives. But here’s the thing: from the beginning, these ladies make it clear that they don’t like each other, and only maintain the most superficial of friendships because of their spouses’ connection. At Elena’s birthday party in the hours before the big bust, they all run out of things to say after the opening round of pleasantries are over with. But necessity has a way of creating strange bedfellows, and due to their isolated lives, they turn to each other for support once the trouble begins. After she’s threatened in her home by Suazo’s henchman, Sofia stays at Esme’s; they even agree that, of the whole group, they like each other best. And while Angela is searching her house for some walking around money and reassuring her daughter Marta (Alejandra Zaid) that everything will be OK, Viri arrives with her two kids and a Range Rover stacked haphazardly with luggage. Her house was seized by the authorities; can she stay awhile?

With the women finding each other, it makes it easier for Suazo’s goons to find them. Assets frozen, unhoused from their mansions, and forced to become allies: the women can add a final problem to their list when they’re forced to take action against a cartel thug.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Angela isn’t exactly in line to topple Suazo’s drug empire and claim his drug-running throne. But there are echoes here of Kate del Castillo’s other show, the telenovela La Reina del Sur, where she becomes a high-powered trafficker in Spain. (del Castillo is also terrific in La Reina, as she is here.) Like Teresa Mendoza, the women of ‘Til Jail have to rely on themselves to survive, and in the process they create chaos for Suazo’s business. It’s also notable that La Reina del Sur, itself an adaptation of the novel of the same name, was further adapted into an American version: Queen of the South, starring Alice Braga, recently completed a five-season run on USA Network.

Our Take: Between Angela’s manic energy, Sofia’s haughtiness, Esmeralda’s bourgeois distance, and Viri’s absentmindedness, each of the women at the center of ‘Til Jail Do Us Part have a lot of personality to handle, and del Castillo and Sanchez in particular do great work to quickly establish the layers within their characters. While Pablo shared with her a bombshell tidbit of information in the seconds before his arrest, Angela can’t reveal it to her sudden companions, but nor can she act on it without their help, and del Castillo keeps Angela’s energy in a constant state of frazzled plate balancing. As for Sofia, her secret is one that’s quite a bit more illicit, and bound to explode into interpersonal drama, especially because a byproduct of the husbands getting arrested is that its fuse has been lit. ‘Til Jail Do Us Part moves along at a quick clip as it establishes all of this, and promises some quality close-quarters bickering and soul-baring as the women determine how they’ll rise above the fray without losing themselves in the process.

Sex and Skin: Miguel and Esme have clothed sex in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes-Benz

G-wagon as it’s rolling backward down an access ramp.

Parting Shot: As the women converge on Esme’s home, having become reluctant allies out of necessity, they interrupt her violent assault by one of Sauazo’s henchman, and in the resulting commotion Esme runs him through with a decorative sword. The ladies can now add “dispose of a bad guy body” to their growing to-do list.

Sleeper Star: Of the husbands, Pablo seems to be the most grounded, and Matias Novoa plays him with a detached suaveness that contains Angela’s hyperactive nature and unnerves the detectives in the interrogation room.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I need them, OK? Dealing with these bitches isn’t easy!” Pablo dislikes Angela’s painkiller habit, but her retort illustrates the distance between the women of ‘Til Jail Do Us Part as the series begins.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Led by strong performances from its four co-stars, ‘Til Jail Do Us Part mixes in some laughs as it explores the unfolding dramas of a group of women who were never really friends but who are forced into an awkward alliance.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges