Here at FandomWire, we review the new Netflix streaming series Griselda, and the article is spoiler-free.
Let’s immediately address something about the new Netflix streaming series Griselda: Sofía Vergara is sensational. The actress, who made a name for herself by showcasing her comedic skills on ABC’s long-running Modern Family, is practically unrecognizable as the feared Miami drug lord.
And that’s not because Vergara has hidden behind volumes of 80s hair, makeup, and prosthetics. She inhabits the role, leaving all traces of Gloria Pritchett behind. Vergara immerses herself deeply in the character while finding a moral compass on its last legs.
Directed by The Sandman’s Andrés Baiz, he frames the actress up close and from below, giving her power that leads to a knockout performance, particularly in the episode “Mutiny.” It’s a side of the actress we’ve never seen before, and we may never witness it again.
Netflix’s Griselda Season 1 Synopsis and Review
Sofia Vergara plays “The Godmother,” Griselda Blanco, one of the most feared drug lords the world has ever known. As the series opens, Blanco is so feared that Colombian smuggler Pablo Escobar is quoted as saying, “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.” There is no word if this is written on her gravestone.
Blanco escaped to Miami with her three sons after leaving her husband, Alberto, and fleeing Bogotá. She moves in with an old friend, Carmen (Vanessa Ferlito), who got out of the game of drugs and crime years ago. However, Blanco holds a kilo of cocaine, the world’s greatest product, and needs some seed money for her family. Griselda is now playing a dangerous game.
She calls upon an old friend, Arturo (Christian Tappan), to help smuggle the nose candy into the country using her connections with women in the sex trade. This draws the attention of a local drug kingpin (José Zúñiga), a sicario (Alberto Guerra), and a female intelligence officer (Juliana Aiden Martinez) in the Miami P.D. to an operation that spans from Colombia to the Florida panhandle.
Sofia Vergara displays the intensity and vulnerability of James Gandolfini.
Griselda works so well because Sofia Vergara displays the intensity and vulnerability of an actor like James Gandolfini. Vergara offers a magnetic presence, owning every scene she’s in, which goes well beyond sex appeal. Most of that is left behind for a nuanced performance that explores intersectional power dynamics in a machismo-dominated criminal world.
Created by Doug Miro, Eric Newman, Carlo Bernard, and Ingrid Escajeda, the team behind the series Narcos: Mexico, Griselda continues to portray a world with exceptional violence. The writers leave the main character’s motherhood at the motel room door because she trades that part of her life for an uncommon ambition for women in that period.
While the show would have benefited more from showing the pitfalls of how the criminal world interferes with raising her children, Griselda benefits from including the magnetic Alberto Guerra in the story. He plays Dario, an assassin who develops a romantic relationship with the godmother. They have a Sid and Nancy romance that leads to some of Vergara’s favorite scenes.
Is Griselda Worth Watching?
There are issues of cultural sensitivity that come with a show like Griselda. For instance, the excessive violence and negative stereotypes or misrepresentations. To counter that, the series follows a very engaging actor in Juliana Aidén Martinez, who plays June, another trailblazing woman on the other side of the law who represents a community in an honorable light.
Griselda is worth watching for the electrifying performance of Sofia Vergara. The series continues the grand tradition of Narcos storytelling with epic scope and ripped from the headline’s authentic detail. The series, like the third season of Narcos: Mexico, is cinematic and 2024’s first great series.
You can stream Griselda only on Netflix on January 25th, 2024.
Grade: 9/10
