*Spoilers ahead for the final season of Queen of the South*
The highly-anticipated fifth and final season of Queen of the South has finally come to Netflix UK. Season Four made its UK debut in June 2020, and since then there has been speculation about what Season Five will hold. Based solely on previous seasons, I don’t think anyone could have expected what it brought to our screens.
In Seasons One to Four viewers see the life of Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) obliterated in seconds and rebuilt from scratch. Teresa goes on the run after her boyfriend is killed by a drug cartel. Failing to escape the clutches of the cartel, she ends up working for its bosses. Her silver tongue and ability to stay one step ahead and make herself valuable, rather than disposable, means she catches the attention of cartel leaders Don Epifanio Vargas (Joaquim de Almeida), and his wife Camila (Veronica Falcón).
Teresa’s destiny eventually grows bigger than Epifanio and Camila, and she topples their empire and starts her own. In Season One Episode One, we see Teresa at the top of her criminal career exiting a helicopter with an entourage. You are immediately hooked on the show by this lavish slow-motion scene. You wait for the caterpillar to transition into a butterfly— from a Mexican money-changer to a near-global drug cartel leader.
Overall the tone of the show is sombre, with only fleeting moments of rest, relaxation and happiness. Moments of normality are violently and quickly interrupted by kidnappings, shootouts, and explosions that reduce buildings to rubble and cars to ashes. The cinematography, particularly in the last episode of Season Five, really contrasts Teresa’s new ‘heavenly’ beach-living with her cartel-boss-on-the-run-living.
The cinematography makes you feel like you are watching Teresa dream about how she would like to live post-cartel, as opposed to how she does live post-cartel. You expect the dreamy beach scene to be interrupted with gunfire due to the usually sombre tone of the show. Both elements are what make the fairy tale ending so unnerving.
The soundtrack throughout each season has been chosen with great attention to what a scene needs and means. For example, the track played at the beginning of Season Five, Episode Seven and Ten reflected the beginning of something new. In Episode Seven it was Teresa launching her legitimate business venture and in Episode Ten it marked the beginning of Teresa’s new crime-free lifestyle.
What is most profound about Season Five is it brings back into focus the humanity and vulnerability of Teresa’s inner circle, which is quite challenging to do considering all the bloody crimes viewers have witnessed them commit. Pote (Hemky Madera) and Kelly Anne (Molly Burnett) become expectant parents, making them very anxious about their current lifestyle, and James (Peter Gadiot) doesn’t have the heart to complete one last assassination assignment that should set him free from the CIA.
When it comes to the restoration of the humanity of the main characters, the greatest achievement by far is Teresa. She gives an insightful and sober short monologue, at the very end of Season Five Episode Ten, about how who she was at the beginning of this journey is still inside. The old Teresa triumphs despite the odds set against her; the circumstances that wanted to change her altruistic nature.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I would be dead in thirty seconds. That Teresa did die, but she wasn’t murdered by an enemy or rival, she was killed by me, a money-changer from Culiacán who defied all odds to survive. They said that prison or death were my only options, but what do they know? I chose life.”
What is most unsettling about Season Five is that Teresa survives and builds a new life as a civilian. This is unnerving considering the fate she appeared to be heading towards—the fate sold to us by the show and expected for this violent genre. The expectation was that the Biblical proverb would be fulfilled: ‘Those who habitually draw the sword will die by the sword’.
Nonetheless, the fairy tale end to the fifth and final season was executed well enough to be believable but also leads to the possible conclusion that Teresa’s story is far from over. The perfect way to end a finale season is leaving viewers wanting more, leaving them creating extended storylines they will never have validated, and Queen of the South does exactly this.
Words by Solape Alatise
Wasn’t sure about this series as I don’t like full on violence blood etc but it was compelling watching then I got to where I had to see if she survived every season then last two episodes I cried my eyes out lol fantastic!!!! I got my happy ever after ending. Well played by all actors and I adored Pote ❤️