5. “…Like pouring gasoline over a fire that was already out of control.”

DEA Agent Murphy says this when right-wing crazies the Castaños join the fray in the War on Drugs. Once you open the door to vigilantes, they operate on their own terms, beyond the moral authority and moral reach of the state. Vigilantes are only answerable to themselves; and once they are allowed to act, then the state will be at an even bigger disadvantage, as it must stop not just the drug menace, but the vigilantes as well.

6. The struggle to define good and evil increasingly blurs.

We all need a method, something to cling to when the shit around us gets so deep, we might go under. Something to guide us home when we feel we’ve lost our way. In Narcos a lot of characters struggle to define good or bad, right or wrong. The lines between these things are blurred, black and white give way to gray. Murphy observes that Colonel Martinez, who becomes commander of Search Bloc, that he is a man with a method that keeps him from crossing the lines, and he will stick to that method. Among the characters in the show, Martinez follows procedure, which means that others go behind his back, doing things that cross the line.

“By the book” hampers quick response and immediate results. Do you follow protocol and slow things down, or do you screw it and do whatever it takes to get results?

7. What do we give up to win?

“Make sure you’re still you when it’s all over”: Murphy’s wife says this to him as she leaves him in Colombia. She wants him to go home with her, but he says that he needs to stay and finish the fight.

It gives us a lot to think about. When you’re in the thick of it, you’re bound to say or do terrible things. When you believe you’re fighting for what is right, and the way you are fighting is the only way, then you might do things you never imagined you could. At the end of it all, are you fundamentally changed.

I can’t help but think how the last few months have changed us all. Think about things as seemingly small as our online interactions. Has the way we viewed certain people changed by the things they’ve posted? Have we said some terrible things in comment threads? Have we had to question certain friendships/ Have we blocked people? And that’s only the start of it. At the end of the War on Drugs, what will we have become as a nation?

8. The king is dead, long live the kings. (SPOILER ALERT!)

In the last scenes of the series, DEA Agent Peña is told this in a briefing. In this same scene we get the information that during the hunt for Escobar, when his empire was dismantled, the production and export of cocaine increased. The War on Pablo didn’t work, because other players moved in. They focused on one thing, and while that was successful, the drug trade in general was not quashed as expected.

Similarly, we need to question the way we think about the drug problem. Is the drug trade and all the violence borne out of it a symptom, or the illness itself? And maybe we need to think about the drug problem not merely as one of criminality, but of public health and of social services.

Should we be looking at systemic, social interventions, rather than police and military ones? Should we be framing the problem as a war that can be won by destroying the enemy?

“Narcos” Season 2 currently airs on the streaming service Netflix.

In what other ways does “Narcos” mirror or differ from the current Philippines’ war on drugs? Let us know below.

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