Griselda: A Snooze-Fest That Robbed Us of the Only Scene We Actually Wanted

If you're expecting the raw, unfiltered chaos and wild energy of Cocaine Cowboys, prepare to be bitterly disappointed. The 2006 documentary (and its sequel) delivered pure Miami drug war insanity — flashy cars, boat races, larger-than-life characters, and that unforgettable, balls-to-the-wall vibe of the Cocaine Cowboys era. It felt dangerous, unpredictable, and wildly entertaining. Griselda? It feels like a slow, padded-out therapy session with occasional gunplay.

The series, from the producers of Narcos, tries to turn Griselda Blanco into a complex "mother who did what she had to do" anti-heroine. Sofía Vergara puts in solid work transforming into the Godmother, complete with the prosthetic makeup and that signature cigarette-flicking tic, but the writing never lets her (or us) cut loose. Instead of the ruthless, body-count-racking Black Widow who allegedly ordered hundreds of murders, we get a lot of family drama, business meetings, and Griselda looking stressed while trying to balance cartel life with soccer practice for the kids. It drags. By the middle episodes, the momentum stalls hard, and what should have been a thrilling rise-and-fall story turns into something surprisingly... boring.The biggest crime? They robbed viewers of the one visceral pleasure we've been waiting for since the trailers dropped: seeing Griselda Blanco gunned down in the streets of Medellín. Real life gave her a cinematic ending in 2012 — shot dead on her motorcycle at age 69, assassin on a bike, pure narco poetry. The show chickens out completely. It ends with her in prison, broken and imagining a happy beach day with her sons, followed by a cheap text epilogue telling us what actually happened. No on-screen assassination. No payoff. No catharsis. After six episodes of watching her scheme, betray, and spiral, they deny us the final image of the Cocaine Godmother finally getting what was coming to her. It's like sitting through an entire Scarface remake only for them to cut before the "Say hello to my little friend" scene.This story screamed movie, not limited series. A tight, two-and-a-half-hour crime epic could have matched the intensity of Cocaine Cowboys or even Narcos at its best — focused, relentless, and stylish. Stretching it into six episodes exposed how thin the dramatic material really is once you strip away the mythology. The Narcos team dropped the ball here. They had the perfect subject (a female Pablo Escobar who was arguably more vicious), the star power, and the Miami backdrop, but they played it too safe, too introspective, and too sympathetic. The result is a glossy but ultimately forgettable entry in the narco genre that feels like it’s trying to have its coke and eat it too — glamorous enough to binge, sanitized enough not to offend.Skip the series and rewatch Cocaine Cowboys instead. At least the documentaries don’t tease you with a legendary downfall and then wimp out on delivering it. Griselda had the potential to be electric. Instead, it’s the most disappointing "Godmother" story since someone decided a six-hour character study was better than a proper bullet-riddled finale.Rating: 4/10 — Vergara tries, the production looks good, but the pacing is sluggish and the ending is a straight-up cop-out. The Cocaine Cowboys era deserved better.