Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Yankee’ on Netflix, a Derivative Mexican Drug Cartel Drama

Yankee is Netflix’s latest series about Mexican drug cartels, where it sits alongside numerous similar documentaries and dramas, ranging from Narcos to El Chapo to multiple iterations of Pablo Escobar’s story. Granted, Yankee is purely fictional, although any resemblance to persons or situations living or dead is probably wholly intentional.

YANKEE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A drone shot over a scrub desert on the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s night.

The Gist: Malcolm (Pablo Lyle, recently charged with manslaughter in Miami) is a real estate agent in Tucson using empty homes as a safe place to stash drugs. He’s forced to bring home two giant duffel bags stuffed with dope, much to the tut-tutting of his wife (Ana Layevska). She has good reason — they have two young children, she’s been in cancer remission for a year and she doesn’t want him to bring his work home with him, especially if it involves what, a couple hundred thousand bucks’ worth of illegal substances? Especially since he stuffs it in the kids’ bedroom closet. Parent of the year!

Anyway, they throw a barbecue, and three hirsute bikers crash it, hoping to pick up the goods. It goes poorly. Malcolm ends up smashing one of the biker’s faces in, and clocking a cop upside the head with a bat. He runs, leaving his wife, brother and kids to be taken into police custody, where the sheriff tends to taze the living crap out of suspects — and without their lawyers present. Good move, Malcolm. Way to be a responsible family man.

Meanwhile, just over the border, a Mexican federal SWAT team raids a house full of serial kidnappers and, at the behest of their scowling, heavily mustached boss, they execute the perps in cold blood. The boss is one of those cigar-chomping types, but this being 2019, he instead vapes like mad. During the raid, the feds find a statue that can only be described as the Grim Reaper Virgin Mary. Between long, heavy hits of what I assume is purple gummi bear-flavored E-liquid, Boss has nightmares about Reaper Mary. (Did I mention that Boss’ name is Agent Wolf? I assume because Sheriff Lobo was already taken?)

Malcolm winds up in the hands of, presumably, his employers, and not the ones who wear red blazers, but the other ones, who hang out in warehouses full of buffet tables stacked with cash and drugs. They advise him to get the eff to Mexico. First, they shove him into their smuggler tunnel, but he freaks out. He’s claustrophobic. So instead, they hand him a flashlight, plop him in the desert and give him a hard shove south. He limps through the night, is given water by a friendly drug mule, scales the border wall and, presumably, begins a new chapter of his life.

Our Take: First, there are 25 episodes in the debut season of Yankee, totaling roughly 1,000 minutes. And you’re gonna need a more tantalizing pilot than this one to inspire such an insane commitment from viewers (especially considering the recent trend of shorter-run series, which help combat the feeling of content overload). The episode is a relatively rote display of storytelling cliches drawing on everything from Sons of Anarchy to Sicario.

Second, the episode is titled “The Flight of Aeschylus,” which references the Greek playwright who’s considered “the father of tragedy.” That’s heady stuff for a story that’s dismally familiar and heavily stocked with the usual character types. The protagonist is a drug runner, the concerned wife is somewhat complicit and the cops on all sides are corrupt, amoral scumbags. This leaves us rooting for the toddlers and scorpions.

Finally, the acting is summarily lousy, and the overall look of the series is bland and cruddy. The producers of Yankee have considerable experience making telenovelas, which explains the quick-and-cheap vibe here. It might’ve been fine 15 years ago, but just doesn’t measure up to the competition in the modern “prestige”-TV era.

Sex and Skin: Boobs and butts in a sweaty sex scene starring Malcolm and his wife; another scene is set in a skeezy strip club.

Parting Shot: Fresh over the fence to Mexico, an exhausted, disheveled Malcolm looks like a deer in the headlights as he’s approached by a heavily armed two-man welcoming committee. Only 24 more episodes to go!

Sleeper Star: The Grim Reaper Virgin Mary clearly deserves its own bottle episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: “How’s it going, f—ing gringo? Welcome to your hell,” says one of the unsavory types greeting Malcolm.

Our Call: SKIP IT. I’ll reiterate: are you in for ONE THOUSAND MINUTES of the same old story beats?

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Yankee on Netflix