Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Somos’ On Netflix, A Drama About The Cartel Setting Up Shop In A Small Mexican Town

In 2011, a DEA operation in the small Mexican border town of Allende went wrong, causing the local cartel to set up shop and start slaughtering the town’s residents. The new drama Somos. is a fictionalization of that time period, told from the perspective of the residents whose lives were ripped apart.

SOMOS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After explaining that Somos. is based on a true story from 2011, we get an overview of the mountains around the town of Allende, Mexico, then we see a caravan of trucks driving down a road in town.

The Gist: The trucks are full of townspeople, who get guns from the local authorities, then go to a house where they kidnap a woman, kill her parents and set the house on fire.

Three months earlier, Allende is a sleepy border town. We’re introduced to a number of characters: Chema (Everardo Arzate) is celebrating three years of sobriety at an AA meeting, while his wife Irene (Iliana Donatlán) and her sister Erika (Arelí González) visit their mothers’ grave.

Hector (Amando Silva) is screwing a local prostitute named Flor Maria (Caraly Sanchez); part of her payment is that she gets to call her mother on one of Hector’s burner phones. Hector’s business is selling burner phones to the cartel, and his everyday life is hampered by his wife getting on him about decorating their new house on the ranch, and with his younger brother Benjamin (Jero Medina), who has just moved in.

He also tries to get information from the local food cart vendor, Mrs. Chayo (Mercedes Hernández), who isn’t prone to snitching. Mrs. Chayo works her cart every day while taking care of her granddaughter; her daughter Aracely (Natalia Martinez), who works at Erika’s veterinary office, is pregnant for the second time thanks to her not-so-bright boyfriend Paquito (Jesús Sida).

Erika is called by Anselmo (Roberto Montiel), a local rancher who is concerned about his cattle; she finds that they’re being poisoned by a synthetic agent of some sort. Nancy (Jimena Pagaza) is a smart kid who also plays on her high school’s football team as a kicker; she befriends a new player who transferred from a more urban district.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Somos. has a combined vibe of the American version of The Bridge with Narcos and Breaking Bad.

Our Take: Somos. (yes, the period is part of the title), was created by James Schamus and written by Fernanda Melchor and Monika Revilla, and the two of them revel in the slow burn. The show is taking its time to set up the world in Allende; by the end of the first episode, we’re not even sure what if any cartel activity is going on in the tiny border town. What we do know is that the DEA has an inkling of what is going on, which is what is supposed to set up the battle between the cartel and the townspeople.

But spending the first episode world-building is a plus in the case of Somos. Schamus, Melchor and Revilla do a good job of showing not telling when it comes to the show’s myriad of characters. There are even more than what we’ve described to this point, including the father of the new football player. Not everybody gets the time they need to explain their stories. But enough get the time, and we see more than enough in their actions, to give us a good idea of how tight-knit this community is.

What we aren’t seeing yet is just how the cartel will disrupt things. Hector is the connection into the cartel, but just how the DEA’s involvement triggers the cartel to massacre the people in Allende will unfold in upcoming episodes. But the stories of the townspeople are set up so well that the impact of the attack will be even more tragic.

Sex and Skin: Scenes with Flor Maria, one where of her customers can’t quite get the job done.

Parting Shot: Two DEA agents hear someone being a tortured on the a phone tap, and they see it’s traced to Allende. A Google Maps search show the sleepy town it is.

Sleeper Star: We’re not sure where Jimena Pagaza is going to fit in as Nancy, but we love her ballsiness, especially around her fellow football players.

Most Pilot-y Line: Hector’s character is supposed to be a bit hapless, given how his wife controls him and his brother drinks his last beer, but we wonder if that’s more a fake-out than a real character trait.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Somos. fleshes out its characters well despite having to service so many of them. Couple that with some stunning cinematography around arid and mountainous region around Allande, and you get a winner of a show.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Somos. on Netflix