'Narcos' season 3 spoilers: New big bad revealed; Javier Pena to have smaller role?
Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura) may be dead, but "Narcos" season 3 is well on Netflix's cards as it shifts the spotlight from the Medellin Cartel to the Cali Cartel, which rose to power as Escobar slowly lost his.
The new season will feature a new big bad and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is convinced that it will be Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela (Damián Alcázar), one of the leaders of Cali.
The kingpins including Orejuela plotted the ultimate downfall of Escobar by teaming up with the fallen drug lord's enemies to end his reign and take over, which they successfully did.
"If [Escobar] was a single cell organism, these guys are the complex multicell evolutionary successor," executive producer Eric Newman told WSJ.
"The evolution of these cartels stretches into the present, how they moved from people swallowing cocaine balloons to shipping it with submarines and freighters," he continued.
Alcázar is excited about the prospect of exposing the "monster man" that his character truly is in "Narcos" season 3.
"I'm not sure if he killed people with his own hand, but he paid a lot to have a lot of people killed," the actor said.
In other casting news, Javier Pena (Pedro Pascal) might not be as involved in the takedown of Cali even though he was definitely an asset in bringing down Medellin.
In "Narcos" season 3, fans will see him back in the United States and with the spotlight on the Cali Cartel in Colombia, he might not be as involved in the new season as he was in the previous one.
Newman emphasized to Entertainment Weekly that they want to be as loyal to history, but he said that he will still try to look into how Pena can figure in the Cali storyline in "Narcos" season 3.
"I'd probably have to look at what Peña's role would be in the Cali, in taking down Cali. I love working with Pedro Pascal, so nothing would make me happier than to be back in business with him in some way," he said.