Sometimes we’ll see a new Netflix show announcement and yell: “stick it into my veins!”. Griselda, a new drug-lord drama coming soon to Netflix, is one of those shows that prompted such a response.
Griselda comes from the minds that previously brought you Narcos – which, along with Narcos Mexico, is among my very favorite TV shows – and features Modern Family‘s Sofía Vergara as you’ve never seen her before.
Vergara plays one of the most vicious drug barons of the 1970s and 1980s, and while the trailer is just a teaser we’re definitely hooked already. Narcos‘ heady mix of slick storytelling and extreme violence was edge-of-the-seat stuff, and having binged both shows there’s a Narcos-shaped hole in our viewing schedule that Griselda looks perfect to fill.
Why Griselda’s gone straight to our watch list
The six-part series was created by Eric Newman, show runner of Painkiller, and reunites the Narcos/Narcos Mexico team. It’s been eight years in the making and its cast and crew’s pedigree alone makes it a must-watch for us. That, and the prospect of seeing Sofía become Scarface.
Sofía’s character is based on a real person, Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, aka La Jefa (which is Spanish for the ‘the boss’). Blanco created one of the most profitable drug cartels in history and was famed for her savagery as well as her charm. After moving to America from Colombia in the 1970s she ran the notoriously violent cocaine trade in Miami and New York, a trade that made her the first ever woman criminal to become a billionaire.
She was murdered in 2012, and has previously been the subject of the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys as well as a lifetime biopic, 2018’s Cocaine Godmother, which starred Catherine Zeta-Jones. Griselda premieres on Netflix on January 25, 2024.
