He eventually has a major score, helping seize and burn a marijuana “super field.”
But the DEA’s investigation inspires cartel forces to abduct and kill Camarena.
Below Newman addresses which elements from Camarena’s story actually happened and which were creative license.
Michael Peña as Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in ‘Narcos: Mexico.'.Netflix
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:I wanted to first drill down a bit into what Kiki Camarena’s story.
He really did expose the super field leading to it being burned… That’s all true.
It’s a rather incredible and heartbreaking story.
He didvisit the field undercoverless as a migrant worker than as an interested party.
We took license as to how he got there.
That was a way we came up with the show how committed he was.
He did lots of dangerous stuff.
He punched one of his commanding officers.
He was a pretty take charge guy.
What other beats from his story in the show were creative license?
He had three children and we gave him two because kids are so hard to work with.
There were a lot of opinions for sure.
So they used the traffickers, as they often do, because the traffickers work for the government.
One of the great tragedies in Mexico is the government lost control of the cartels.
Did you look into that claim?
Yeah, I don’t believe it.
What is true is many [government agents] had interactions with the cartels for sure.
In some cases they may have trained them.
There was a time when the real enemy were the communists.
The American government and the traffickers had a shared enemy.
Not when the stakes were these.
If it was some vital matter of national security then that would be different.
If anything, knowing how it ended filled many scenes with a sense of dread.
I assume it will be equally split.
But it was designed to play both ways.
There are a lot of ways to experience this show that are diametrically in opposition to each other.
you could root for the cops to take out the bad guys.
Speaking of which: What was it like getting bringing backWagner Mourato play Pablo Escobar?
We finally got [Escobar’s] hippopotamus in the movie.
We were trying forever to write that in.
You don’t see it, but you hear it.
We needed to do that.
Obviously, he wasn’t at the same weight as when he was shooting his seasons.
But remember, but he was 10 years younger here.
He died in ‘93 and we’re in ‘83 there.
So with this ending, is the assumption the next season will continue Felix’s story?
If there is a next [season] that would make sense.
Many of the drug war have advocated for the legalization of addictive drugs.
The recent opioid epidemic suggests that might not be a great solution.
As somebody who’s heavily researched this subject, what’s your take?
We’ve gone about this the wrong way for a long time.
And not locking up people who use drugs.
You know where you’re able to find alotof drugs everywhere?
And prisons are surrounded by walls.
If there’s a will there’s a way.
Its very simple, supply and demand.
