Stream It or Skip It: ‘La Reina del Sur’ Season 3 on Netflix, Where Teresa Is Busted Out of Prison After Four Years In Solitary Confinement

The Mexican series La Reina Del Sur stars Kate del Castillo as Teresa Mendoza, a woman who becomes the head of a drug cartel. At the beginning of Season 3, out now on Netflix, Teresa has been locked up in prison for four years, but some old friends plot to break her out. Who’s behind her breakout, and why are they doing it? Let’s say she has some friends in high places. Here’s what’s going down on season three of Las Reina del Sur.

LA REINA DEL SUR (SEASON 3): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Teresa Mendoza (Kate del Castillo) is alone in a prison cell. The days pass by, and she counts them by scratching a tick marks on the wall.

The Gist: La Reina del Sur is an epic Mexican telenovela that first premiered in 2011. Actress Kate del Castillo plays Teresa Mendoza, a woman who becomes a high-ranking drug trafficker – accidentally, at first, before eventually embracing the life and becoming the powerful head of a drug ring where she’s known as La Mexicana. Eight years lapsed between seasons one and two of La Reina, and four years have passed between seasons two and three. This season’s story begins with Teresa sitting in a Colorado prison cell where she’s kept in solitary confinement. In a flashback to four years ago, we see her and her daughter Sofia (Isabella Sierra) attempting to escape being captured by the DEA while hiding out in Australia; this is where season two left off on a cliffhanger, Kate tensely awaiting the arrival of law enforcement, and in season three, we watch Kate secure a hiding spot for 10 year old Sofia, while she flees on foot. Obviously she did not escape, and she now sits behind bars.

Teresa is in year four of an 85-year sentence, and one day, she’s visited by a rep from a human rights organization called the IOHR. The man says he can help her – he may not be able to lower her sentence, but he can try to get her out of solitary, or get her daughter to visit. Teresa tells him to leave her daughter Sofia – now 14 and miserable, living in Malaga, Spain with Paloma and her son – out of it, and she rejects the rest of his help. Before he leaves, he passes her a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and gives her a cryptic message about a Catalan tradition of waking up during “the gray hour.” None of this means anything at the moment, but as Kate looks at the book, she realizes it’s part of a code that communicates to her that someone – her old friend Oleg Yasikov (Antonio Gil) – plans to break her out of prison.

Teresa realizes the pages of the book are embedded with a poison, which she eats. The poison renders her unconscious, and as she’s being transported to a hospital, Oleg and his team ambush the caravan in order to extract Teresa. Police cars are blown up, men on both sides are caught in the crossfire, and when Oleg finally reaches Teresa in the ambulance, she’s flatlining. The poison has worked too well.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? If the plot of La Reina del Sur seems familiar that’s because the USA Network series Queen of the South was adapted from it and both shows were based on the same novel by author Arturo Perez-Reverte.

Our Take: La Reina del Sur is kind of like the Boyhood of telenovelas; it tells a story that’s told over the course of many years (I assume a story that’s filmed when all the actors have the same availability), and picks up in real time where it left off. The last time we saw Teresa, Oleg, Sofia, and the rest of the characters was four years ago, with Teresa fleeing law enforcement and trying to live an anonymous life. A lot changes for people over four years: Teresa’s been working out… a lot… in prison, Sofia is now a teenager who has been affected by her mom’s absence for some of the most formative years of her life, and everyone who was a part of the previous season has evolved. Epifanio Vargas (Humberto Zurita) is now president of Mexico, and though he promises voters he’s a man of the people, he’s as crooked as they come thanks to his connections to the cartels.

Episode one toggles between flashbacks of Teresa’s attempt to evade capture, and the present day, and the way that capture affected both her and Sofia. This season, now that Sofia is a little more grown up, this is still going to be a story about a mother’s desperate struggle to protect her daughter from the life she created, but it also seems like Sofia is game to become a part of it, too, which adds a new layer to their dynamic. And then there’s the political situation looming in the background, now that Epifanio, once the head of the Sinaloa cartel, is president. What are his motives, and what does he want with Teresa? We have 60 more hours of television to go before we get any closure on that.

Sex and Skin: None so far this season.

Parting Shot: Oleg finally reaches Teresa, who was inside the ambulance that was being driven to the hospital. But as he tries to pull her out, she appears to be dead. There are 59 more episodes this season, so I’m pretty sure she gets revived.

Sleeper Star: As Sofia, Isabella Sierra gives off young Michelle Rodriguez vibes. Not only does she look like her, but she shares the same action-hero qualities, an ability to fight and kick ass, while also protecting the family.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We need reinforcements now, goddammit!”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like all telenovelas, this one is dense and filled with dozens of characters from the past that have evolved and shifted over time. Part of the fun of watching this new season is seeing where everyone is now and who they’ve formed alliances and relationships with. But even more fun is the fact that, thanks to this show’s decent budget, each episode looks like a mini action movie. It’s a blast (sometimes literally) to watch del Castillo and the rest of her co-stars dial up the drama and the action all at once.