What’s the name of this show? Queen of the South

When does it premiere? Thursday 23 June at 10pm EST on USA

What is this show about? Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) starts off as a lowly money changer in the Mexican state of Sinaloa but rises to run a drug cartel of her very own.

So it’s like lady Narcos? Yeah, kind of, but that’s a little bit reductive. This series is based on a popular telenovela La Reina del Sur, which aired on Telemundo, which is itself an adaptation of a Spanish novel by the same name by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The book is based on the life of drug trafficker Marllory Chacón. So, yes, like Netflix’s excellent Narcos, about the life of Pablo Escobar, it is a narco drama based loosely on real events, but the spirit of the endeavour is different.

What happens in the first episode? We first meet the wildly successful Teresa as she gets gunned down in her immaculate mansion. The action flashes back to her earlier years when she first meets a drug runner and falls in love, elevating her social status considerably. When her boyfriend steals from the head of his cartel, Don Epifanio (Joaquim de Almeida), he ends up dead and Don Epifanio’s men are after Teresa to tie up any loose ends. She takes the money, cocaine, gun and mysterious notebook he gave her and takes off to try to save her life.

Is there a lot of action? Eventually. At first there is a lot of exposition about who Teresa is and her place in the cartel, which is made even more egregious by a voiceover, which is, coincidentally, also the worst aspect of Narcos. However, once the pursuit begins it’s one near miss after another. Teresa runs, hides, blows up some cars, shoots a few dudes and does just about anything to escape. What makes her fascinating to watch isn’t the kinetic movement (which is well-shot in gritty hues), but seeing her try to get herself out of sticky situations using her limited resources. She’s like a Latina MacGyver, but with much better hair.

Is it any good? It’s quite good, actually, but viewers will have to give it a little bit of time. At first the show seemed clumsy and silly, with Teresa butting her head into the Don’s business and eavesdropping on a fight between him and his wife, the ruthless Camila (Veronica Falcon). Then she’s lying in a tub watching Scarface on television, and it’s just a little too on the nose. It seemed like it was trying to be smart and edgy and failing miserably.

Next thing you know, you’ll be sucked into Teresa’s story, not only because she’s literally fleeing for her life, but also because there hasn’t been a character quite like her on television before. It’s easy to say that she is a female Walter White, but their motivations are entirely different. Every male antihero on television (and there have been more than Donald Trump has bankruptcies) is compelled by mostly selfish reasons, especially White, who says he’s cooking meth to help his family but he’s really doing it to feed his own ego.

Teresa, on the other hand, is forced into this situation where she has to be deadly and conniving as a matter of survival. She is the victim of a system where she can only prosper by aligning herself with a man, but that alliance also leads to her destruction. Who can blame her for fighting back? We root for her as an act of defiance against the system that created her. Teresa is the aggressor, but she is also the victim and it’s a fascinating dynamic to watch.

Only the first episode was made available for critics, so it’s hard to judge what Queen of the South is going to look like as a series, but the pilot is one of the best I’ve seen in quite some time.

Doesn’t USA usually just make dumb procedurals? Yes, in the past they were known for shows like Burn Notice, Psych and Royal Pains, but with the premiere of the critical hit Mr Robot last summer, it’s offering darker, more ambitious fare. Queen of the South isn’t an obvious home run like Mr Robot (especially when only judging one episode), but it shows that the development team at USA is serious about their new direction and doing a great job picking projects.

What’s wrong with the show? The biggest problem is the use of Spanish. The characters almost always speak English, which is unrealistic, but, let’s face it, American audiences are far too lazy to watch something with subtitles. However, occasionally the characters lapse into Spanish for words, phrases or full sentences. There is no rhyme or reason as to why they use their mother tongue and having the mishmash of the two languages doesn’t make it seem more authentic – it just alerts the viewer to the fact that they should be speaking in Spanish the whole time.

Is there anything else that is great about the show? At several moments I noticed how wonderful the pulsating electronic score is and then noticed in the end credits that it’s by musical pioneer Giorgio Moroder. That’s just the icing on the cake.

Should I watch this show? Yes, you should. It’s ambitious, different and captivating, even if just for the first hour. How the rest of the season will shape up is anyone’s guess, but if potential was cocaine, this show would have mounds of it piled up on the coffee table.