La Reina del Sur (telenovela)

Plot

La Reina del Sur is the story of Teresa Mendoza (Kate del Castillo), a 23-year-old woman who is living with her boyfriend, "El Güero" (Rafael Amaya), a drug trafficker and rising star in the Sinaloa cartel. El Güero has been dabbling in his own trade, which is starting to cut into the cartel's profits, and is killed on the order of Epifanio Vargas (Humberto Zurita), the leader of the cartel. Teresa receives a phone call telling her to run. Teresa is unaware that El Güero's death was ordered by Vargas, mistakenly believing that he was killed by rivals in the organization. She trades El Güero's business ledger to Vargas in exchange for his help fleeing the country.

Arriving in Spain, Teresa is referred to work for Dris Larby, a businessman and low-level underworld operator in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast. On the ferry, she meets Fátima Mansur, a prostitute who works at Driss' bar "El Yamilla." Teresa proves herself to be an invaluable asset by balancing Driss' books every night. Teresa meets Santiago Fisterra (Iván Sanchez), a Galician ("El Gallego") who works smuggling black market goods such as cigarettes across the strait of Gibraltar into Spain, and his friend Lalo. Teresa and Santiago begin dating, while Lalo dates Teresa's coworker Soraya. Knowing that Santiago is unhappy working the small time, Teresa arranges with Colonel Abdelkader Chaïb (Eduardo Velasco) to get Santiago into the hashish trade. The trade provides huge profits, and Teresa and Santiago move to Málaga.

A year later, Driss Larby is still smarting from Teresa's abandonment, and conspires with a Spanish Naval Officer, Cañagotas (Julio Pachón), who is on Chaïb's payroll, to have Santiago busted during a major drug run. Instead, Santiago crashes his boat into rocks at high speed and is killed, while Teresa is thrown free, arrested, and sent to jail. Santiago's crooked lawyer, Eddy Alvarez (Carlos Diez), subsequently liquidates all of Santiago and Teresa's property and spends it on his mistress.

In prison, Teresa meets Patricia O'Farrell (Cristina Urgel), the wild child in a wealthy Irish-Spanish family whose exasperated father has abandoned her after having had to bail her out of trouble too many times. The two become fast friends—although the bisexual Patricia clearly wants more. Upon release, Patty reveals to Teresa that she knows where a half ton of cocaine was hidden by her late boyfriend, and plans to sell it back to the Russian mob. During the negotiation, it becomes clear to the Russian mob boss, Oleg Yasilkov (Alberto Jiménez), that Teresa's business smarts would be a valuable asset to him. Teresa negotiates the retrieval of the cocaine from its hiding place, under the nose of the confounded Spanish police, the first of many successes in her new career as a rising drug lord.

DEA agent Willy Rangel (Cristian Tappan) travels to Spain, where he begins working with Flores to build a case against Teresa, who is rapidly becoming the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. Backed by Yasilkov, and with the assistance of Teo Aljarafe (Miguel de Miguel), a lawyer and occasional lover of Patty, she opens Transer Naga, a shell company set up to disguise her true business. Shortly afterward, three assassins arrive from Mexico, bent on seeking revenge against Teresa. With Oleg's help, one of them is executed, one escapes, and one, "El Pote" (Dagoberto Gama) eventually becomes her personal bodyguard. Teresa and Teo grow closer, despite her reservations about it, and eventually embark on a relationship.

In the meantime, Willy has brought his assistant, Verónica (Sara Maldonado) to Spain to pose as a love interest for Patty in order to gain access to Transer Naga. Willy also pressures Teo into turning informant, threatening to reveal to Teresa that Teo has been skimming from the company. As months pass, Teresa and Teo attract media attention, and Patty, dumped by Verónica and jealous of Teresa replacing her as media darling, begins a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol. Stalking Verónica in an attempt to get her back, Patty learns the truth about her ex-girlfriend: that she works for the police and has been using Patty to take down Teresa. Distraught, Patty drives the car off a cliff, killing Verónica. When Willy hears of Verónica's death, he feels distraught and informs his chief that he loses one of the agency's best agents. On awakening in the hospital, Patty is confronted by Willy who asks her to hide from anyone the fact that Verónica went undercover in return for her protection. However, she breaks the deal when she tells Teresa everything she knows, then commits suicide.

In Mexico, Epifanio Vargas has been working as the chief of campaign for the next presidential election. His nephew (who is, in fact, his son) Ramiro (Salvador Zerboni) arranges for the candidate to be assassinated, ensuring that the candidacy will go to Vargas instead. Spurred on by the fact that the head of the Sinaloa cartel is about to be elected president of Mexico, the DEA changes tactics and offers Teresa immunity against prosecution if she agrees to testify against Vargas and destroy his political career. At the same time, Vargas asks Ramiro to bring Teresa back to Mexico under the guise of extending an invitation to attend his candidacy, but in reality to execute her because she is the only person still alive who knows about his criminal past.

Oleg presents Teresa with evidence that Teo is a police informant. Teresa sets a trap for Teo and confronts him with the truth, after which Pote executes him. Finding that the Spanish police are trying to obtain an arrest warrant and do an end-run around the DEA, Teresa accepts the immunity deal and agrees to testify against Vargas who, she realizes, has been her enemy all along. On her return to Culiacan, Vargas tries at first to plead with Teresa not to testify but, being unsuccessful, orders her assassination in a raid on the safe house where she is staying. Teresa narrowly escapes, shooting Ramiro in the chest point-blank after he has killed Pote. The next day, she leaves the police station in triumph and Vargas is led away in handcuffs.

A short coda shows a heavily pregnant Teresa, seven months later, living a life of peace and quiet in a seaside villa somewhere in Spain. A high shot of her walking along a pier, holding her belly and smiling, ends the series. In the last few episodes it is established that the show has taken place over the span of approximately thirteen years.

Reception

The program's premiere on February 28, 2011, was the network's highest rated premiere for a telenovela to date. The program frequently dominated its time slot, even over English language programming on other major American networks. La Reina del Sur completed its 63 episode run on Telemundo and its 13 episode run on Antena 3 simultaneously on May 30, 2011. The final episode was the highest rated broadcast in Telemundo's 19-year history (4.2 million viewers), and beat all of the English language American television networks to earn the number one slot in the 18-49 adult demographic. The program's success spurred Telemundo to launch its first campaign to gain the series an Emmy Award nomination. A one-night special featuring several cast members aired on May 31, 2011, and marked the Telemundo debut of noted Latina television personality Cristina Saralegui.

As part of Telemundo's changes in prime-time programming, Dama y Obrero ended on October 18, 2013. From October 21 to November 8, Telemundo temporarily aired 2 hours of Marido en Alquiler weeknights at 8pm/7c, replacing Dama y Obrero. On November 11, the network started rerunning La Reina del Sur weeknights at 9pm/8c, replacing one hour of Marido en Alquiler. The last episode was broadcast on February 17, with En Otra Piel replacing it the following night.

La Reina del Sur is broadcast in several other markets, including Serbia, Colombia, Chile, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Albania, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, (among others).

Production

La Reina del Sur was announced by Telemundo as part of its 2010-2011 program year in early 2010. The majority of the program was shot in the fall of 2010 at Telemundo's studios in Colombia. Several actors and sets were simultaneously used for more than one production. Sets depicting Morocco in the telenovela El Clon were also used to depict Gibraltar and Fez during filming. Some scenes filmed in Colombia were also used in El Cartel 2: La Guerra Total.

Rafael Amaya shot some scenes for La Reina del Sur while also filming Alguien te mira. Sara Maldonado also did double duty for this and Aurora.

Footage was also shot on location in Mexico, Spain, Gibraltar, United States, and Morocco.

Opening credits and theme

The opening credits for the show were displayed after a lengthy cold open (generally 15–20 minutes into the broadcast). The credits featured a montage of scenes from throughout the series.

The theme song, performed by Los Cuates de Sinaloa, is a cover of Los Tigres del Norte's 2002 song, "La Reina del Sur". The cover version's lyrics recount the story of Perez Reverte's fictional heroine.

Main

Also main

Recurring

Guest

Broadcast

The series originally aired from February 28, 2011 to May 30, 2011 in the United States on Telemundo, and was repeated from November 11, 2013 through February 17, 2014.

On August 22, 2016, La Reina del Sur premiered in the Philippines on TV5 dubbed in Filipino. The show ended its run on January 5, 2017.

Remake

An English language remake, Queen of the South, premiered in June 2016 on USA Network, starring Alice Braga.