TV Review: Netflix' Griselda has swagger - and Sofia Vergara is stunning

Sofia Vergara as the titular character in Griselda. Pic: Netflix

I was going to review Masters of the Air (Apple TV+) this week, but it left me cold with paper-thin characters and a plodding script. Which makes it the opposite of Griselda on Netflix.

This show will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Narcos and GLOW. 

It has the swagger and South American drug-dealer menace of the former, combined with women-in-a-man’s-world caper that made GLOW such a funny take on wrestling.

But most of all it has Sofia Vergara playing Griselda Blanco, who escaped from her abusive partner in Medellin, Columbia, to launch a drug empire of her own in Miami. 

Vergara is stunning, blending the lightness of touch she brought to Modern Family with a brutal, violent chutzpah as Griselda forces her way into the market in Florida.

The show is loosely based on the real Griselda, so I don’t know if she actually used prostitutes from Columbia to bring cocaine into Miami and then sell it on to rich locals. I don’t want to know either. 

This is enjoyable as a piece of fiction, my guess is that the real story was predictably dull and wouldn’t make for great telly.

The first couple of episodes twist and turn as Griselda tries to sell the small amount of cocaine she brought with her from Columbia. 

There are local baddies in comically bad suits because this is the late 1970s. 

There are stylised orgies as Griselda and her dealers throw parties to show Miami’s rich the excitement that cocaine could add to their lives. 

Maybe there is a cautionary take on addiction later on, but here it’s portrayed as glamorous and clean, as it must have looked when it first arrived in the late 70s.

This is lighter than Narcos, for those of you who are familiar with the series about Pablo Escobar and other South American drug dealers. 

Griselda’s right-hand man is Arturo, who is like a kindly uncle in a daft suit. Her right-hand woman is a feisty friend from her old life in Columbia who has organised the crew of drug mules and dealers. 

They seem like an unlikely couple of lieutenants, but Vergara makes it work, cajoling and charming her way to the top, out-smarting the incumbents and whacking anyone who gets in her way. She’s believable enough to hold the story together.

It won’t end well, these things never do. A side story is the emergence of a female police officer, the only woman in her team, who spots Griselda coming up in conversations. 

There will be a reckoning eventually. For now, I’m enjoying Vergara and co swaggering their way through the competition. Give it a watch.