Griselda chronicles the rise and fall of Griselda Blanco, a drug lord who once ruled Miami. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
In Medellín, Colombia, in 1978, after a fight with her husband, Alberto, Griselda Blanco, along with her three kids, leaves the country to fly to Miami, Florida, to her friend, Carmen.
At first, Griselda claims that she is past the cocaine business and intends to start afresh, which prompts Carmen to support her and even give her a job at her travel agency.
However, Griselda has brought one kilo of cocaine that she plans to sell and build an empire of her own.
With the help of Arturo, a contact back home, she finds out about the Mutiny, a spot in Miami where she can sell her drugs.
There, she tries to sell her product to a man named Rafo Rodriguez, also known as Amilcar, an influential drug dealer, who turns her down.
Though it’s difficult for her to sell cocaine as a woman, she doesn’t back down and fights back when anyone tries to mess with her or steal her product.
Griselda eventually makes Johnny, the man who tried to steal her product, arrange a meeting with someone who actually shows interest in buying cocaine from her.
Just when Griselda is making progress, Amilcar intervenes. He sends his men to not only kill the competition who is buying Griselda’s product but also to warn Griselda.
It is revealed that Griselda relocated to Miami after killing her husband, Alberto, who made her sleep with his brother to pay his own debts.
Alberto had claimed that Griselda won’t get far in life without him. The statement won’t leave Griselda’s mind, and she is determined to prove him wrong.
Griselda, with blood still on her face, confronts Amilcar and convinces him to join hands with her.
Griselda recruits her friends from back home to deliver Amilcar’s order. When she and Arturo meet Amilcar to discuss what’s next, they are introduced to Papo Mejia.
Papo Mejia is the current supplier of Amilcar, and hence, Griselda has now found herself in a conflict. Papo and Amilcar have settled their problem at a price.
Since Griselda can’t work with Amilcar anymore, she finds a new target market in rich white people. Griselda’s success hurts Papo, but she manages to find a partner in German Panesso.
Amidst all of this, Alberto’s brother, Fernando, tracks Griselda down, seeking revenge, but Fernando’s associate, Dario, turns on him and saves Griselda instead.
Eventually, Griselda gets an offer from Rafa Salazar, who works with the Ochoas, the biggest suppliers in Columbia. They could end up buying Griselda’s business.
Griselda rejects their offer. She can’t give up her empire just like that. She finds a friend in Amilcar again by offering to get the witness who can put Amilcar behind bars killed.
Even though Griselda gets her hands dirty, Amilcar still gets arrested. With Amilcar out, Griselda finds herself alone again.
Amilcar’s territory now belongs to Papo, who has now made a deal with Rafa. What’s worse is that German betrays Griselda and joins hands with Papo; he is also taking her dealers with him.
Griselda doesn’t back off. She wages war against Rafa, Papo, and German. In the war, apart from her rivals, like German and Papo, some of her own people die too.
Griselda, who comes to be known as the Godmother, proves how ruthless she can be. With an army of Marielitos, Griselda hurts Ochoa’s business, forcing Fabio Ochoa to come and visit her.
They join hands. However, Fabio Ochoa also reminds Griselda of the price of messing with them by killing her loyal associate, Arturo, right in front of her eyes, before they can move ahead with their business.
In the next three years, Griselda owns Miami, running an efficient operation of smuggling and distributing extraordinary amounts of cocaine.
Ending explained:
Griselda’s downfall
The cops, especially Detective June Hawkins, have been hunting Griselda down desperately. June targets her various stash houses.
The movements of cops make Griselda and her team think that they have a mole among them. Griselda orders Rivi, who once worked for Amircal and now works for her, to find out who the mole is.
Rivi kills a number of people in this search. June realizes that Griselda thinks there is a mole in her organization because of the cops’ movements.
June aims to hit another of Griselda’s stash houses and keep her thinking that way. June believes Griselda will soon make a big mistake, allowing them to catch her red-handed.
Over time, Griselda grows paranoid and destroys the various relationships she has and her own business.
These relationships include the one with her now-husband, Dario, and her friend, Carmen, who never abandoned Griselda until Griselda attacked her.
The luck is not in her favor either. She instructs Rivi to kill Chucho, her bodyguard, after learning that he refrained from helping her son, Dixon, when he was on the run from the police.
While Chucho escapes, his two-year-old son is killed during the attack by Rivi.
Being a mother herself, Griselda is still recovering from the event when she accidentally overdoses Marta Ochoa, the sister of Ochoas.
Griselda’s arrest
Griselda and Rivi find themselves on the run from Rifi. Dario, on his side, has decided to part ways with Griselda. Their son is going to be with Dario.
With the cocaine that Marta has, Griselda and Rivi leave for California, along with Griselda’s three boys. There, before Rafa can reach her, Griselda decides to call the cops on her.
Unfortunately, the cops can only charge her for drugs, and June doesn’t want that. With a brilliant plan, they manage to arrest Rivi as well.
Rivi snitches on Griselda to avoid a death sentence. However, he makes up for it. Rivi seduces the DA’s assistant, which implodes the case against Griselda.
Rivi no longer remains a strong witness against her, allowing Griselda to have a shorter sentence for herself.
The fate of Griselda and her family
Griselda finds hope that she will reunite with her sons again. Dario is killed by assassins, and his and Griselda’s son is brought to the rest of Griselda’s family.
Years later, close to her release, June visits Griselda in prison to inform her that all of her sons, except her youngest, have been killed.
June says whoever killed them purposefully waited this long to make this as painful as they could for Griselda.
After her release, Griselda returns to Medellín, Columbia. She meets her end when an unknown assassin guns her down on the 3rd of September, 2012, while she is exiting a butcher shop.
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