Queen Of The South began its life as a novel called La Reina el Sur by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It was later adapted into a Spanish language telenovela with the same name. It centers around Teresa Mendoza who fled her Mexican town after her boyfriend was murdered and became a drug cartel. In 2016, it was adapted for an English-speaking audience as Queen Of The South starring Alice Braga in the lead role of Teresa. We spoke with co-showrunner Benjamin Lobato who has been with the Queen since the first season.
Given that the novel had already been adapted once, we asked Lobato how Queen Of The South became a TV series in its own right and not simply an English language extension of the novel or the telenovela. “The telenovela stuck more closely to the novel than the American TV series. We had to break away and set it in the USA rather than Spain.”
“There’s a story here that’s universal. It’s partially a story about the immigrant experience and partially a story about a woman trying to survive by making very difficult decisions.” Lobato felt that this story needed to be told in a violent and brutal context to maximize its impact. That formed the basis for Queen Of The South. He also wanted to make the TV series more “propulsive” by always putting Teresa into survival mode. She was rarely at ease. They had to add a lot more action. In the novel, she flees to Spain and gradually builds her drug empire.
Planning five seasons of any television show assumes that it will be renewed beyond season one. We asked Ben Lobato how they handled breaking the seasons. “We had a vague idea of how the show would end during season one. However, we didn’t have a season by season arc at the time.” The writing team spent most of their time finding the story and direction of Queen Of The South during season one rather than planning the final episode. Other showrunners have a stronger sense of how each season will pan out until the end of the show. “They save special moments for each season. We didn’t save anything in season one. Let’s take ourselves into the most dramatic corner that we can and trust that there’s another season after it.”
The writers knew they had to transform Teresa into a cunning character in the white suit. They figured out the most realistic approach for Teresa’s journey while exploring one universal theme per season “that was one building block in Teresa becoming the Queen.” They took their time putting Teresa in a white suit to enable the audience to really understand her journey and motivations and go along for the ride. “We had to have Teresa experience certain things that would mold and shape her character.” Teresa Mendoza has a very strong moral code of protecting her family and loved ones by any means necessary.
Benjamin Daniel Lobato
Ben Lobato grew up near the southern border and eventually worked in counter narcotics at the Arizona border. He therefore has a direct insight into how these stories play out. He was careful not to allow many personal experiences to filter into the TV series. He chose to stick with painting law enforcement procedures with broad strokes and spend more time fleshing out the characters. The characters were drawn from his personal life. “My mother is from Tijuana, Mexico. I have family on both sides of the border and both sides of the law. I grew up in the world of the border and trafficking narcotics.”
Lobato lost people to that world since he was a teenager. Some went to prison. Some died. “I wanted to acknowledge and respect the people in that world to create understanding and empathy for them,” he said. He didn’t strictly see them as villains. “I look at them as human beings forced to make impossible decisions under the circumstances.” Those personal moments were transferred into the characters on the screen.
Defining Teresa Mendoza
It wasn’t enough to shake up the drug cartel trope by simply flipping the traditional gender of the main character. Teresa has a different mindset. Typically, male cartels “rule and gain power through violence and showing strength.” On the other hand, Mendoza made her choices by clinging to her loyalty to the people around her. “She rejected violence and clung to her moral code before she gained Queen status. That’s how we broke the mold. That’s the key difference between Teresa Mendoza and Pablo Escobar in Narcos.”
Despite her moral code, Teresa is still a drug cartel – a cocaine queen. Getting the audience to invest in such a character is a formidable task. Lobato believes that the audience is ultimately looking for “truth and characters they can relate to. Outside the drug world, she is a relatable person trying to get her slice of the American dream while surviving adverse circumstances. Teresa realizes that success cannot be achieved solely through hard work. “You need to embrace power.”
Her harsh choices are a direct response to her impossible situations rather than innate desire to be a criminal. “She’s been forced to make a series of undesired decisions. One decision bad, the next decision worse.” Lobato wanted to put the audience into Teresa’s dilemma and decide what they would do in her situation – to survive or protect those she loved. “Hopefully, they would make the same choice and create that bond. Before you know it, you’re cheering her on despite the bad things she’s doing.”
It’s too easy to justify her transition into her white suit as a victim of her circumstances. As each season progressed, Teresa asserted her power and agency to eventually become the Queen Of The South. “This is a story about a woman who refuses to be a victim.”
At some point later the show, Mendoza ceases to fight to survive. Evil becomes a part of her identity. Having a high moral code won’t keep her safe in a corrupt system. Mendoza is plagued by self-doubt and questions her choices as the series progresses. Despite maintaining her strict moral code, she couldn’t protect her godson Tony Parra (Adolfo Alvarez) who was murdered. She had to radically adapt.
Pote Galvez (Hamke Madera)
By season five, Boaz Jiminez (Joseph T. Campos) reminds her of the low value of her moral compass. Tony Parra, Javier Jiminez (Alfonso Herrera), or Emilia (Sofia Lama) would still be alive if she had just murdered the corrupt Judge Cecil Lafayette (David Andrews) as instructed, to make her expansion into New Orleans easier. These events force Teresa to flip the switch and become pragmatic cold, calculating Queen Of The South. “We let the audience see her moral programming be dismantled in order to protect herself. In order to survive, she has to embrace that moral corruption.”
This duality of being simultaneously good and bad makes Teresa Mendoza a truly fascinating character. “She’s a hero of her own journey but a villain to her enemies,” said Lobato.
Apart from being a story of survival, Queen Of The South covers rich thematic terrain including misogyny, exploitation, class, immigration, poverty and systemic racism. “I also wanted to explore the idea of love and its implications for a woman who was going to chart her own path without a love interest to assist and protect her. Teresa had to kill that part of herself so she could move forward.” She couldn’t have both. It was one or the other.
She runs the drug trade through Arizona and Louisiana through the eastern seaboard. “She’s wearing a crown and no longer has to fight major enemies. What happens now?” Removing her enemies gave rise to other complications. In season four, she handed Javier Jiminez to Judge Lafayette to be murdered. She has truly embraced evil. Lobato quoted the famous Lord Acton adage, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The corruption has taken hold of Teresa Mendoza.
Lobato’s episode Todo Lo Que Toco (Everything I Touch) was entered in the Emmy race this year. We asked Ben Lobato why it was such a standout episode. The stakes were raised after she survived. “We wanted to created something larger than herself. Teresa’s stakes are her family.”
The death of Tony has deeply wounded Teresa. “Now we face the prospect of Kelly Anne Van Awken (Molly Burnett) and Pote Galvez (Hamke Madera) having a baby together.” The baby brings up the past wounds of Teresa of losing Tony. The conflict between Teresa Boaz is also raised when he kidnaps Kelly Anne. “If Teresa can’t protect her family there isn’t anything left in her world.”
At this point, Teresa has an epiphany and decides she’s going to leave the cartel world. “There’s no end to the violence, bloodshed or heartache.” Lobato explains that this moment of clarity is a common trope of gangster stories where they are given a way out. “Then we pull out the rug from underneath her and show her that there is no way out.” Lobato believes his episode is “classic Queen. It has heart, violence with a lot of action that demonstrate the stakes of the entire series.“
