Queen Of The South season 2 saw protagonist Teresa Mendoza inch ever close to becoming queenpin – here’s a round-up of the key events that played out during the second season. Queen Of The South is an American adaptation of the Spanish-language telenovela La Reina del Sur that stars Alice Braga (The New Mutants) as Teresa Mendoza and follows her journey from poor money changer on the streets of Sinaloa, Mexico to becoming the wealthy head of her own drug empire.
Queen Of The South season 1 premiered on June 2016 on USA Network and chronicled the beginning of Teresa’s story. Viewers learned her drug-runner boyfriend Güero (Narcos’ Jon-Michael Ecker) has been killed and Teresa and her best friend Brenda are next in line, forcing them to flee Mexico. After Teresa makes it to Texas, she’s coaxed into working for Camila Vargas (Veronica Falcón) – the estranged wife of cartel don Epifañio Vargas (Joaquim de Almeida, Fast Five).
Teresa impresses Camila and starts reluctantly rising through the ranks of Camila’s cartel as she plots to take over her husband’s cartel, although Teresa’s morals often get the better of her when it comes to the violent aspects of her job. A notebook left by Güero containing lots of juicy cartel intel allows Teresa to leverage situations to her advantage but by the end of Queen Of The South’s first season, Teresa’s friend Brenda is dead and she has a couple of kills under her belt too. Season 1 ends with the shocking reveal Güero is alive after all.
At the start of Queen Of The South season 2, Epifañio is governor of Sinaloa and has eliminated Camila’s cartel so she and Teresa become partners. Meanwhile, Teresa encounters Güero and discovers he has been cooperating with the DEA to help them catch Camila. After she learns about his DEA work, Güero convinces a reluctant Camila not to kill him by telling her she needs his connections to rebuild her empire. This takes Teresa, Güero and Camila’s henchman James (Peter Gadiot, Velvet Buzzsaw) to Bolivia in search of a new cocaine provider where they meet with the maniacal El Santo – a cartel kingpin and quasi-cult leader. It’s an eventful trip that nearly gets the trio killed but they eventually return to Camila with the goods.
The DEA finally catches up with Camila and throws her in jail while Teresa and James run her empire in her absence. However, Teresa finds out that Camila and her lawyer have set her up to take the fall so she decides to leave Camila and her criminal underworld behind. Elsewhere, Camila escapes prison and finds out she and Epifañio’s daughter Isabela has been kidnapped. After Camila puts a hit out on her, Teresa realizes she can’t keep running and decides to build her own empire but first she must pay her debts to lunatic drug lord El Santo.
The Queen Of The South season 2 finale “La Ultima Hora Mata”, Camila and Epifañio rescue Isabela and kill her kidnappers without paying the ransom money. The reunited family boards a plane to return home with Camila agreeing to leave the drug business behind for good. Their plane is intercepted by Teresa and her loyal right-hand man Pote (Hemky Madera, Ash Vs Evil Dead) with the help of Güero. A final showdown between Camila and Teresa sees the latter kill Epifañio and make off with the ransom money to pay El Santo. With Epifañio dead Camila vows revenge upon Teresa while the final scene sees Teresa and Pote sailing away to start her empire afresh away from Mexico and the US.