Griselda

Vergara's job is to convey the darkness while also commanding enough sympathy for the character to carry the series. Which she does. She is the reason to watch.

But for all its focus on Blanco bringing a fresh and female angle to the business of criminal-empire-building (international drug smuggling was apparently crying out for a woman’s touch), Griselda can’t escape that being corrupted by power is a well-trodden TV path – and one no less predictable for being walked in heels.

The title might be “Griselda” and the promotion all about Sofia Vergara, but this limited series devoted to a real-life drug kingpin could easily be dubbed “Narcos,” Season 4. Having a female protagonist in the 1970s and ‘80s does filter the narrative through a misogynistic prism, but despite being generally watchable, the story of a woman nicknamed “The Godmother” feels like one of those offers you can refuse.

As dramatically shoddy as Griselda increasingly becomes, Vergara keeps it watchable.

Despite Vergara’s estimable efforts to give the character depth, Griselda is a disappointingly predictable rise-and-fall narrative that flattens her into little more than Scarface with a girlboss makeover.

The six-episode Netflix biopic series “Griselda,” starring Sofía Vergara, doesn’t celebrate her achievements so much as find them inordinately fascinating: What if Scarface were a woman? (When she picks up a gold-plated automatic rifle, high and out of her mind, you half expect the words “Say hello to my little friend” to come tumbling out.) But a more basic question is left unanswered: Why is this story interesting?