NOTE: this post contains spoilers for Griselda episode 1, "Lady Comes to Town."
Griselda (Sofía Vergara) flees from Medellín, Colombia with her three sons after making a bold move against her husband. When she arrives in Miami telling her friend Carmen (Vanessa Ferlito) that she wants a fresh start away from the drug game, it doesn't take long for her to find her way back to it, resulting in a murderous sequence of events.
Read on as we break down the key events of Griselda episode 1.
Griselda seeks a fresh start in Miami
It's 1978 in Medellín, Colombia, and Griselda runs into her house in the dead of night bleeding from her abdomen. She patches herself up with a feminine pad, a bandage and aspirin before making a call to Carmen who lives in Miami. Griselda tells her friend she's leaving her husband Alberto (Alberto Ammann) and needs a favor as she and the kids will be on their way to Miami. It's clear Carmen isn't that comfortable with the idea of Griselda crashing at her place, but doesn't turn away her friend.
After setting things up, Griselda gets her boys up and into the family car. On the way to the airport, the mother of three shares she and Alberto are getting a divorce, but none of them are broken up by the news. In fact, they are more heartbroken arriving at Carmen's and realizing they'll be living in tighter quarters than they're used to.
Once Griselda and Carmen have time to catch up, the former claims she plans on getting a place for her and her sons the moment she gets back on her feet. The latter gives Griselda a job at her travel agency to aid the mother in that cause. Carmen's biggest thing in helping Griselda is she doesn't want to get dragged back into the illicit drug lifestyle. Griselda insists she's done with that.
Here's Johnny… to be a pain in Griselda's side
After a brief stint on the straight and narrow, Griselda grows tired of her job at the travel agency and takes a kilo of cocaine she smuggled out of Colombia with her to a nightclub. Leaving the drugs in her car, she walks into the building and spots Johnny (Wilmer Calderon) snorting the powdery substance. When he gets up and walks around, she pretends to bump into him, which leads him to buy her a drink as an apology. Talking over drinks, she gets him to snort a sample of her cocaine and convinces him to introduce her to his boss, Amilcar (José Zúñiga).
She offers to sell Amilcar her kilo, and during her pitch, she puts down Johnny as if the guy is an idiot. Amilcar isn't interested in partnering with Griselda and turns her away. Before she can get in her car to go home, Johnny approaches her with his gun drawn and demands she give him the cocaine in her trunk. She hands it over, but he still punches her in the stomach for embarrassing him in front of his boss.
The next day, Griselda follows Johnny as he tries to sell her cocaine to another big-time dealer, Eddie "The Bird" Rancon (Alberto Mateo). An angry Griselda later hides by Johnny's car, and when he returns, Griselda beats him with a bat until he agrees to arrange a meeting with Eddie. Once he gives in to her demand, she takes her drugs back from Johnny and leaves.
Johnny arranges the meeting for later that evening. Instead of calling Griselda with the details, he shows up at her job at the travel agency. Carmen walks in on the two of them talking and Johnny blurts out that Griselda is a drug dealer. This leaves Carmen fuming, and she fires Griselda and asks her to move out of her home.
Try, try again
Griselda shows up at a bar with her newly appointed bodyguard Chucho (Fredy Yate), a man she met at a diner earlier in the episode. Johnny then escorts the two to a backroom where she meets a very eccentric Eddie. She does some big talking, which impresses Eddie enough to buy her kilo of cocaine for $20,000. Unfortunately, as the two close the deal with a dance, Amilcar's hitman barges in and kills Johnny and Eddie, then stabs Chucho before dying of a gunshot wound himself.
Amazingly, Griselda escapes with her life and the $20,000. Instead of taking the shootout as a warning, she goes directly to see Amilcar. She pitches being his supplier, getting him cocaine purer than what he distributes now. He caves and gives her the chance to prove herself by getting him more drugs to sell.
What really happened between Griselda and Alberto?
Through a series of flashbacks, it's revealed Alberto was shipping cocaine from Colombia to New York, and two shipments worth half a million were lost. His boss, who turns out to be his brother, Fernando, isn't pleased and wants the money for the lost shipments from Alberto. However, Fernando is willing to erase the debt if Griselda sleeps with him. The idea is repulsive to Griselda, but she ultimately does it at her husband's request.
Once she does the deed, she meets up with her husband at a pool hall. He becomes jealous and asks if she enjoyed herself with his brother. Offended by the line of questioning, she takes Alberto's car keys and tells him she's leaving.
Alberto, along with one of his associates, chases her to the car. Alberto says she isn't going anywhere, but she is adamant she is leaving him. That sparks him to allege she's nothing without him and she'll come crawling back. She then takes a gun and kills him and his associate, but not before Griselda herself is shot, explaining the injury she has at the very beginning of the episode.
All episodes of Griselda season 1 are now streaming on Netflix. By the way, check out what else is streaming on Netflix this month.
