Summary
Netflix series Drug Squad: Costa del Sol owns the 70s and presents a range of characters that keep you glued to the screen, despite overly long episodes.
This review of Netflix series Drug Squad: Costa del Sol Season 1, also known as Brigada Costa del Sol, does not contain spoilers.
The most significant selling point of Netflix series Drug Squad: Costa del Sol is the personality-driven aspect. It presents four police officers, with varying approaches but all with a common goal which is to drive out narcotics in Costa del Sol. All owning their skills, as a unit, they become highly creative. In a bizarre, and unprecedented way, the story bands these cops together, in forgiving 1-hour-and-5 minute episodes that display a story where each trait is intense.
The four police officers do not strive to be perfect, and that’s what draws you to them. In a world that is ready to be wholly corrupted in the community, the opening chapter sees two of the officers try out the drugs they are trying hard to clamp, which is an episode where they handling a high influx of hashish led by a pair of violent traffickers. It’s 1977, and the police force does not understand the true breadth of the operations facing Costa del Sol. Nothing is black and white/good or evil in the Spanish series.
Drug Squad: Costa del Sol owns the 70s authentically. It’s telling that the production team did not want to go halves on that 70s feeling and instead goes all out, making you easily forget of the time and effort that must have gone into creating the scenes. It’s well shot, well-executed, and it allows the characters to plant themselves into the environment.
There’s a lot of exposition in Drug Squad: Costa del Sol attached to overlong running times that made me scrunch my face a little. I’m not sure why parts of the world still feel the necessity to have over 60-minute episodes and exceed ten chapters. Nevertheless, we are met with a worthwhile story mixing crime, drama and romance in all four of its corners, so audiences will have to honour the commitment.
Putting the lengths aside, in a quieter weekend for the streaming platform than usual, Spanish Netflix series Drug Squad: Costa del Sol is worth a slight binge.
