Back when I started school, I was so tiny that even the smallest off-the-rack uniform had me resembling Tom Hanks at the end of Big, all trailing cuffs and quarterback shoulders.
"Look how CUTE you are!" friends shriek when I show them my kindergarten class photo. "LOOK AT YOUR TEENY FEET!" In the photo, my feet — admittedly teeny — dangle miles above the floor. Even I can see I’m adorable.
The trouble is, not much has changed. I’m 31 now, and 5-foot-1. In the U.K., where I live, the average height for a woman is 5-foot-4, which leaves me three inches wanting.
There are perks, of course. Most people will let me slip in front of them at music festivals; dating is (marginally) easier without the threat of a Rod Stewart-Penny Lancaster situation; and in Topshop, if the dress I want has sold out in my size on the main floor, I’ll often find it lurking in the Petite section. I hold fast to these little victories, for each is accompanied by a dozen defeats.
My teenage dream of dancing on Top of the Pops was dashed when I learned you had to be at least 5'4" to stand a chance of getting work; likewise my backup dream of becoming a flight attendant (I may have taken "reach for the stars" too literally). Rush hour on the subway is nerve-shredding: I can’t reach the overhead bar, so if I find myself beyond touching distance of an upright one, I have to pray for as tight a crush as possible to keep from falling. As for what’s on the top shelf of my closet — your guess is as good as mine.
But that’s all cosmetic, really. What really irks me is this perception that small equals girlish, delicate, dainty. Cute. Who decided that all the adjectives for women of diminutive stature should be similarly dinky? Why the collective jaw-drop when a short woman turns out to be powerful? Try googling "small female celebrities" – you’ll notice the results are depressingly uniform in tone. "You’d never know how tall Gaga is judging by her ginormous presence," gasps one writer, "but Mother Monster barely stands over five feet tall. Pretty surprising, considering the way she owns a room."
Then there’s Simone Biles, the incredible US gymnast who won four gold medals at the Rio Olympics. Media coverage of her performance was universally adulatory (words like "eye-popping," "strength," and "brilliance" abound) yet you’d be hard-pressed to uncover an article that doesn’t make a point of her height – even in women’s gymnastics, where athletes tend to be on the smaller side. (Biles, if you must know, is 4-foot-8.)
Let’s be honest, though; I can’t imagine Lady Gaga losing sleep over a handful of "Fuck me sideways that woman is minuscule "-type editorials. The damage is done in the real world, to those of us without 67 million Twitter followers or a stash of Olympic medals to waggle in the faces of our belittlers. I may be the eldest of three children, with a job and an apartment and a demonstrable ability to keep out of trouble but, around my family, I revert to impractical, head-in-the-clouds liability. My mother visibly crumpled with relief when I arrived in Australia for my brother’s wedding earlier this year, having traveled out alone. “Did you know what to do?” she asked, as we discussed the flight. As if I hadn’t been on a plane before… Increasingly I wonder whether years of bear hugs and being told "I do worry about you, Katy, you’re so tiny" has colored not just my mother’s impression of me but my impression of myself. Tell someone something often enough and they’ll start to believe it.
I've already resigned myself to making considerably less money than my taller colleagues over the course of my career. There are, apparently, certain "non-cognitive abilities or social skills that are correlated with stature and rewarded in the labor market." Well, what about the former boss who would pantomime reeling back in shock whenever I spoke up for myself? Or the number of visitors at a recent university open day who asked my little sister — the tutor — what she was hoping to study? After a while, she said, the satisfaction of wrong-footing people gave way to exasperation. If these are the social skills deemed worthy of reward — rudeness and a tendency to patronize — then I'll take my circumscribed earning potential and run, thanks.
In the grand scheme of things, I know there are more pressing concerns. I know that having the space to air my woes is a luxury not afforded to many people with actual problems. But man, I’m tired of guys (it’s always guys) at the bar resting their pint glasses on my head. Or seizing me as an opportunity to bolster their fragile masculinity. "STOP FUCKING PICKING ME UP I’M NOT A BARBELL" I want to scream as yet another muscle-bound city boy hoists me over his shoulder. Perhaps I should make more of an effort to put my foot down. To call out the next person who dares equate my size with my strength. To take up more space in the world. In the meantime, can everyone agree to stop calling us short women "cute"? After all, we’re the perfect height to kick you in the shins.
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Update: We just viewed the recently posted video, and it's gorier than the Battle of the Bastards on Game of Thrones. We suggest you set aside some time to watch — it's 23 minutes long. But you'll definitely get your dollar's worth.
This story was originally September 1 at 3:30 p.m.
When it comes to pimple-popping videos, there are two types of people in this world: The ones who squirm at the thought of cysts bursting on-screen, and the ones who whip out the popcorn and 3D glasses when a new one emerges. But no matter which camp you fall under, today, there's a pimple-popping video you're going to want to see — but not for the reason you think.
Earlier this month, Sandra Lee, MD, founder of SLMD Skincare, (a.k.a. Dr. Pimple Popper) teased her biggest pop yet on Instagram. Without sounding like a preview for next week's episode of Bachelor in Paradise, this is definitely the most shocking video we've seen yet. Luckily, the wait for the full video is finally over.
A post shared by Sandra Lee, MD Dermatology (@drpimplepopper) on
Dr. Pimple Popper exclusively told Refinery29 that something big was coming: Starting today at at 3:30 p.m. EST/ 12:30 p.m. PST, the highly anticipated video — what Dr. Lee says is her biggest pop yet — will premiere in full for your viewing pleasure. But there's more: Watching it will actually help victims of Hurricane Harvey.
For the first time ever, Dr. Pimple Popper's YouTube video will be a pay-per-view kind of deal. The moment you click this link, you'll be prompted to pay .99 cents to view the massive pop. But here's why it's worth a watch: For every purchase, Dr. Pimple Popper will donate a portion of the proceeds to the American Red Cross and The St. Bernard Project. (By the way, if you have the urge to rewatch the video — which we're sure you will — there's no added cost.)
LinkedIn recently examined data from 2 million of its members and compiled a report on how salaries vary by job, education level and field of study, location, company size, and industry.
Where's the money? The 2017 U.S. State of Salary Report found that the highest paying job title in the United States is orthopedic surgeon, with an average salary of $450,000. The highest paying field of study? Computer science, with an average salary of $92,300. The highest paying region to work is the San Francisco Bay area, at $112,400 — a good thing, since it's also the most expensive place to rent an apartment in the country.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, medicine pays the most and doctors account for eight of the top 20 jobs on the list. "Leadership roles in finance, sales, tax, human resources, strategy, supply chain, research and development, marketing, and legal are all alternate routes to a high salary," notes the report. The annual bonuses for the top 20 can range from $20,000 to $100,000.
If you're just starting out, the highest paying mid- and entry-level jobs are in finance, sales, marketing, and engineering. Investment banking analysts top this list, making an average of $105,000 a year, with a bonus of $40,000.
The report notes that while generally there's a positive correlation between education and salary — high school graduates earn an average of $52,000 a year, while those with medical degrees make $161,000 — there's a "wide payoff range" for graduate school; 3 to 13%. MDs make more than JDs and MBAs, while those with MAs and PhDs make more than BAs but under $100,000 on average. (Yep, liberal arts degrees don't always pay off — shocker, we know.)
Unfortunately, men are still overrepresented in the most lucrative industries, like tech, where twice as many men work as women. Manufacturing is the third highest paid industry and employs over three times as many men as women.
"Healthcare is the only top-five paying industry with a greater proportion of females," notes the report. "Consumer goods, legal, media, retail, real estate, and education have a higher female ratio, too, but the imbalances are less compared to those in the male-dominated industries."
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Any bona-fide beauty-lover will tell you that walking into a well-stocked beauty store is a lot like being a kid in a candy store — only, the payoff is even sweeter. Shelves upon shelves of shiny new products beckon with dazzling results. Frizz-fighting hair oils, skin-illuminating serums, lash-lengthening mascaras — you name it, Ulta Beauty has it. But with so many options, where’s a girl to start?
Before you single-handedly sink your data plan searching product reviews (sorry, fam) or fall for pretty packaging (we're totally guilty), hear us out: We’ve tapped the best beauty experts in the biz to share the superhero products they make a beeline for time and again — from hair tools to skin-care products to makeup. Click on through; we're sure these picks will hit the spot.
"Brushes are really the number-one signifier of what makes one mascara stand out over another — and that's the case with this mascara. Not only is there a large brush for when you want to load up on formula, but there's also a bonus mini brush that's perfect for your bottom lashes. Plus, the formula is smudge-proof."
MAC Bold & Bad Lash Mascara, $23.00, available at Ulta Beauty.
"This tinted gel is great for most — even those with the thickest, darkest, fullest brows can benefit from the subtle tint and firm hold. It features microfibers to add weight and depth to your brows, while the formula's subtle sheen gives you a natural highlighted effect."
Maybelline Brow Precise Fiber Volumizer, $8.99, available at Ulta Beauty.
"I love this product because it's not only long-wearing and highly pigmented, but it's also super affordable. The formula is matte but still goes on creamy with a lightweight feel, making it a great choice for practically everyone. One of my favorite shades is Siren — it’s the perfect burgundy."
NYX Professional Makeup Matte Lipstick, $5.99, available at Ulta Beauty.
"High-quality sun protection is important year-round, as even low levels of daily sun exposure can add up over your lifetime. Look for a sunscreen with at least SPF 30 protection — if not higher — like this La Roche-Posay Sunscreen Milk. The formula melts right into your skin without leaving a white or ashy residue."
La Roche-Posay Anthelios 60 Face & Body Melt In Sunscreen Milk, $35.99, available at Ulta Beauty.
"When choosing a cleanser, look for products that are specially formulated to effectively remove dirt without interfering or disrupting your skin's natural barrier. This particular formula lathers nicely without overly drying out your skin. It can be used across a variety of skin types — ranging from oily, acne-prone skin to dry or sensitive skin — without causing any harm."
Neutrogena Ultra Gentle Daily Cleanser, $9.99, available at Ulta Beauty.
"Serums are highly concentrated products with active ingredients specifically designed to penetrate into your skin. This formula features yeast extract — a powerful antioxidant — and minimizes the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles while brightening your skin tone."
Lancôme Advanced Génifique Youth Activating Serum, $140.00, available at Ulta Beauty.
"This dryer is super lightweight yet incredibly powerful. I travel a ton for work, so I appreciate that I can fit it in my travel bag. It beats using a hotel dryer! Plus, since it's super small and chic looking, I often leave it out on my counter."
T3 Featherweight Compact Folding Dryer, $150.00, available at Ulta Beauty.
"This thickening spray is great for any hair texture looking for a lifted, voluminous look. It holds and maintains the shape of your style yet is completely lightweight and workable. I like to spray the product from roots to ends on dry hair for the perfect amount of grip."
Bumble and bumble Bb.Thickening Dryspun Finish, $31.00, available at Ulta Beauty.
"The temperature setting on this iron is adjustable, so you can curl everything from the thinnest, most fragile hair to the most curl resistant. It also has a moving arm, which helps adjust tension, so you can glide your hair through the iron and prevent any creases you can get with a clamp iron."
Hot Tools Professional Marcel Iron, $39.99, available at Ulta Beauty.
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If you don't have a Twitter account, then you might not know who BTS is. Officially known now as Beyond The Scene, the K-Pop band that is widely popular overseas is just moments away from hitting it big stateside. Besides dropping musical hits, it seems as though the boy band's latest business venture will solidify their global stardom almost immediately. Enter: BTS sunscreen.
They made a splash at the Billboard Music Awards, and now BTS is ready to hop the beauty bandwagon and turn the famous brand into something even bigger. But before another album release, it looks like their focus is on skin care. According to Digital Music News, the band will officially launch a collection of cushion compact sunscreens — and we're predicting it will sell out, fast.
No word yet on when the products will launch online, how much the collection will be, or if U.S. fans will be able to shop it right away. But like all popular K-beauty innovations, you better act fast.
At a time when fashion is in a state of flux, we're looking to the industry's next generation of influencers as a guiding light. This New York Fashion Week, Refinery29's Future of American Fashion series is highlighting the designers, brands, and retailers we're betting on big. The future starts here.
As department stores continue to crumble, Reformation founder and CEO Yael Aflalo has some valuable advice: “The future of fashion is fast.” Of course, the 39-year-old entrepreneur follows this mantra first hand as she ships 52 deliveries a year of her insouciant printed dresses and cut-to-there bodysuits that are nearly always sold out and are worn by the likes of Sienna Miller and Emily Ratajkowski. “A typical fashion brand ships four times a year, there’s just no benefit to designing clothes 18 months in advance,” she says. “You only get to learn [about your customer] four times a year then, that’s not much learning.”
Aside from being educated by her woman (and subsequently giving her what she actually wants), Aflalo credits the immediacy of our culture — the rise of Instagram and Snapchat and same-day Amazon Prime deliveries — for our insatiable desire for new, new, new. “Everything is fast now,” she continues. “Nobody wants to wait for something. I order my thing, I can get it within an hour, that’s how it is.”
Sustainability Is Cool
Aflalo prides Reformation on its sustainable initiatives as much as being “customer obsessed.” Following Elon Musk’s First Principal Thinking, she says, “Fast-fashion does not mean that it’s worse for the environment. The only examples that we have of fast-fashion are cheap companies that make clothing out of very bad materials, so we equate fast-fashion with bad for the environment or low quality, that people buy more of them and throw them away, creating this disposable culture.”
For that reason, Reformation’s pieces are not throw away clothes. Since launching in 2009, Aflalo has sourced covetable sustainable, vintage, and deadstock fabrics for her collections, and designed, manufactured, packed, and shipped her offerings from her Los Angeles-based headquarters, and her awareness for the environment has only increased, e.g., since this past Earth Day, she even started introducing tours of her new downtown LA factory so customers can actually see where the magic happens. She credits her ingenious RefScale, an internal tool meant to calculate waste footprints, on what keeps her team continuously accountable — last quarter the brand made clothes that created 53% less waste and used 77% less water than her competitors.
“I think that climate change is the biggest issue facing the world, and I’m often surprised that more people don’t get into action about it but that’s ok,” she says. “I know how to make clothes and so I decided that I should start a sustainable fashion brand. That’s my part.”
Creeping Into The Zeitgeist
That Reformation has become so popular, while still being environmentally aware, is what Aflalo calls their “differentiator.” Mainly it has to do with the fact that her “vintage-inspired” pieces don’t look like they’re blah reinterpretations of something you would find in your great grandmother’s closet, but modern versions of what’s trending now: crop tops, off-the-shoulder blouses, two-piece sets, and deep-V high-slit wrap dresses. Consider denim which they launched earlier this spring. The first delivery sold out immediately simply because Aflalo and her team tested the product—novel approach, sure. Even their front-to-back 180 degree zipper jeans, “their riff off the viral Vetements jeans from a few seasons ago," is currently out of stock with a never-ending waitlist. “We’re never going to launch a category, hire a big team, put a lot of marketing dollars behind it, hire an expensive model, and put it everywhere. We never do that. Never,” she says. Denim came about more organically — they had been slowly testing their in-house styles for eight under-the-radar months before proliferating it. “A typical company will start with one really great jean and go from there, we’re like, ‘Let’s start with 30 jeans and work our way down to four,'” she explains.
The Path Forward
Aflalo is planning to launch at least two categories a year with the brand, and is even more eager about continuing its retail footprint. Seven Reformation stores have opened this year, with a third New York location on Bond Street up next (for what it's worth, Aflalo plans to open eight to 12 stores a year for the next five years). And her investment in brick and mortar (she developed her forward-thinking tech heavy concept, complete with touchscreen dressing-room mirrors in February), is Aflalo’s way of saying traditional retail isn’t going anywhere. “Brick and mortar isn’t bad, it’s an important part of the consumer experience,” she says. “I think as more direct to consumer brands offering good value move to traditional brick and mortar, you’ll see brick and mortar do well again. Warby Parker is doing really well at retail; Reformation is doing really well at retail.” It’s a pretty strong comparison considering Warby Parker is expected to rake in $250 million in revenue this year, but like the direct-to-consumer eyewear company, Reformation boutiques are filled with a set of Cool Girls™ waiting for their turn in the mirror.
Such great success in such a short amount of time has also yielded numerous wannabe competitors; new labels like Rouje and Réalisation Par, seem to want a piece of the Reformation pie, but Aflalo reveals she kind-of expected it. “I see a lot of copycat brands and sometimes I’ll order them and then I’ll be like, ‘Ok! I feel better!’ It’s not a good fit or the fabric qualities are bad. You can copy something, but I don’t think our principles are there,” she says.
Scale and growth continue to be number one for Reformation as Aflalo reaches her goal to bring sustainable fashion to the masses, a thought previously unheard of. “We’re not the cool little brand anymore that a few people know about and there are people that only want to wear those types of brands,” she says. “We’re bigger now and that’s okay. We’re not a secret.”
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Well, the rumors were true. Serena Williams has given birth to her first baby, a reported girl, if the word of Beyoncé is to believed. And, the word of Beyoncé is always to be believed. As the Internet was flooded with headlines like “Serena Williams Reportedly Gives Birth,” Queen Bey decided to take matters into her own hands and break the official news herself. A little after 4 p.m. on Friday, September 1, Beyoncé shared an Instagram photo reading, “Congratulations Serena!” The photo featured an image of the tennis star in a diaphanous white gown, cradling her baby bump. Since new mom Williams is likely sporting a hospital gown right now, as opposed to a red carpet one, it’s likely Beyoncé has been waiting to post her congratulatory announcement for some time.
Beyoncé’s big announcement arrived a few minutes after West Palm Beach, Florida journalists tweeted out a report that Williams had given birth. This makes sense, since it’s believed the tennis star checked herself into the town’s St. Mary's Medical Center this past Wednesday, and was induced on August 31. Local broadcast news editor Patricia Storm says a hospital source confirmed Williams welcomed a baby girl, who arrived at 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Storm reports Williams chose to have her child through C-section.
Williams shares her first baby, whose name is yet to be released, with fiancé Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit. The sports legend and her tech millionaire reportedly began dating in 2015, although they kept their romance quiet for quite sometime. In December 2016, Williams confirmed she was engaged to Ohanian with a sweet Reddit post, because she is nothing if not a supportive life partner. A few months later, in April 2017, Williams accidentally announced via Snapchat she was expecting, and it’s been news of healthy pregnancy cravings and baby CPR classes since then.
Now that Wiliams' child has finally arrived, complete with a shout-out from Beyoncé mere moments after entering the world, Twitter is already imagining playdates for the Williams-Ohanian baby with Rumi and Sir Carter. Here are some of the best tweets about the inevitable meeting of celebrity baby greatness — we hope Blue Ivy Carter is already preparing for babysitting duties:
Just heard Serena Williams is in labor. I really hope her child & Beyoncé's twins become bffs. Let's think about that formation for a sec... pic.twitter.com/kJR4WGJ7wu
But, while some of Kim's makeup tricks are obvious, others are much more subtle. And some don't make any sense at all — like highlighting your laugh lines to make them look less noticeable. (What?) Still, it works for Kim and we're not about to turn down her glam team's beauty advice.
Ahead, check out five of the most surprising beauty tricks to ever come out of the Kardashian camp.
She Highlights Her Laugh Lines
"I love to put the highlighter here on my laugh lines, cause it just makes it all kind of go away," she explained in a recent Snapchat tutorial. Counterintuitive? Maybe. Working? Definitely.
@kimkardashian
She Contours Under Her Nose
Kim's contour routine is extensive — especially when it comes to her nose. “I contour on both sides as well as under the tip," she explained once. "This will make your nose look really short and defined.”
@kimkardashian
She Gets Into Her Hairline
Rather than just tracing the border of her face like many artists do, Kim works her bronzer deep into her hairline. The effect is more natural, if more difficult to wash out the next day.
@kimkardashian
She Opts For Square Nails
In a sea of long, almond-shaped nails, Kim prefers hers square — which complements her cuticle shape. It takes a careful eye, because her nails are barely visible on the upper right of Kylie Jenner's post, but the square, shorter tips make an appearance. Kylie employs the same trick, but goes for a little more length.
@kimkardashian
She Strobes Her Ears
Is there anywhere she doesn't highlight? But Kim's not alone — ear highlighting has been popular for years and recently picked up even more steam. And, you have to admit, it's really flattering.
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Next Tuesday, September 6, will see the moon reach fullness at 3:02 a.m. EST. Overall, this lunation is our first sign of the colder months (and the effort they so often require) to come. But first, let's take a closer look at this moon's folklore.
Although the September full moon is referred to as the Harvest Moon in nature-based faiths, but that name also has roots in agrarian life — and, in that field, it has a slightly different definition.
According to the Farmer's Almanac, the "Harvest Moon" actually describes whatever full moon arrives nearest to the fall equinox, or the time of year when crops are traditionally harvested. Most years, that is the full moon of September, but this year is an exception. October's full moon (which, spiritually speaking, is known as the Hunter Moon or the Blood Moon) will rise 13 days after the equinox, putting it three days closer than September's full moon.
Nevertheless, the Harvest Moon that always takes place in September is still worthy of this name, as it reminds us of what we've been working toward all year — and what remains to be done before 2018 begins.
If you observed August's full moon, you spent last month in preparation mode, executing those needling (but necessary) tasks at work, handling household chores, and tackling difficult conversations with your friends or partner. Now you get to see that hard work pay off. New opportunities may arise, now that your schedule and closet are clearer than they were last month. You might even have a little time to relax next week, if only for a day or two.
No full moon comes without a warning of changes yet to arrive. Now that you've seen your summertime efforts come to fruition, it's time to look ahead to the winter. This is not to say that your holiday shopping should be over and done with by next week, but it won't hurt to start reflecting on what you want out of the remainder of 2017.
Once you have your end-of-year wish list in mind, get moving. Start thinking about how you can start to make your dreams a reality, even if they're on the bigger and wilder side. With the expansive full moon fueling your ambition, even the smallest steps will leave a major impact.
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You could never separate us from our sleek, classic leather biker jacket. It's the first thing we unpack the first day the temperature hits 50 degrees, and it sticks with us well into spring. But, when we think about it, a suede jacket is kind of like the adult version of our smooth leather one — it might be a little more expensive and require a bit more attention (since it doesn't do well with spills or stains), but it can elevate any look so easily, we might just start to love it even more than our tried-and-true black moto.
This season, there's a suede jacket for every taste and style — from trendy hues like mustard yellow and pale pink to versatile staples like black and navy. Some are lightweight, perfect for transitioning seasons, and others are a bit heavier, so you can be cozy through winter. Regardless, they all look so put-together that they're worth the spontaneous petting you'll get throughout the day when people ask to feel your jacket (which will likely happen). But hey, is there anything better than being equally as chic as you are cozy?
Click ahead for our super-soft suede picks for a range of budgets — and whichever one you settle on surely won't leave your side for the next couple of seasons.
Your favorite DEA agent, Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal), is back — battle worn and weary from his time fighting Pablo Escobar, and lacking his former partner Steve Murphy, but back nonetheless.
When we first catch Peña again, he’s reluctantly mingling with people at a wedding. But Javi’s not with drug traffickers, like the wedding we saw on Season 2 of Narcos. He’s with his big, friendly family in Laredo, Texas. His family views him as a total hero for catching Escobar, but Javi shirks off their compliments — he’s jaded by the brutality he’d witnessed back in Colombia.
Judging by his face when he sees her, the real reason Peña has come to this wedding is to see Lorraine (Bre Blair), the woman he couldn’t commit to ten years ago. Instead of marrying Lorraine, Peña married his work. Watching Lorraine with her new family, Peña gazes longingly at the life that could’ve been his — of course, while he aggressively chews gum. God, I’ve missed him.
Before leaving for another stint in Colombia — this time, with a fancy new promotion — Peña’s dad forces him to pause and have some "real talk" in their driveway. He knows Javier must've endured a fair share of trauma in Colombia, and asks whether he really wants to go again. This is a conversation they’ve had before, and it always goes the same way: Javi’s dad asks, "Are you sure?" and Javi says, "Yes." Someone cue “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens.
Then, the theme song is on, I’m in, and the show is about to begin.
On the plane ride back to the thick of things, Javi thumbs a photo of the subject of this season’s investigations: the Cali Cartel. In Season 2, the Cali Cartel had played a crucial role in taking care of the Pablo Escobar problem. With Escobar gone, the Cali Cartel — and its enormous output — is the DEA’s new target.
The Cali Cartel is the smooth, suave, under-the-radar polar opposite of Pablo Escobar's boastful, arrogant, charming "man of the people" persona. The Cali Cartel works cryptically and efficiently, using a hidden infrastructure that Peña likens to a Fortune 500 company. The Cartel socialized with Colombia’s elites, and were more interested in making money than in becoming figureheads, like Escobar.
Peña introduces the four main players of the Cali Cartel. First, we see Helmer "Pacho" Herrera (Alberto Ammann), head of distribution and security, bathing casually in a bubble bath. His male lover emerges from the bubbles.
Then, we meet Jose "Chepe" Santacruz Londoño (Pêpê Rapazote), who manages the cocaine distribution in the Cali Cartel’s primary turf: New York City. He lives in New York full time, and wears fantastically puffy jackets to combat the cold, both in the weather and New Yorker’s attitudes.
Next is Miguel Rodriguez Orejula (Francisco Denis), operations chief in charge of money, murder, and logistics. Lastly, the CEO himself: Gilberto Rodriguez Orejula (Damián Alcázar). Gilberto has his own personal security guard, Carlos Cordova (Andrés Crespo).
Oh, goodie. A new set of faces and names. Brace yourselves: This is going to be a lot to keep track of.
That night, the Cali Cartel is planning on holding an extraordinary party. For the first (and only) time, everyone in the cartel's extended network will gather. Gilberto Rodriguez will be making a speech. When the four cartel godfathers get together, we see they genuinely all love and respect each other — they have a much less tense relationship than Escobar and his men had (for now).
Given the importance of the event, the cartel's impressive security team is making preparations. Pacho, head of security, gives a rousing speech, before announcing that Jorge (Matias Varela), a top-notch security guard, is leaving his job at the cartel to start a security business of his own.
Everyone, even the DEA, knows about this party. So, what’s the DEA’s plan to get into the party tonight? A subsection of the DEA, called Cornerstone, had made some key arrests of Cali members in Miami. Since then, the agents have been convincing arrested family members to help spy for them, in exchange for their loved one’s return.
The DEA nabs one such informant and installs him as a waiter in the party. He wears a button that also happens to be a camera. I’m all for the gadgets.
Before Gilberto makes the announcement, Jorge catches the waiter with the hidden camera. Turns out the DEA shouldn’t be so self-congratulatory. The cartel had been paying $1 billion in pay-offs each year, and practically own the phone lines, taxi cabs, and all the information in the city of Cali.
After Jorge makes this big find, Miguel confronts him, and says he wants Jorge to continue working for the Cartel for the next six months. Jorge has no choice but to say yes.
With the spying waiter taken care of, it’s announcement time. Gilberto’s big plan? Withdrawal from the cocaine business. In six months, all evidence that the Cali Cartel had ever existed will be gone. The four godfathers and their entire extended network will surrender, and get out of the business unscathed.
During a meeting with Stechner (Eric Lange), the balding CIA agent, Peña discovers the U.S. government also is in on the surrender. Neither the Americans nor the Colombians really need Peña’s help, much to Peña’s fury. All Stechner needs is Peña’s hero status to add some PR glow to the endeavor.
After Gilberto’s announcement of the surrender, it’s clear that not everyone in Cali's extended network is pleased. Using their extensive wiretapping system (they've bought out the phone company), the cartel godfathers listen in on people who have revolted against Gilberto’s plan and want to strike out on their own. Gilberto doles out execution assignments; each person who spoke out will die.
This gives Pacho an opportunity to off his rival, Claudio Salazar (Carlos Camacho). Accompanied by a gang of leather-clad motorcyclists, Pacho arrives to the outdoor disco where Salazar is dancing with a woman who is not his wife Maria (Andrea Londo). Pacho makes nice, and agrees to put all of their differences between them.
Then, Pacho begins dancing sensually and making out with a man on the dance floor. There is some playful lip biting happening. I am on board for Pacho’s brand of terrifying sexuality.
After the dance, Pacho calmly struts up to Claudio Salazar, and enacts the most horrific execution we’ve seen on the show yet. Pacho smashes a bottle of alcohol his head. When Claudio awakes, his arms and his legs have been attached to two motorcycles going in two different directions. A few revs later, the motorcycles have accelerated to their full, gruesome capacity.
No one will find Claudio’s body. When the Cali Cartel kills someone, they wrap his body in netting and drop it into the river. When the body blots, the netting cuts it into pieces, creating fish food. There’s no boasting.
Well, clearly this season will be brutal.
As Peña says, it was easier to pretend that Cali wasn’t as evil as Pablo, because they were stealthier. But don’t kid yourself: This season will just as vicious as the ones before, even if the Cartel's moves are more gracefully plotted.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
Episode 2 — "The Cali KGB"
Guys, I can't keep up with how many new and strange men are in this season. And why are these new and strange Cali Cartel men emptying gas canisters into a sewer? Unbeknownst to the goon squad, the gas is poisonous. The gas snakes its way into an apartment building, and results in the deaths of four people — four of whom are children — and thousands of injuries.
This is bad for the Cartel. If the incident is successfully linked back to the Cali Cartel, the negotiation deal with the government would certainly be off the table.
For now, though, the Cali Cartel's biggest issue is dealing with the North Valley cartel, who are asking where their buddy, Claudio Salazar, is. Remember: His body is disintegrating in the river. Not knowing what happened to him, Maria, his wife, is wandering around Cali and causing up a stir.
To mitigate the problem, Gilberto sends Pacho, who killed Claudio, to Mexico. Gilberto is killing two birds with one stones. For one, Pacho will be out of Cali, and can't be the target of North Valley ire. For another, Pacho in Mexico can negotiate a better deal with their distributor, Amado (Jose Maria Yazpik), who transports cocaine through the border in Juarez.
Unfortunately for Gilberto, solving the rest of his problems won't be this easy. A journalist has connected the dots between the gas incident and a shell company owned by the Cali Cartel. Gilberto had bought the gas company, and was intending to fill the canisters with cocaine and transport them across the border, since border patrol never opens up poisonous gas canisters. Later this episode, the journalist will go to Peña with her findings.
Which is a good thing, because Peña is super sulky and bored. With the Cali Cartel all primed and ready to surrender, there's not much policing that needs to be done. The Colombian government wants the DEA out. After the Cornerstone task force agents are photographed and appear on the front page of a newspaper, they two DEA Cornerstone agents are sent back to America.
Peña’s also dealing with the burden of his reputation, garnered through his vigilante-style pursuit of Escobar. Some people applaud him for his involvement bringing down Peña; others, like Colonel Martinez (Juan Pablo Shuk), say that the people who let Los Pepes loose on Colombia should’ve been arrested — not promoted.
How is Cali going to get out of this PR mess? Force Jorge, the guy who's desperate to leave the business, into blackmailing the safety inspector (Alberto Cardeño), clearly. All Jorge wants is to build a nice house with his wife, Paola (Taliana Vargas), where his two daughters, who always wear matching children, can romp around. He’s even bought a plot of land, and is showing his cold, mean, former military dad the outline for the house when he's called back to work. Paola is angry, because she recognizes the beeper is the universal signal for, "That's nice, honey, but I gotta go."
Jorge’s newest job? Find some dirt on the safety inspector, who absolutely refuses to be bought off, and is planning on announcing the cartel is responsible for the gas leak. Jorge sends his men to follow the safety inspector until they strike gold. After an exhaustive search, they find some good fodder for blackmail: The inspector's wife is having a torrid affair.
Miguel has an absolutely terrible, no good, dirty rotten son named David (Arturo Castro). David wants to be involved with the Cartel, and is super jealous of Jorge. So, David volunteers our meek, timid Jorge to be the one who strong-arms the the safety inspector into bending to the Cali Cartel’s will. Eventually, the inspector crumples under Jorge’s intimidation tactics. Though he had already known of his wife's affair, he acknowledges how much public damage the knowledge getting out would do.
During his press release, the inspector says the gas leak was caused by an accident. Victory: Jorge.
Watching the safety inspector lie on TV, Peña officially knows the Cali Cartel’s case for surrender is broken after he sees the news. Peña's gotta get back to Cali, and lucky for him, there are two new American DEA recruits perfect for the job. He sends the eager new agent, Chris Feistl (Michael Stahl David), and his partner, the equally foxy Daniel Van Ness (Daniel Whelan), back to Cali.
Looks like Peña's back in the game.
The last story line of the episode is in New York, where Chepe’s maintaining control of Rodriguez turf, at least for the next six months. Chepe’s trying to up the quantity of ether he obtains from his supplier in New York, but his supplier is unwilling to give him more. The ether supplier states — correctly — that the Cali Cartel is shutting down in six months, but these kids in Queens running a new cocaine business are not shutting down. Chepe slides a pistol on the desk and demands the address for the cocaine operation in Queens, which apparently operates out of a beauty parlor. This can’t end well.
The next time we see Chepe, he’s getting his hair relaxed at a beauty parlor. He and two other Colombians sit beneath beauty parlor cloaks. Chepe tells the hairdresser to go get the people behind the "Staff Only" door for a conversation, and a group of men pour out of the room. Chepe gives the group of Dominicans one option: Leave. They think he’s bluffing. He’s not.
"Part of being an adult is accepting things that you wish weren’t true," says Chepe, before opening machine gun fire from beneath his purple gown.
Some minor players: Maria Salazar (Andrea Londo), Claudio’s wife, is taken in a car by someone from the cartel, and brought to a restaurant, where she’s informed that her husband was killed. What's a girl to do?
Guillermo Pallomari (Javier Cámara, who you’ll recognize from The Young Pope), the Cali Cartel's accountant, stares at the finances with Miguel Rodriguez. How did people get financial reports organized before computers? I’m impressed. Miguel says a copy of the book has to be made, so that no one complains when they’re not being paid off in six months. Pallomari is the keeper of all the cartel's secrets.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
Episode 3 — "Follow The Money"
For the record, I’m really have a hard time keeping track of all of the different men on this show. The episode opens with Pacho in Mexico, obviously having following Gilberto’s orders. He’s greeted by his brother and Amado Carrilo Fuentes, the leader of the Juarez Cartel, and the first of the Mexican drug cartels to get involved with their neighbors to the south. Remember that Pacho has been sent to Mexico to broker a deal with Fuentes on pushing even more cocaine to America over the next six months’ blaze of glory.
But before we can deal with Pacho’s sadness that his sense of purpose is ending in six months, we have to deal with a more immediate problem: Cash. How do the cartels deal with protecting, and hiding, cash?
Enter Peña, who teaches us a little something about drug money laundering. Pablo Escobar buried his cash, but the Cali Cartel have more sophisticated methods of burying their money, naturally. The mechanics of the money laundering aren't actually important to the narrative.
What’s important is a new player to keep track of, Franklin Jurado (Miguel Angel Silvestre). Jurado looks like he wears eyeliner (those eyelashes!), speaks five languages, is married to a glamorous American woman, and is totally responsible for keeping the Cali Cartel’s money hidden. He makes deals with businessmen in Panama to create an untraceable web of transactions. The bridge between the narcos and high finance, Jurado hides the money trail. Catch him, and the business stops.
How to catch a man a slippery as Jurado? A bank in Monaco traces Cali Cartel money back to a company in Bogotá. Through that, Peña manages to extract the name of Franklin Jurado from the company.
Peña would love to spend the episode tracking Jurado, but unfortunately for him, two U.S. senators are in town, and he's occupied with schmoozing. Peña and the balding CIA agent, Stechner, have to entertain the senators if they want to get the $5 billion dollars in funding that Stechner is asking for.
So instead of flying to Panama to catch Jurado, Peña must climb aboard U.S. helicopter to the jungle with Stechner and the senators. Stechner is taking the two senators to the “heart” of the drug wars: a cocaine manufacturing center in the wilderness. The scene is brutal, and designed to shock the senators. A group of people lie dead – the local soldier in charge of the operation down there says they’re traffickers and paramilitaries.
But Peña confronts Stechner and an American guard with what quickly became apparent to him: The scene is staged. These are no dead traffickers. They’re "run of the mill guerrillas." Peña’s beginning to realize that the "war on drugs" is a stage show.
The senators aren’t as smart. They nod along as Stechner gives a rousing speech about how important a stable Colombia is for the entire region. He guarantees a victory against the Cali Cartel.
While the senators board a helicopter, Stechner and Peña have a savage fight. Peña accuses Stechner of not being committed to helping. Stechner says Peña cares too much, and Peña tells him to eff off. Looks like Peña's goal of "playing nice" is going splendidly.
On the bright side (at least, for Peña), the DEA is making inroads in Cali. The two newbies arrive to Cali and are immediately greeted by a tough policeman, Captain Calderon, who wants them to know that he’s not like the other corrupt policemen, completely under the thumb of the Rodriguez brothers. Shouldn’t Feistl and Van Ness know that when someone says, “I’m not like the others,” they probably are? They tell Calderon they have no warrants.
Cut to Miguel, head of security, making an announcement that the DEA is in Cali. How would he know that? Oh, yeah: Calderon. Luckily for them, since the DEA arrived with no search warrants, they don’t have any power. As a precaution, Jorge still assigns one of the guards, Enrique, to follow the DEA everywhere.
The DEA agents are still with Calderon. Going on the information taken from the Cornerstone raid in Miami, Feistl and Van Ness go to an office building, where the top six floors are owned by Cali. Surprise! Feistl had a search warrant all along, and intends to use it. Calderon is agitated. He’s in panic mode. He calls Jorge.
Upstairs, the accountant, Guillermo Pallomari, is counting loads and loads of American dollars. If they’re caught, it won’t be pretty. Jorge finds out and calls Guillermo to put everything away, but Guillermo shrugs him off. Jorge jets off to take care of things, and runs with the posture of a warrior. I am impressed by both Jorge and Guillermo’s goofy demeanor — he is one singular character.
Jorge manages to get up the stairs before the DEA does, and he puts all of the money in a garbage pail and hides in Guillermo’s back office while the rest of the room is ransacked by the DEA and the police taskforce our corrupt Calderon has summoned. Van Ness into the back office where Jorge is hiding, but Guillermo makes him leave before he finds any traces of American dinero. He leaves, and Jorge is so visibly relieved. He is the only likable character.
Sitting among piles of confiscated files like Jack Sparrow sits with his treasure, the DEA agents are proud of themselves. They ask the Calderon for help transporting the files to their offices. It’s then that the Calderon shows his true colors. He informs them that the files will be kept in police custody, since it was their raid, and that they’ve been put on the first flight back to Bogotá.
Phew — they got rid of the DEA. The Cali members are relieved, but shaken by their experience with this very competent DEA team. "Those Americans know what they’re doing," Calderon says on the phone.
Well, they really know what they’re doing. Though Van Ness doesn’t speak good Spanish, he recognized Guillermo had a Chilean accent — and thus could be extradited. Instead of getting on the plane to Bogotá, they leave the airport and go catch an accountant.
Van Ness and Feistl have miraculously tracked down where Guillermo went. Don’t ask me how. And who do they see walking a dog? Gilberto Rodriguez, who has moved from his official homes and was living in an unknown location. They call up Peña with their findings. Peña rushes over to Colonel Martinez, and asks: Do you want to catch Gilberto Rodriguez?
Finally, back to Pacho at the start of the episode. He’s having a crisis. What will he do when he’s no longer a drug trafficker? In a moment of intimacy, Pacho tells his brother that their father said there wasn’t a place in the world for a man like him (we assume he means a gay man). But Pacho found a place. Can he really give it up?
Speaking of Pacho — remember Maria, the woman he'd widowed? It was clear Miguel Rodriguez had a crush on her ever since the party in the first episode. As it turns out, Miguel buys her an apartment because she doesn't feel comfortable going back to the North Valley. It seems he actually wants to help. He agrees to collect her son from where he's staying with his possessive grandmother. Maria, thinking he'll do this in exchange for sex, pulls off her strap. He puts it back on. Miguel isn't that kind of guy.
Poor, poor Jorge. Jorge's still trying to pretend he can open a business, even though he needs six more months with Cali. He and his wife, Paola, go to dinner with the business investors. While at a fancy restaurant, evil David Rodriguez walks in, and interrupts the meeting. He places his hands on Jorge's shoulders, clearing showing off his intimacy with Jorge. By associating himself with the Cali Cartel, Jorge has botched the deal.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
Episode 4 — "Checkmate"
Hold on tight, people, because this is one exhilarating episode — and hopefully an equally action-packed recap.
At the end of last episode, Peña and Colonel Martinez decided to hunt Gilberto Rodriguez together, thanks to intel gathered by Feistl and Van Ness.
But first, let Peña tell you a little bit about Gilberto Rodriguez. Gilberto is characterized by always being in control. He kept both his closet and business in meticulous order. Nothing would catch him off guard — not even retirement. He didn’t strongarm people like Pablo Escobar. He was friendly, and got favors from friends.
Gilberto was even organized in perhaps the messiest of all human affairs — relationships. He had three wives, and split up the week between each one. On Sundays, his three wives gathered at his house to watch football. They were all friends.
All in all, Gilberto Rodriguez was not the man who expected to be captured. Yet, that is just what is about to happen.
At the start of the episode, we see Martinez and a few soldiers in the back of a chicken truck, sitting stoically among the chicken carcasses. Elsewhere in the city, Peña and Calderon are preparing for a raid. Peña demands all the police turn in their phones and beepers, much to Calderon’s chagrin. Peña explains that the DEA suspects one of the policemen is working for Cali (we, of course, know who it is – and it seems that Peña does too). Calderon is one bad actor. In the ride over with Peña, he tries to say: this is my mission. Of course, he doesn’t yet know what the mission actually is.
As Calderon and the convoy of Colombian police cars drives on, Peña sees the chicken slaughterhouse truck driving in the opposite direction.
The convoy stops at a house. Up until this point, Calderon has been in the dark to the mission’s purpose. It’s at this moment that Peña taps him on the back and says, "We’re arresting one of the godfathers of Cali."
The policemen and DEA agents disable the security system and burst through the gates. It's abandoned, and clearly not not the right house. Enrique (Carlo Lasso), the Cali man assigned to follow the DEA, reassures Jorge that they’re at a nice house in Palmira, but it’s not Gilberto’s house.
Peña plays dumb and tells Calderon that they can leave. By now, Peña knows Martinez and his men have arrived to Gilberto’s house, and the other half of the plan is being carried out.
Martinez and his men arrive, and Gilberto’s wives answer the door. They’re in a tizzy, clearly not expecting to see army men rounding up security guards and searching for their husband.
After leaving the abandoned mansion, Peña tells Calderon he just needs to stop by a friend’s before heading back. He gives Calderon the directions to Gilberto’s house. Calderon starts freaking out, but Peña and the DEA have him in a bind. An army person watches him with a gun while the rest of them go inside.
Inside, everyone’s searching for Gilberto’s crawlspace. Feistl is knocking on the panels in his shoe display; another person is kicking down the closet. Peña does some Sherlock Holmes-y mind tricks and realizes that the stairs to the pool are above a crawlspace. He lifts up the stairs and finds Gilberto crouched in a hardwood crawlspace.
Together, the DEA and the Colombian National Guard have arrested Gilberto Rodriguez. But they’re not off the hook yet. Calderon managed to hotwire a car and use a payphone to mobilize the police force to chase after the chicken slaughterhouse truck. They end up cornering the truck driven by Feistl. WHen the policemen open up the back of the truck, there’s nothing there. Yep: They used a decoy.
The other truck, which contains Gilberto, arrives to the airport. They encounter a roadblock: a group of Colombian police stand with their guns out. Like the boss that he is, Martinez limps over to the boys and tells them this is a self-defining moment, and they should the right choice. The once-defiant stand down. Gilberto, Peña, and Martinez board the plane for Bogotá.
Unsurprisingly, Gilberto's capture causes a splash, and not necessarily a good one. Some people who have worked tirelessly for a deal are devastated with Gilberto’s capture, thinking this is the first shot in another drug war. Ambassador Crosby (Brett Cullen) asks if he knows just how much work Peña has torched by arresting the Godfather of the Cali Cartel.
Those like Peña who doubted a surrender would ever really happen believed this incident proved the government’s strength. Colombia’s new president, Ernesto Samper (Tristán Ulloa, who looks a lot like Colin Firth), decides Gilberto will be treated with due process like every other Colombian citizen. Looks like he won’t be getting out of jail in time for his meeting the next day at 8:30am, as he’d hoped.
Nicolas (Sebastian Eslava), Gilberto’s son, is able to visit Gilberto in jail because he’s a lawyer. Nicolas says there’s hope for Gilberto’s case, because the search warrants were old and perhaps inadmissible.
With Gilberto in prison, the other Cali Cartel godfathers and members have to do some soul-searching. Miguel looks for someone to blame. Was it Cordova, Gilberto’s personal head of security? And how about Jorge?
Where was Jorge during all this? We’ll tell you. Earlier that day, after Enrique had reassured him that the DEA was not on the right track, Jorge got a call from Miguel. Miguel was sending Jorge on a mission to the North Valley to take Maria’s son from where he was staying with his grandmother, a member of the North Valley cartel. While there, Jorge tried reasoning with the rifle-wielding grandmother, who didn’t want to give up her Pablito to a daughter-in-law she detested. Navegante (Juan Sebastian Calero), a Cali man far more brutal than Jorge, and with a weird haircut, ends up putting a gun to the grandmother’s back, putting the kid in the car, and driving back to Cali.
At this point, Miguel and Maria are having a hot-and-heavy relationship of mutual benefits. Maria gets her kid; Miguel gets the woman he has the hots for. Miguel is always shooing Maria out of rooms where business deals are happening. Don’t you just love how much screen time women get in this show?
With Gilberto’s arrest, Miguel now has to call the other two godfathers. He tells Chepe in New York that the business must be kept in good shape. He tells Pacho in Juarez that every godfather is looking out for himself now. That’s fitting, considering that’s what Pacho has been doing this whole episode.
Amado took Pacho to Juarez to show him that now is precisely the time Pacho should be in the drug business. Now isn’t the time for surrender. NAFTA opened up the borders with America in such a significant way. Since the U.S. only has the manpower to check 10% of trucks, that means so much cocaine goes through. He wants Pacho to join him in six months.
The godfathers are on their own, and so is Peña.
At the end of the episode, Martinez goes into Peña’s office looking like a sad puppy. Apparently, Martinez’s name was on the list of cops who have corroborated with the Cali Cartel (of course, he’d never done such a thing).
"You did everything right, Peña. But now you’re all alone," Martinez says.
After that, Peña tells his assistant he wants the Jurado tapes — all of them. Looks like Franklin Jurado, the money launderer who’s currently in Panama, is Peña’s next target.
The episode ends with Gilberto sitting morosely in a dingy prison. I can’t help but feel bad for him. Unlike Pablo Escobar, we never see Gilberto committing violence; rather, he’s the level-headed leader who’s looking forward to a life outside of a life of crime.
Episode 5 — "MRO"
As a Colombian official correctly noted during a meeting with Peña, Gilberto Rodriguez was a stabilizing influence on the Cali Cartel. With him gone, the cartel is going to go haywire. And boy — does it ever.
Gilberto, being Gilberto, is still trying to micromanage from prison. Recognizing that maintaining the business operations is their utmost priority, Gilberto tells Miguel to placate Orlando Henao (Julian Arango) of the North Valley cartel, which is riled from Gilberto’s arrest. The meeting doesn’t go as planned. Miguel is jittery, and Henao catches a glimpse Maria and Pablito, who was taken from the North Valley to live with Miguel. When the North Valley people leave, Henao smiles smugly: He knows Miguel is scared.
Gilberto is also visited by his son and lawyer. The lawyer has been unable to schedule a meeting with Sebastian Medina, the president’s aide, to talk about negotiation deals. Despite Gilberto forbidding him from doing so, Nicolas manages to meet with Medina, and brokers new terms to the surrender agreement.
Here’s the plan: the four godfathers have to do three years in jail each, and surrender all illegal assets. Everything else — the cash, the houses — are theirs. Gilberto refuses to consider the deal. Nicolas also brings up another problem: Pallomari. He knows too much. Who knows what implications that might hold if the DEA gets their hands on him.
Meanwhile, Miguel is desperate to find out how Gilberto was caught. He is convinced there’s a rat in the system, leaking information to the DEA. As the top dogs in the security department, the responsibility falls to Carlos Cordova and Jorge Salcedo to figure out what happened.
Through some backtracking at the airport, Cordova figures out that the DEA agents never boarded the plane to Bogotá. Then, Jorge realizes Pallomari had driven to Gilberto’s house that night. So, he concludes the DEA agents got lucky by following Pallomari (which is correct). But, Cordova declares that he and Jorge must produce a name, a concrete source of blame.
Cordova chooses to report back to Miguel, and say the mess was Calderon’s fault. Jorge experiences a bout of guilt.
Feeling the need to be near his family as the shit starts hitting the fan, so to speak, he meets his wife and daughter outside the girls’ school. While there, Jorge gets a surprise call from David, Miguel’s son, calling an unscheduled meeting. On the way, Jorge calls David twice. No answer.
Jorge arrives to the eerily empty house. Something isn’t right. It turns out that David — who is, as I’ve said, a total Joffrey — organized a little "revenge" party. Henchmen hold a bloodied Calderon up. First, they suffocate him, then drown him.
The execution is brutal, and it’s not over. David leads a shaken Jorge to the back porch, where we realize why Cordova hadn’t been answering the phone. Cordova is on his knees, bloodied. David explains that while Jorge went to visit his girls, Cordova was caught on the way to the airport with his wife. As Cordova tells Jorge to save Sofia, he’s shot in the head. Jorge runs to find Sofia. She’s been murdered, as well.
Miguel ushers in a new regime: The one of strength over weakness. He names Jorge the new head of security, as if Jorge had any a choice.
Jorge goes home to his wife and family, and then makes a very interesting phone call to the DEA, hanging out in their new apartment. Applying a device to make sure he can’t be wiretapped, Jorge says that the cartel knows where they are. Does this mean that Jorge is working for the DEA? Yes. Yes it does.
The clock is ticking for Peña to take action about the Gilberto problem. He meets with the new president, Ernesto Samper. While Samper shared the same reservations about the deal as Peña — murderers negotiating their own terms — Rodriguez’ arrest has complicated matters significantly. If Rodriguez is going to stay in prison, Samper says, Peña has to find a convincing person to testify against him.
Peña knows exactly who to go after: Franklin Jurado. Using wiretaps, which freak out Peña’s nerdy assistant so much, Peña is able to tell that Christina Jurado is totally panicked.
Peña has surveillance on Christina, so the day that she finally leaves her apartment, he’s there at the bar waiting to chat her up. After some seriously skillful flirting (is that part of the DEA job requirements?) Peña manages to scare Christina successfully enough to contact her husband. She hopes that by cooperating with the DEA, they’ll be able to return to America.
During the call, Franklin says something in a foreign language. After a session with a dictionary, Peña figures out that Franklin is in Curaçao (figuring things out took longer without Google). At the end of the episode, he’s seen boarding a plane to Curaçao, land of private island resorts and banks.
Finally, back in Mexico, Pacho makes a choice between Amado and the Cali Cartel. During a conversation with his brother, Pacho admits how very tempting he finds Amado’s offer. But while talking to Amado, he explains his loyalties to the Cali Cartel. The last thing Pacho’s father ever said to him was that he wasn’t a man, and never would be. For a while, he believed his father was correct. Then, he joined the cartel. When GIlberto and Miguel found out Pacho was gay, they didn’t forsake him — they made him a partner. They’re his family now. He’s decided to remain loyal.
Episode 6 — "Best Laid Plans"
An alternative title to this episode could be, "Things Fall Apart." And when things fall apart for the Cali Cartel, they do so in a spectacularly violent manner.
Up until this point, the four godfathers hadn’t had to worry about the business aspect of the cartel. Chepe was in New York, and cocaine production was going swimmingly. Which is good, considering Gilberto was arrested and tension was brewing between the cartel and the government regarding the surrender. All is fine until an explosion occurs at one of their plants in Queens that Chepe had stolen from the Dominican cartel. While everyone initially thinks the explosion was linked to the Dominican cartel, a Cuban journalist, Manuel de Dios (Gabriel Sloyer), traces the explosion back to a Victor Crespo, aka Chepe.
Chepe and his wife have to leave for New York, but not before Chepe meets the journalist in a diner, and tries to buy him out. Not realizing he’s seated across from a gravelly-voiced demon, Manuel talks back to Chepe and refuses to give in to his bribery. Chepe calmly asks for directions for the airport. Before Manuel can answer, Chepe shoots him from underneath the table. Sneaking guns into public places is clearly his M.O.
With Chepe back in Colombia with his wife, we have no idea how business will continue. Though that’s the least of the Cali Cartel’s problems at the moment.
After Cordova was executed last episode, Jorge Salcedo, the now Chief of Security, realized that working for the Americans was the only way he and his wife and daughters can survive this mess. At the start of this episode, he meets Van Ness and Feistl in a cane field, and they broker the terms of their arrangement.
Jorge hopes he can obtain safe passage to the States just by providing testimony, but to that, the Americans say no go. Van Ness and Feistl have their eyes on capturing Miguel Rodriguez.
Since Jorge designed the security system, he knows their goal will be nearly impossible. He says he needs to think about it.
Jorge realizes there’s an opportunity to catch Miguel later that very day. David, the newly promoted head of Miguel’s security team, calls Jorge asking for advice in protecting Miguel. David is planning to bring Miguel out of hiding so he can attend the opening night for the Cali Festival, a two week-long celebration of concerts and salsa dancers. In prior years, Gilberto had been the life of the party — now, as the new godfather-in-chief, it’s Miguel’s turn.
Looking around at the very open party hall, Jorge realizes Miguel will be highly exposed and vulnerable. Tonight is the perfect opportunity for the DEA to attack. Jorge is relieved: After tonight, he’ll be able to escape Colombia.
On his way from the party hall with Enrique, Jorge abruptly pulls over and calls the Americans to give them the details for this evening. He’s on a time limit, and can’t answer all of their questions. While Feistl believes Jorge, Van Ness is less convinced.
Meanwhile, we cut to the North Valley cartel, who are making plans now that the Cali Cartel members are spiraling. They know about the accident in New York.
Henao calls Amado in Mexico, and even though Amado finds Henao to be "no fucking fun," he agrees to make the North Valley cartel his new cocaine supplier. Sorry, Pacho, you missed your shot. As of next week, North Valley will be Amado’s only client. Every term of the surrender is being thrown out the window.
After that phone call, the North Valley cartel decides to "deal with" the remaining Cali Cartel problem. Time to gear up.
It’s 10:00 pm, and Miguel has arrived to the balcony of the dance hall with David, Maria, and their peeps. Looking down at the crowd, Jorge spots the DEA agents mingling, and notices some hitmen blended in near the DJ. Jorge assumes that the DEA brought the hitmen along as part of their raid.
Jorge links up with Feistl in the bathroom, and says that he noticed his men by the DJ booth. Feistl’s confused, and says they didn’t plan a raid tonight. It’s then that Jorge realizes another group is planning an attack. He runs up to the balcony right before an insane shootout begins that results in 13 deaths.
At the same time, we witness what Pacho and his (absurdly handsome) brother, Alvaro (Edgar Prada), are experiencing in Mexico. North Valley men have busted into their swanky home, killing Pacho’s boy toy and gravely wounding Alvaro. Pacho gets out unscathed.
The two shoot-outs are interwoven so that the violence reaches a deafening roar. It’s honestly sickening.
Despite the North Valley’s efforts, all of the important Cali Cartel members survive. Miguel is overwhelmed with gratitude for Jorge — he says, without a hint of irony, "It looked like you knew something was coming."
With that, Miguel replaces David with Jorge as his personal head of security. Jorge expresses how important it is that he know Miguel’s location at all hours. How convenient!
After the shootout, Jorge visits the DEA agents in their home, and insists they trust each other from now on. He explains that his boss had been killed, and the same will happen to him unless they work together. Jorge hands them a pre-written note with Miguel’s location.
So the DEA found a gold mine of useful information with Jorge. Great. But if Peña can’t capture Franklin Jurado from Curaçao, then there’s no testimony against Gilberto, and then Gilberto can’t stay in jail.
Peña arrives to Curaçao and works with police to successfully capture Jurado. Sidenote: their chase through the narrow, brightly colored streets of the city read like a travel ad for Curaçao, and I’m just about ready to buy a ticket. On an icy plane trip back to Colombia, Jurado agrees to testify, so long as he speaks to his wife, Christina, first.
Peña has been in touch with Christina. She’s doing tons of coke, as usual, but she’s fine. She’s in Bogotá, on her way to the embassy — or so Peña thinks.
She hitches a ride to the embassy with her hairdresser and coke dealer. On the way, they’re stopped by Navegante, who shoots the hairdresser and drags Christina into his car.
When Peña arrives to the office where Jurado is being held, he’s met by the cartel’s American lawyer, Alan Starkman (Wayne Knight AKA Seinfeld’s Newman), whom we had seen earlier. Jurado will no longer give testimony because his wife supposedly "met up" with Jurado’s employers, when, of course, she’d been taken against her will.
At the end of the episode, the three godfathers have reunited. From prison, Gilberto urges Miguel not to start a war, especially when the surrender is at stake. But Gilberto’s in prison, and doesn’t know how dire things have become. Miguel declares war on the North Valley cartel.
One interesting observation: This is the episode of (rightfully) angry wives. Pallomari has been moved to a safe house with his family. He’s a problem, but he’s too valuable to kill. Upon moving, Pallomari’s wife, Patricia (Lina Castrillón), immediately begins chain-smoking. She’s pissed to be stuck inside that hole. Finally, Jorge confesses to his wife, Paola, he’s working for the Americans. She’s furious, and thinks he’s putting them at risk. Then, Jurado’s wife, Christina, clearly never wanted to end up captured by a cartel when she married him.
Episode 7 — "Sin Salida"
We’ve seen Pablo Escobar get caught. We’ve seen Gilberto Rodriguez get caught. Now, thought Agents Feistl, Van Ness, and Peña, it’s Miguel Rodriguez’ turn. But will their scheme go according to plan? And will Jorge and his perfect, forever-matching daughters be safe?
Hold tight, because the episodes just keep becoming more tense.
So, as declared last episode, the Cali Cartel is officially at war with the North Valley cartel. The North Valley cartel was one of many smaller cartels that operated under the umbrella of Cali. In exchange for giving up a cut of the profits, North Valley got to use Cali’s distribution network and political might. Unlike Cali, North Valley was more than happy to use brutal violence to subdue people — they’re shown beheading a line of men with a chainsaw. Yet another depiction of egregious violence on this show!
North Valley was gearing up to take Cali’s place as the Number One Cartel, as we’ve already seen by their deal with Amado in Juarez. The North Valley cartel had the advantage of controlling port of Buenaventura, where most of the world’s cocaine shipped.
To get his business back on track, Miguel Rodriguez wants that port. And he wants to take the North Valley cartel down.
As the Cali Cartel ramps up showy displays of violence, a la the late Escobar, the DEA gears up for another attempt to nab Miguel Rodriguez. Their contact, Jorge, has told them where he is, and how to get him. Jorge quickly shoots down Feistl and Van Ness’s plans to enter the apartment, knowing the depth of Miguel’s security system.
Jorge proposes a plan. All of the DEA trucks will come through one entrance, which Jorge himself will be manning. A helicopter will land on the apartment building where Miguel lives. They’ll raid the apartment.
The stakes are high. Jorge knows that if this is botched, the Cartel will eventually find out who gave up the information. Similarly, Botero (Luis Mesa), the Minister of Defense in Colombia, also must be assured that the mission will be absolutely successful before he signs off.
In order to pull off the mission, the DEA need men. They can’t go to any old police force for help, since most of the police have been bought out by Cali. There’s only one Good Egg left: General Jose Serrano (Gaston Velandia), a god-fearing, morally upright policeman who trains his troops to root out evil and corruption like pigs find truffles.
Since Peña is proposing to wipe out Miguel Rodriguez, a person whom Serrano abhors, he agrees to join the endeavor.
The only issue? Ever since Gilberto was arrested, the process of filing a warrant has become more complicated. This is all bureaucratic jibjab, but to summarize: Serrano has to file the warrant now with the address. Following the filing of the warrant, the district will be alerted, and the corrupt will know that the DEA is coming for Miguel. Miguel will be sure to flee.
Peña decides they can fudge the warrant process. The evening of the raid, they’ll bring along a representative who can sign the warrant on the spot.
The day before the raid, Jorge’s wife decides to leave with the children. He tells her about the raid, and she knows that if it fails, they’re all goners. Ooof. I can’t watch this.
It’s go time. Unfortunately, Jorge isn’t where he’s supposed to be. Earlier, Jorge was intending to let Enrique off his watch duty early, so Jorge could let the DEA and army through. Instead, Jorge gets a call from Miguel. Miguel is feeling particularly paranoid, and inquires whether Jorge can tap GIlberto’s phone line in prison. As Miguel explains his weird world-view, Jorge’s bugging — he has to get out of the apartment, and stat. He makes the mistake of telling Miguel he’s on guard duty. Miguel says that’s a younger man’s job, and then makes Jorge stay for dinner.
Welp. He’s just stuck inside the apartment now. Jorge surreptitiously turns off the room’s two Walkie Talkies, so Enrique’s cries indicating a fleet of cars were driving by could not be heard.
The policemen arrive. In a flurry, Miguel runs off to his secret hiding place.
From the start, there are some issues with the warrant. Apparently the man had a warrant for a financial company, not for a residence, bla bla bla. Peña strongarms him into ignoring the rules, and they get inside the house.
It’s a mess. No one can find Miguel. Jorge is freaking out. The Colombian police arrive and try to stop the army and the DEA from every angle.
The raid is being broadcast everywhere. At first, the public watching the raid don’t know who the raid is for. But David and the Cali men certainly do — and they don’t know why Jorge isn’t around to deal with it. Eventually David interrupts the attorney general’s game of tennis, and makes him head over to the apartment.
The attorney general arrives just as the DEA agents have figured out where Miguel is hiding. His bathroom is a bit smaller than that of the apartment downstairs. That’s because there’s a crawlspace where Miguel is currently hiding, breathing through an oxygen mask. He’s trapped within a few inches of space between two brick walls. Then, Van Ness begins drilling. The drill almost plows into Miguel’s body. It grazes his thigh the second time, and looks truly painful.
Just when Van Ness is about to start hammering, the attorney general puts a half to the proceedings, citing illegality. The DEA is breaking the law, apparently. Peña seems stricken. The jig is up. The DEA agents give up their passports, and are being sent to Bogotá.
This means Jorge is completely abandoned in Cali. He calls Feistl, who’s standing before a plane about to take off, far from his favorite obscure payphone. Feistl does not feel bad enough for what he’s done. Jorge’s wife, Paola, won’t speak to him. For the very first time seen on the show, Jorge assembles his gun.
The only good news for the DEA? They confiscated that very important accounting book that Pallomari had in the first episode. Now the DEA knows all of Cali’s finances.
At the episode’s end, Pacho and Chepe casually look on as their men storm the port of Buenaventura. They’re declaring war, even if Gilberto continues to urge from prison for the men to surrender, and put an end to the fighting. As Miguel says, surrender was a dream that was only Gilberto’s.
Episode 8 — "Convivir"
This show is seriously going to mess me up. I’ve bitten off all my fingernails.
Remember the ledger that was stolen from Miguel’s house? That big book contains all of the Cali Cartel’s transactions, secrets, and finances. It is incredibly important, and the DEA has it. The only issue is that it’s written in a code that only Franklin Jurado and Guillermo Pallomari, the Cali Cartel’s sole finance people, can understand. It’s a race, now, for the Cali Cartel to wipe those people out, and for Peña to get Jurado, who’s in custody, to testify.
Even though the raid to capture Miguel went badly, the Minister of Defense, Botero, has allowed Peña to continue investigating the crime because they have the ledger and Jurado. We know that if this doesn’t work, it’s "ta ta" for the DEA.
Now, back to the most nerve-wracking plotline of the episode. The DEA left Jorge hanging, and now Miguel and David want someone to pay for the raid. Logically, their search comes down to two main suspects: Enrique and Jorge. Enrique had been the person who let the army trucks go past the checkpoint, supposedly (in actuality, Jorge just silenced the walkie talkies). Jorge, on the other hand, has been too silent. It’s suspicious. To make matters worse, a few episodes ago, Jorge made a huge slip. He told Enrique not to tell Miguel about the DEA’s return to town. Instead, he had Enrique follow the DEA himself.
The axe is going to fall on either Enrique or Jorge. In order to survive, Jorge will have to compromise some of the upright moral behavior he’d adhered to so valiantly up until now. For now, he tries to remain on the side of good. After Miguel instructs him to collect Enrique and bring him, Jorge chooses to bring Enrique to a safe house, and tell him not to answer the phone.
Returning to Miguel’s, Jorge tries to make a case for his own innocence. It doesn’t go over well. Miguel sends him, along with David and two henchmen, to go to Enrique’s apartment. Jorge leaves a recorder in the front seat running while he goes in to "check," despite knowing Enrique isn’t in the apartment. After he drops David off, Jorge listens to what David said. It’s gruesome. David knows Jorge is guilty, and relishes the idea of killing him and his wife, and leaving the girls orphans. Gaaahh!
Then, Jorge gets sent on another tense mission. He and Navegante are instructed to go to Pallomari’s safehouse and, well, you know. Take care of things. Earlier, though, we’d seen Pallomari freaking out because of the raid. He knew something was coming. When Jorge and Navegante arrive, Pallomari and family are gone. Phew.
In between his terrible errands, Jorge drives his car to Paola’s parents, where he spies on his family. The Americans keep trying to reach Jorge on his special pager; Jorge keeps ignoring them.
Since Jorge can’t catch a break, he then receives a phone call saying Enrique’s been caught. Oh, no. This won’t be good. Jorge arrives to a dank, dimly lit industrial warehouse. Enrique is bound and hanging from the ceiling, his face bloodied and beat up. With Miguel and David demanding an answer, these two friends — equals! — turn on each other in a vicious way. Enrique tells them that Jorge knew about the DEA. Jorge calls Enrique a liar. Miguel looks like a toddler who’s been spun around too many times. Miguel doesn’t know what to believe.
And then, the fateful buzz of the pager rings out in the empty room. Somehow, Jorge snuck the pager into Enrique’s pants pocket. Jorge then identifies this as an American technology. In Miguel’s mind, this is enough evidence. Enrique must’ve been the spy.
David puts a bag on Enrique’s head and suffocates him. It’s terrible to watch Jorge betray his friend, also terrible to know that Jorge had to do it. After this incident, Jorge goes to see Paola, even though she had cut off all conversation with him. He breaks down and sobs.
But the episode has more than just betrayal and murder. There’s another raid!
The Cali Cartel had carted Christina off to the jungle, where FARC, the Colombian Marxist-Leninist guerrillas, had their outposts. To fund their efforts in the civil war, FARC would would kidnap wealthy people, and their extort their family for money. The Cali Cartel uses FARC's "services" as a holding pen for people who are important — like Christina. Well, Peña needs Christina, and stat, if Jurado is going to testify.
As we know from his time with Los Pepes, Peña isn’t above doing business with the cartels when it serves his purpose. He returns to Medellin, the site of Seasons 1 and 2. Without Escobar, Medellin is now the safest city in Colombia. Medellin’s new "godfather" is a man named Diego "Don Berna" Bejerano (Mauricio Cujar), who has a large beard and a generous sense of humor.
Don Berna essentially volunteers to help Peña spearhead a mission to rescue Christina from FARC. Don Berna has a relationship with the Castaño brothers, who lead Colombia’s largest paramilitary group (that also happens to be funded by the U.S. to hunt communists). The Castaños they know the region expertly. In exchange for his help, the godfather wants a "warning" from Peña when the day comes that the DEA decides to go after Don Berna.
The raid is successful, but very bloody. At last, Christina is in DEA hands. She’s bitter about how violent the raid was, and knows she’s just being used as a tool.
Meanwhile, quite shockingly, Franklin is seen being stabbed in the jugular by a stranger in jail. The Cali Cartel has connections in prison, of course, and Nicolas (Gilberto’s son) was given the task of dealing with Jurado. Pena finds out. Not only is the news devastating for Christina, but it also means Gilberto is getting out of jail.
Finally, last but not least. Jorge goes to a payphone. He calls the Americans. He knows where Miguel is staying, and this is their last shot to arrest him.
They're going to catch Miguel Rodriguez.
Episode 9 — " Todos Los Hombres Del Presidente "
Season 3 of Narcos reaches a big crescendo in this episode. Now comes the DEA’s final chance to nab the second-in-command Godfather of the Cali Cartel, Miguel Rodriguez.
At the moment, Miguel is connecting with his inner druglord and achieving new heights of terrible power. He just sent Henao from the North Valley cartel a refrigerator full of his men’s body parts (I almost vomited when I saw it. This season is ridiculously violent). With that, the war with the North Valley is effectively over. Who can compete with a refrigerator full of a surveillance team? Along with the "present" was a note that said, "Call me."
Miguel is also trying to replace Gilberto as the Godfather-in-Chief. He wiretapped Gilberto’s phone in prison, and heard Gilberto speaking with Pacho and Chepe about surrender. Miguel has a more convincing proposal for the other two Cali leaders. Chepe wants to go back to New York, so Miguel hands him a new passport and social security number. Pacho wants to know where the Salazar brothers are hiding to get revenge for his little brother Alvaro, who was so injured in an earlier episode his penis will never work again, so he gives Pacho the location (that’s why he wanted Henao to call him).
Miguel reminds Pacho and Chepe that surrender was Gilberto’s dream, not theirs. They’re going to keep running the Cali Cartel until it achieves even greater heights. Right? Pacho and Chepe are certainly on board. They like this new Miguel.
Back to the DEA. The DEA has essentially botched their efforts to upend the surrender deal and take out the godfathers themselves. Sure, Gilberto is in prison. But their campaign to arrest Miguel last episode failed miserably, and Franklin Jurado, the person they needed to keep Gilberto in jail, was assassinated. Ambassador Crosby informs Peña that the jig is up: The DEA will be off the job by 5 p.m. that day, and all further efforts to arrest Rodriguez will be handled by the Colombians.
That’s a problem, since Botero, the Colombian Minister of Defense, is leaking everything he knows to the Cali Cartel. If the DEA hands off the mission to the Colombians, there will be no more progress.
Peña has a choice. He can rescue Jorge Salcedo now, and forget about getting Miguel — that’s what Crosby wants him to do. But that’s not Peña’s style. Peña is determined to both arrest Miguel, and get Salcedo out. And he has until 5 p.m. to do so.
First stop: Peña tells a little white lie to motivate Feistl and Van Ness into acting quickly. He lies and says Crosby wouldn’t agree to rescuing Salcedo. Their only bet is to get Miguel and then rescue Salcedo. Plus, from here on out, any move the DEA makes, the leak (Botero) will find out. They have to act quickly.
Second stop: Peña goes back to Serrano, the general who’s as obsessed with sniffing out cartel godfathers as Peña is. After the last botched mission, Serrano’s superior essentially told him he’s on thin ice. But how can Serrano say no to another chance to take Miguel down? He agrees, somewhat reluctantly.
Third stop: Design a plan. In their classic meeting spot among the cane fields, Jorge, Feistl, Van Ness, and Peña draw out a plan.
Before heading to Miguel’s for his part of the scheme, Jorge returns to his wife and daughters. He must prepare his wife for the possibility of someone from the cartel coming for them. He gives her a gun, and a pep talk: "You can do this," he says, and honestly, if Jorge told me that, I’d believe him.
Fourth stop: Get it all started. Peña goes to Botero and tells him that the DEA found out where Miguel is hiding (Hacienda Buenos Aires), and they’re planning to arrest him this afternoon. Botero is shocked. Immediately, he calls and warns the Cartel — which is exactly the DEA was hoping for.
Miguel receives a call from Botero saying that the DEA has found out his location, and is after him. Jorge calmly suggest another safe house he can hide in — they just have to leave right now. Ding ding ding! The DEA is waiting outside, and is planning on getting Miguel the second he exits Hacienda Buenos Aires.
Unfortunately, Miguel packs slowly and meticulously. It seems like he’s contemplating the meaning of life and mentally composing a philosophical treatise on the importance of cocaine in a person’s diet more than running from the DEA.
As Miguel transfers piles of neatly folded shirts, his son, David, makes a discovery. David still suspects Jorge of being the rat, despite Enrique’s possession of the American beeper. David goes to Feistl and Van Ness’s old headquarters. Across the street is a hotel that has camera footage. He forces the security guard to rewind until he successfully finds Jorge going to the headquarters (Jorge had visited after the shootout at the party and told the DEA agents they had to trust him).
David calls Miguel and tells him what happened. Finally, Miguel believes his son. Now things are going to get nasty. Miguel calls Jorge, who had been waiting downstairs, back inside. The DEA agents spying on the scene knew something is wrong. Feistl decides to send a contingent inside the apartment, even though that wasn’t part of the plan.
As Miguel starts going after Jorge, David heads for Jorge’s house, where his wife and daughters are.
Luckily, Van Ness of the DEA had already arrived at Jorge’s house to transfer them to safety. While he’s there, David raps on the door. They have a shootout. Van Ness of the Hipster T-Shirts wins. David and his henchmen run away in terror once Van Ness breaks out the machine gun.
Jorge has a terrible time. After being questioned and brutalized, Miguel’s henchman suffocates him with a plastic bag, the same way Calderon and Enrique were killed.
But with the DEA and soldiers rushing up the stairs, Miguel has to get out. They leave Jorge and head for a car. They’re not free for long. A few minutes later, Miguel’s car is rammed into by a police truck, and Miguel is arrested.
Miguel finds himself in the same jail cell as Gilberto. Surprisingly, Gilberto is thrilled that Miguel’s been caught. Now, Pacho and Chepe know they have to turn themselves in now, too. They’ll all be forced to negotiate terms of surrender. Gilberto’s plan will work!
What about the two other godfathers? Pacho tells his brother he’s going to turn himself in.
Then, we see two policemen come while Chepe is eating a meal in an outdoor restaurant. Chepe, my favorite of the godfathers, calmly informs them that he’ll be finishing his meal first, and that they can order whatever they want. The policemen, at first, aren’t having any of Chepe’s games, and want to arrest him. Then Chepe tells them to look around at the calm outdoor restaurant. Who called the police, if not Chepe himself? He just wanted a ride to his own surrender. The policemen let him finish the meal.
But the DEA shouldn’t celebrate quite yet. Peña and the journalist, whom I call River Song because she looks like the Doctor Who character, figured out that President Samper accepted six million dollars in campaign funds from the Cali Cartel.
The worst part? Both the Ambassador and the head of the CIA have known about this for a while. The government is entirely bought out. As a result, there’s no way the cartel godfathers are staying in prison for long.
At a time when fashion is in a state of flux, we're looking to the industry's next generation of influencers as a guiding light. This New York Fashion Week, Refinery29's Future of American Fashion series is highlighting the designers, brands, and retailers we're betting on big. The future starts here.
"It’s random,” he jokes on a summer afternoon from his Garment District studio. “My publicist is always like ‘Who do you want to take?’ and I’m like, ‘Grace Jones!’ I love that we dress all these very different types of people, and my point is, isn’t it great to make them all look amazing in the same brand?”
Fashion For All
The 31-year-old isn’t promoting inclusivity or diversity, seemingly current and “on-trend” fashion buzz words, for notoriety — though he certainly is getting attention. “Our thing has been that it’s more exciting to have someone that I’m a fan of wear the clothes, like Kathy Bates — I’ve been obsessed with her my whole life,” he says of dressing the legendary actress for last fall’s Emmy Awards in a white cinched wrap top and flowing black skirt. “I wanted to dress her for the Emmys, and I was just like, ‘I want to dress you, I love you,’ and she was like ‘Well, you know, Vogue’s not going to write about this.’ I said I didn’t care. For me, that’s not what’s selling our clothes.”
Siriano’s catchall approach to style started shortly after his epic turn on Project Runway’s fourth season, when he officially launched his business nearly 10 years ago. During his first season, he noticed his mother, Joye, and sister, Shannon, as well as many of his colleagues weren’t able to wear his designs. “My mom and my team couldn’t buy anything in the collection and that would bother me,” he remembers. “I was like, ‘Oh that doesn’t make sense, why is my mom not wanting to wear my clothes all the time?’ To her, she was seeing skinny girls wearing the clothes and that’s what she thought fashion was. I didn’t like that.”
Fittingly, he has practically made plus part of his DNA, when other designers are ignoring that 67% of women are a size 14 or larger, shoving the door wide open for more size-friendly designers to get into the luxury game. Siriano mentions his deal with online retailer Moda Operandi, who up until recently only sold up to a size 12. “People tell you not to brag, but I will brag about one thing,” he says. “Moda Operandi, it’s Vogue girls, they’re tough, but we got them to go up to a size 26 now because of me. We sold out of almost all plus!” A similar plan of attack is on deck for London-based e-commerce site Farfetch, which at the moment only goes up to a size 14.
As for his own retail plans, Siriano explains that not one, but two locations in Manhattan are in the works and are planned to open by the end of the year (his Nolita outpost recently closed). “Hopefully, by holiday we’ll be up and running” he smiles. “We have such a big private client based-driven business and we get requests every day, all day for clothes that aren’t available in retailers because [buyers] don’t buy them. I’m a little bit over certain retailers being like ‘This isn’t going to work’ or ‘We can’t have this,’ because unfortunately, it’s not true anymore. I want to go directly to my woman.”
The Outsider
Catering to all women goes beyond size or age or race for Siriano, who has blown-out his business to include not only ready-to-wear and bridal, but a bevy of other categories: shoes and bags for Payless, a plus collection with Lane Bryant, bedding with Bed Bath & Beyond, and, naturally, a fragrance. “It’s mind blowing, I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s cool, who knew that I could sell 100,000 units of a sheet!’ But most people would be like, ‘That’s so weird,’ because it is. It’s strange,” he says. “It is different and people for a long time said different is not right.”“Different” has certainly proven otherwise in this case, and Siriano credits it to not immediately being welcome into fashion’s elite inner circle a decade ago. “For the first six years, nobody gave a shit. I didn’t have the industry on my side in the beginning,” he says. “When I started, so did a lot of other people. Jason [Wu], Prabal [Gurung], early on I thought I have to be like them and doing what they’re doing and getting what they’re getting. You compare. I used to take it so personal, but it’s not always about this fabulous It person in fashion that’s changing the game.” They're pointed words, especially as once-darling businesses flounder under pressure (think: Thakoon and Wes Gordon), and more and more celebrated young American designers, like Proenza Schouler, Joseph Altuzarra and Rodarte, are fleeing New York for Paris. “If people aren’t buying the clothes, no one cares,” he says. Plain and simple.
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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that social media isn’t real life. As much as we love it when celebrities ‘get real’ online about how long it takes to achieve a photo, how many stretch marks they really have or how unglamorous the minutiae of their life is, posts like that are merely drops in a FaceTuned ocean. Sure, we’re all digital super-sleuths (we spot and ridicule bad Photoshop before you can say ‘double tap’ and meme-ify false bragging in the blink of an eye) but somehow, knowing what you’re seeing is artificial doesn’t make it any less desirable.
And why would it? After all, the crux of social media is that it’s reciprocal. You have the same tools – or so you think – as that A-lister or influencer who looks #flawless in their most recent selfie. So you take a photo, you crop it, you edit it (as 44% of us do, according to Ofcom) and you upload it. But it’s not the same – after all, you don’t have a glam squad, or a pro retoucher, or a surgeon’s bill that runs into triple digits. But that doesn’t stop it being aspirational. For every big name posting rough and ready photos and bragging about their DGAF attitude, there are three other women claiming their suddenly plumped pout or fuller bust is the work of makeup or hormones. As my friend Giselle, 27, put it: "I just assume now that most of what I see on there isn't real, especially those body types that you just know aren't the products of so-called gym gains, puberty or genetics." Of course, retouching has existed for a long time, but the difference now is social media is interactive and gives you the agency and tools to fully customise your appearance – and with liking and sharing, we have the power to express approval or disapproval of someone’s looks. As academic Richard M. Perloff noted in a recent paper, on social media, users are the sources as well as the receivers; it's not a one-way street.
I asked Dr. Carmen Lefevre, a behavioural scientist at University College London, why we all compare ourselves to these artificial, moving goalposts. "It doesn’t really matter if we know a photo is fake or not – we all have an automatic response to things we see, so those kinds of photos still have a psychical impact. Cognitively, we know it’s not real, but it still ends up reinforcing an ideal or new standard," she confirmed. Which means if you’ve ever come away from a half-hour scroll through someone’s Instagram feeling lacking, you’re not alone. "The more time you spend surrounded by certain images, the more you normalise that kind of look. For example, if you see lots of celebrities with really long eyelash extensions, you’ll start to think that’s normal and see your own natural eyelashes as less attractive. It doesn’t make much difference to know that it’s retouching or a ‘tweakment’ or whatever – you still end up internalising those beauty standards," she explained.
In a 1983 study headed up by Professor Thomas Cash, researchers found that when participants looked at photos of attractive celebrities versus attractive peers, they reported more negative self-esteem when looking at peers. The researchers ascribed this to people believing that celebrities are less similar to themselves and therefore less of a comparison group. But now, in an age where you don’t have to have a blockbuster movie or hit record to command a following, where does that distinction lie? Eighty-two percent of the women Ofcom surveyed said they felt it was important to look their best in selfies and, on average, we take around six selfies before choosing one to upload. But only 16% of us feel we can confidently tell what’s real and what’s fake. My friend Tom, 24, who quit Instagram a year ago, said: "Even knowing how staged a lot of the content is, it’s near impossible to not be sucked in by the fantasy and compare it to your own image. It’s aspirational, but not in a positive or uplifting way. I knew the photos were Photoshopped, filtered and fillered, but unlike conventional print ads, you as another user have the same tools and platform at your fingertips. I’m not going to see myself on a billboard anytime soon, but I can upload another FaceTuned selfie." We all put our best foot forward online (and when potential employers and dates scope you out on Insta, why wouldn’t you?), but as long as the targets keep moving, we’ll never be satisfied. "The sinister thing," Tom added, "was that I didn’t care the photos were fake. I still wanted some of that."
Illustration: Mallory Heyer
It’s remiss to have this discussion without mentioning the Kardashians. With a combined following of 407 million, the family has launched any number of beauty trends (contouring, lip filler, full-but-arched brows, impossibly long lashes, strobing, nude lipstick…). "The Kardashians are an example of how the standard moves," noted Dr. Lefevre. "For example, a woman having an hourglass shape has been considered attractive for a long time, but they’ve taken it to the next level by having such small waists, large breasts and bottoms." As far back as the Victorian era, women laboured in corsets to have delicate waists, but when that ideal is pushed to the point of complete exaggeration – Kylie's curves are sharper than the hairpin bends of the Amalfi Coast – it becomes even more unattainable. Giselle told me: "It’s frustrating to see that in the space of five weeks someone suddenly has a new figure and we're told that it was just 'squats' or 'bloating from periods'. Then some of us, especially younger women, run to the gym and do 100 squats every day to look like these celebrities and realise, actually, that's not what they've been doing." Dr. Lefevre echoes this sentiment, having carried out research into orthorexia (disordered eating which focusses on consuming excessively healthy or ‘clean’ foods) and the relationship with Instagram: "A lot of the health bloggers we looked at were pretending all they ate was chia seeds and green juices, but of course that’s not the case for all of them."
And just like domestic labour and childcare, it’s a burden that falls overwhelmingly on women. Perloff noted in his study that girls as young as three were internalising beauty standards of thinness, while a 1997 study by Fredrickson and Roberts noted that women are more likely to have their social value inferred from their appearance. Beauty standards of tiny waist, huge arse, perky boobs, long hair, fluttery lashes, full lips and clear skin are hard enough to attain as it is – but when you're meant to look like you’ve got a Valencia filter slapped over your face at all times and have enough cash to drop on extensions, filler and Botox? Forget about it. No wonder so many brands are clamouring to launch ‘instantly blurring’ or ‘filtering’ foundations.
It’s trendy to make social media the scapegoat for all millennial ills. I don’t think Instagram is evil – I like taking selfies and usually I feel good about them. I also know that working in the industry makes me more critical of these photos (my boyfriend claims I’ve ‘ruined’ Instagram for him by deftly pointing our hair extensions, lip filler and false lashes as he scrolls). As Giselle noted, "Instagram’s birthed a beauty community who have a space to show their work, discuss products and have an impact on a brand's new product development by having a direct conversation about what they want," and most of the studies I looked at suggested social media has the power to subvert beauty ideals by giving a platform to women who mainstream media would typically ignore. So go ahead: scroll, double-tap, repost, take selfies, engage with something that’s as enmeshed in modern society as sending emails. Just know that your mind can play tricks on you, and that your subconscious might respond to things in a way your conscious brain might not. Look at the women around you and how beautiful they are in their own way, not confined to a square on a screen with controlled lighting. And take it from me – once you’ve seen a celebrity with millions of followers panic that her makeup artist can’t apply fresh contour in time for a selfie, and almost burst into tears when she can’t find good lighting, the whole thing feels less attractive anyway.
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As anyone who has worked in retail, restaurants, or any other service industry knows, there are times when you really wish you could tell off the customers. One cashier at a Panera Bread in Georgia just found out that it's not such a great idea to follow through with that impulse, especially not in writing.
"Add watermelon for this stupid bitch," now former North Druid Hills Panera Bread employee Toriana printed on the receipt for a salad.
"I was floored," she told the station. "Whatare your morals? What does Panera Bread stand for?"
When Harris complained, she said the manager offered to remake her salad, as if the salad itself were offensive.
"I am at a loss for words," she later shared on a Facebook post with a photo of the receipt. "Even better, when I called the corporate office they had the audacity to tell me that they need to look in to retraining opportunities for the cashier."
She tagged Panera on the post and later received a response from the company. "At Panera, we have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of behavior and the associate has been terminated as a result of this situation," the company said in a statement to WSB-TV.
"I feel like if I didn't use social media as my platform, I don't feel like I would have been heard," Harris told WSB-TV.
After her story aired on TV, Toriana spoke to the news channel, claiming that Harris had rattled her with degrading statements when making her order. "She said, 'Do you understand? Are you stupid?' " she said. "At that point, I felt like, OK I'm not stupid. I'm not incompetent. ... I'm new and I didn't know how to provide her the things she wanted, the way she wanted them."
Toriana did regret her actions, though. "That is not the way they trained me. I'm not that way," she said. "There is no excuse to write that on a ticket."
After months of anticipation, Rihanna’s new beauty line is finally here.
On Friday the Rihanna dropped the official campaign video, featuring a who’s who of the hottest models in her new makeup line.
“This is @FentyBeauty. Head to a @sephora, #sephorainJCP or @harveynichols store to get an exclusive behind-the scenes look!” read the caption. The diverse lineup features models Duckie Thot, Halima Aden, and Slick Woods, to name a few. The campaign has already been celebrated for showcasing such a range of faces. The collection will be available nationwide at Sephora on September 8.
If you want to know what to expect (and get your hands on the line in advance), exclusive previews of the collection are available for users of the Sephora App. And for those who need it now, she just shared a look at her highlight duo on Instagram this morning, giving the world a glipse at Moscow Mule and Ginger Beige.
Despite Rihanna remaining fairly quiet since announcing her foray into beauty last year, she’s dropped some previews on her Instagram account over the last few months. In July she posted a photo of herself clad in a pink two-piece number during a press stop on the red carpet for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. She simply captioned the photo “Face by @fentybeauty.” The image featured a flawless-looking Rih, awash in a translucent pink and coral makeup look.
The star also reportedly wore her own makeup with her now iconic Met Gala look. Then there was that time she revealed to fans that she was, in fact, wearing her own highlighter after someone asked about her makeup. The crowd actually went wild after hearing her reply, “It’s mine.”
Welcome toMoney Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking millennials how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last dollar.
This week, we're featuring moms and their spending during the back-to-school rush. Per Deloitte, in the United States alone,back-to-school season is the second biggest shopping season of the year, "touching 29 million households and accounting for $27 billion in sales." Since women are usually responsible for household purchases, wherever they are in the country or in the world, we wanted to see what it's like for women with children of a variety of ages, in a variety of locations.
Today, for the last day of back-to-school week: an analyst who makes $121,000 per year. She spends some of her money this week on fro-yo and a lunch box.
Occupation: Analyst Industry: Insurance Age: 42 Location: Salt Lake City, UT Salary: $121,000 + bonus of around 15% per year Paycheck (Biweekly): $2,796 Husband's Salar y: $67,000 Husband's Paycheck (Biweekly): $1,700 Rental Income: $1,500/month
Monthly Expenses Housing: $1,500, including taxes and insurance. We're paying extra to kill the mortgage early. Loan Payments: $417 car loan with 12 months left
All Other Monthly Expenses Cell phones: $30 for husband and kid, mine is paid through work Internet: $50 Power: $64 Gas: $80 House cleaner: $60 every other week Netflix: $11 Water, Sewer & Trash: $50 - $100 Water, Sewer & Trash For Rental: $50 - $100 Savings: $800 per paycheck plus 50% of bonus automatically deposited in savings, $268 automatically transferred from checking to savings per month. (Honestly, I don't know what's up with this transfer I just noticed it when I was working on this diary.)
6:45 a.m. — Wake up. I struggle out of bed and let the dogs outside. Snuggle the kid for longer than I should and then rush to get out the door. Realizing I have no clean washcloths, I put a load in the washer and hope the kid remembers to move it to the dryer before she leaves for summer camp. I help her pack a lunch and then pack myself a lunch. In the car, I eat a cheese stick and granola bar for breakfast. I make a vow to get moving faster tomorrow. (I vow this every day.)
8:30 a.m. — Coffee from the robot coffee machine before meetings. It isn't terrible and it is free — and convenient!
10:50 a.m. — Eat two hard boiled eggs and then run to the gym.
12 p.m. — Back at my desk. The gym is in the basement and is also free and convenient — two of my favorite things. I eat snap peas, mini-bell peppers, and a cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for lunch. Wish I had packed a single serve hummus to go with my stupid vegetables.
3:45 p.m. — Everything my coworkers let slide all week suddenly becomes an emergency. Multiple people start freaking out at me; so much for leaving early. I stress eat candy from my stash instead of heading out.
5:30 p.m. — Finally leave the office. I drive home and spend an hour with my kid watching videos of baby animals and people frosting cookies. I also make and consume a few drinks, rewash the load of laundry from this morning, and move it to the dryer.
7 p.m. — Remember that I have to register my car before the end of the month, and I go online to finish and pay. $172
7:30 p.m. — Walk to our fave neighborhood pizza joint, get two pizzas to share, and bring leftovers home. $24
8:30 p.m. — Come home, eat popcorn, and play games with the fam until bedtime.
Daily Total: $196
6:45 a.m. — I wake up, struggle, snuggle, read a bit, and then heat up leftover pizza for breakfast. Kid makes me iced coffee while I take out garbage and recycling. After, I tidy up a little.
10:30 a.m. — Take dogs to the off-leash park to run and play in the water.
2 p.m. — Realize we have not had lunch. Kid makes pizza bagels, featuring basil from the garden. I slice tomatoes and cucumbers, also fresh from the garden. Delish! We eat frozen cookie dough for dessert.
3:30 p.m. — Head to Target for back-to-school supplies. Kid needs new underthings and a lunch box. I also pick up a pair of leggings and shoes, and buy a wallet since things keep falling out of mine. $40
4 p.m. — Stop at a bakery on the way home. I have a coupon for 50% off a loaf, so we get out of there for cheap — and we get free slices! $3
8 p.m. — Finally decide to make dinner after bumming around the yard. Summer rolls using all the random leftovers in the fridge plus more garden veggies. Beers for the adults, and water for the kid. Everyone has popsicles for dessert.
9:30 p.m. — Decide to sleep outside to try and watch the meteor shower. Ugh. I am going to regret this tomorrow.
Daily Total: $43
1:45 a.m. — Zero percent chance of rain was a total lie. A downpour forces us inside.
8 a.m. — I sleep in! After I wake up, I let the dogs out and drink a cup of iced coffee. Kid convinces me we need to make caramel popcorn for breakfast. It is whole grain (and my favorite food) so I cave. We watch a show on Netflix while we each eat a popcorn ball and munch on a bowl of plain popcorn. I wash and dry a few loads of laundry while we hang out.
10 a.m. — Shop around online for a new backpack for the kid for school. She decides she would rather keep her old backpack and use a free one I got from a work event. Sweet! We clean out both backpacks and try to find supplies from around the house. She hates shopping even more than I do and is VERY tied to keeping stuff she already owns. This works great for me.
12:30 p.m. — Turkey sandwiches for lunch with veggies on the side. Thanks again, garden! We have popsicles for dessert that I made from leftover lemonade poured into molds. Now we have frozen treats for days.
1:15 p.m. — Try to brush the dog's hair and teeth. Fun for no one.
3 p.m. — More Netflix and caramel popcorn. A crazy cloudburst requires a quick dance in the rain. My garden is loving the water.
4 p.m. — Take the dog and kid for a walk while my husband goes to fix something at the rental house. Our tenant is awesome about letting us know if something is broken, so we respond quickly, too.
6:30 p.m. — The temperature is perfect, so we take a leisurely family bike ride.
8 p.m. — Whoops — should have had dinner first! I make grilled cheese and tomato soup using basil and veggies from the garden, and my husband and I have beer and wine.
9 p.m. — Crafts and cleaning up while I think about lunches for the upcoming week. I should have done a Costco run.
Daily Total: $0
6:30 a.m. — Trying to get up earlier in preparation for school starting next week. I take the dog out, have a quick snuggle with the kid, and boil some eggs for lunches. I pack the rest of the veggies for lunch, and the kid will get the leftover tomato soup, chips, and snap peas. We have toast and eggs for breakfast.
7:30 a.m. — Out the door. Not too terrible for the first run; four more tries to get on time.
8:30 a.m. — First cup of coffee from the robot, followed up by a second cup at 9:30. Today is a marathon meeting day.
12 p.m. — Sad desk lunch of veggies, hummus, and a hardboiled egg — but I have caramel popcorn for dessert! After, it's meetings all afternoon, probably more meetings until I die.
3:45 p.m. — Leave early to go to the DMV because I lost my driver's license. Luckily, I made an appointment ... but the appointment means nothing. I still had to wait 45 minutes! I get my picture taken and a new license is on its way. $18
5 p.m. — Stop at Ikea on the way to pick up my kiddo. I pick up a cutting board and bag clips. $7
5:45 p.m. — Have a bit of time before I get the kid, so I take a quick walk and hit my step goal!
6:15 p.m. — I stop at the Hispanic market for veggies, salsa, a variety of chips, spicy wheat snacks, and cotija. The kid buys a $1 pastry from the bakery. $19
6:45 p.m. — Stop at what we think is a farmers' market on the way home that turns out to be a dog party. We don't have our dog with us, but we take time to pet other dogs and get free swag and coupons for the groomer!
8 p.m. — Pasta salad for dinner. Chop up all the veggies we can find and add herbs from the garden. I toss it with pasta and a homemade vinaigrette.
9 p.m. — Make dessert for my book club tomorrow and then listen to the Reply All podcast. Husband goes to fill my gas tank because it is my least favorite chore ever. I have to fill up about three times a month. $31
11 p.m. — Read in bed until I fall asleep.
Daily Total: $75
6:30 a.m. — Wake up. Dogs. Snuggle. So much struggle to get going. I pack leftover pasta salad for everyone's lunch and make toast for breakfast.
7:30 a.m. — Out the door and listen to ridiculously trashy podcasts on my commute. I have coffee from the robot around 8:30.
12 p.m. — Grab a handful of TJ's trail mix from my snack drawer and head to the gym.
1:15 p.m. — I spy leftover lunches from someone's meeting. I opt for that over the lunch I packed. Around 3:30 p.m., I regret not grabbing dessert from the leftovers. Instead, I eat Reese's Pieces from my snack drawer.
6 p.m. — Stop at Costco on the way home for dog food, tortillas, snap peas, Greek yogurt, and protein drinks. $58
7 p.m. — Monthly book club. Hooray for girlfriends, chatting, food, and drinks!
Daily Total: $58
6:30 a.m. — Wake up to the same deal as usual, and eat a cheese stick for breakfast in the car.
8:30 a.m. — Coffee from the robot and someone brought donuts. Sweet.
9:30 a.m. — Meeting canceled! Yahoo! Seriously the highlight of my day.
12 p.m. — I head down to the gym even though eating that donut was possibly not the best decision. After I get back, I eat the leftover pasta salad from yesterday for lunch.
3 p.m. — Dying for candy but I have snap peas instead. They claim to be "sugar" snap peas, but this is a lie. It's a terrible substitute.
5:30 p.m. — Leave work exhausted, but I get home on time to take the kiddo to dance class. I drop her off, go home, and change out of my work clothes. I eat chips and salsa for dinner; my husband fed the kid pasta before class.
7 p.m. — Pick up the kid, and all three of us go to the frozen yogurt place. There's an unlimited cup for $5! We get two to share. We barely make a dent and take the rest home for later. $11
8:15 p.m. — Beers and chatting with the neighbors. Fancy juice for the kid. Later, I read until I fall asleep.
Daily Total: $11
6:30 a.m. — Wake up. Dogs. Snuggles. Think about retiring until I remember that I'll still have to get the kid up for school. I can probably make it another six years. Maybe she can get herself up when she is in high school?
8:15 a.m. — Get to work late and realize I forgot my badge. I shamefully wear a temp badge all day.
8:30 a.m. — Coffee from the robot and get to my meeting just as it is starting. My laptop decides not to work, so I take it to the help desk where they fix it quickly so I can return to my meeting.
11 a.m. — Meeting is finally over. I eat a pack of mixed nuts from my drawer.
12 p.m. — Gym. My glutes are dying. I do love working out with my coworkers. It is nice to build a relationship outside of work itself, especially because I am older than a lot of other people at the gym. It keeps me young — or so I hope.
1 p.m. — Greek yogurt, snap peas, and mini-peppers for lunch at my desk.
4:30 p.m. — Leave early! Today is the last day of summer camp, so there's a party AND middle school orientation tonight.
5:30 p.m. — I have a slice of pizza and a bite of very delicious cake at the end-of-summer party. I drive to the other side of town for orientation.
6 p.m. — A/C is out at the school because of course. I haven't been home and am still dressed for the arctic conditions of my office. I pay the fee for homework hall for the school year. $25
7:30 p.m. — Celebratory dinner! Hawaiian food and Dole Whip. The restaurant is out of ice, so no shaved ice for me. $43
9 p.m. — Finally home. The cleaners were here today, and I know they think we are slobs. The house is clean, but there is a pile of stuff in our entryway that needs to be put away. We try to pick up before they come but obviously failed. $60
Daily Total: $128
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Hurricane Harvey, a category 5 storm, has ravaged the populous city of Houston, Texas and it's surrounding area. Families are in desperate need of supplies, shelter, and many will no longer have homes when all this is over.
When disasters happen, it's up to the rest of us to help out in anyway we can. Just a few days after the storm, many celebrities have stepped up to do their part. They each donate different amounts of money, but the sentiment is the same. Everyone who isn't affected by the horrible natural disaster should be doing whatever they can.
The Rock stepped up after Hart challenged him and donated that $25,000. He also added his companies will be donating. The Rock's family had to go through Hurricane Andrew in 1992, making this a personal mission for him.
Everyone's favorite reality stars, Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian and Kris, Kylie and Kendall Jenner donated a combined $500,000 to the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
T.I. responded to Kevin Hart's challenge by donating his own $25,000 and encouraging fans to do what they can.
There are so many different ways to get involved. It doesn't have to be publicized to be a good act, either. The most important thing at this moment in time is that we do something. Anything. If you feel the need to follow these celebrities and help the people in Houston, Texas, follow this handy guide.
7. Taylor Swift
The Houston Food Bank took to Facebook to announce that Taylor Swift had made a "very sizable dontation," but did not reveal the exact amount. This is the status quo for Swift, who rarely publicly discloses how much she donates to causes.
A strange, unidentified object has been found off the coast of Rhode Island near Taylor Swift's house in the beachfront community of Westerly. A local news station, WPRI, has been reporting on the mysterious device for weeks now.
“It looks like a metal starfish because it has these eight legs that go down from the center,” said the president of the East Beach Association, Peter Brockmann, to WPRI in early August. He recalled that many locals didn't remember seeing it before last summer. Some postulated that it was a piece of Doppler imaging equipment, others suspected the discovery was extraterrestrial. An investigative diving expedition set out a week later to further inspect the object described as "a bit larger than a manhole cover and larger than a jumbo-size pizza."
Okay, pause for a second. If this were a movie, I would 100% go see it. It has everything needed to be the start of a cult-classic, alien invasion film. We have the quiet beach town, the mysterious object which seems to have come from out of nowhere, the local news station earnestly investigating, a leader in the community adding suspense-building commentary, but I digress.
In what sounds like the perfect beginning to a "War of the Worlds"-style blockbuster, the much-debated object was pulled from the ocean, and WPRI news reporter Jared Pliner was right there to cover it.
"An alien device? A piece of military history? Theories have been circulating for quite some time," Pliner began, also noting the proximity to Taylor Swift's seaside home. Like any good alien invasion movie, we return to the local authority figure for comment. Did Peter Brockman, President of the East Beach Association, have any answers about what the now-excavated object might be?
"Not a clue. We haven't solved anything here today," Brockman said to WPRI. Like any great alien movie, we are denied the simple closure we need, which only leaves us contemplating more extraterrestrial explanations.
Area 13, as I am now unofficially naming the site in honor of Taylor Swift, remains a mystery. WPRI reporter Jared Pliner said that no one has claimed the device yet as possible oceanographic equipment or otherwise. "I can tell you[...] it does not feel like aliens have overtaken me, that it has this nefarious feel to it," the local reporter stated. "...but I don't think we're being invaded."
In my version of the movie, Pliner would be the first to be contacted by the aliens (think "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") and act as a vessel by which the aliens communicate with humanity, so this sounds like something the aliens would want us to think.
Earlier this week, we brought you a preview of Sami Miro's capsule collaboration with Forever 21, called For the Lost. It features a barbed wire motif reminiscent of trendy early '00s T-shirts (not to mention those '90s tattoos). Another designer thinks they remind her of something more recent: her designs, which she says she shared with Miro.
"SO: I contacted sami miro in June to gift her some pieces from @freckledace , she accepted," wrote Freckled Ace designer Betsy Johnson (no, not that Betsey Johnson) on Instagram Friday. "I was very excited to see her in the collection. However @samimiro new collection with @forever21 is at the very least very similar."
A post shared by Betsy Johnson (@betsyjohnson_) on
Freckled Ace's collection is "THORN," not barbed wire, and its shirts are a cropped black mesh tank and one-shouldered white tank, as opposed to the black, white, and red tanks, skirts and sweatshirts available at Forever 21.
In an email to Refinery29, Miro said she had been working on this collection since March, long before Johnson contacted her in June.
"A project in this capacity doesn't happen in just a couple months," Miro wrote. "The designs were inspired by vintage t-shirts with barbed wire prints and [Pamela Anderson's] very iconic tattoo. I feel really terrible that she feels I took anything from her because she's super talented. I would never ever, ever steal someone's designs and understand the pain myself as many, many large brands have 'stolen' my signature denim/mesh bodysuits. But again, the timeline doesn't add up. I have been working on this since March."
In her Instagram post, Johnson wrote that Forever 21 and Miro have ignored her and blocked her account for accusing them of stealing her designs. Now others have flooded the brand's Instagram with the hashtag #boycottforever21.
Johnson joins a prestigious list of designers who have accused the retailer of intellectual property theft. Adidas and Gucci sued the company for its use of stripes that the brands say are too similar to their trademarks. Wildfang called it out for copying its popular "Wild Feminist" T-shirts. Even Frank Ocean got in on the act when a store used a font quite similar to the one on his Blonde album.
I’m sitting in my local GP practice, huddled over a hot water bottle as I wait for an emergency doctor’s appointment. The mind-numbing pain in my abdomen is intense and, sadly, oh-so-familiar. Yet despite the discomfort I’m in and the hours I’ve spent in and out of this waiting room, all I can think about is the hideous state of my cuticles.
I know what you’re thinking. Surely the pain can’t be that bad if you’re preoccupied with your unsightly manicure? Well, to know me is to know my chronic illness and love of beauty in equal measure. If my nails are looking shabby then, chances are, I’m having an endometriosis flare-up.
Turns out 2017 is a pretty trendy time to be diagnosed with this chronic illness. My feminist girl crush, Lena Dunham, has been incredibly vocal in her struggle with the condition and one in 10 women of reproductive age are affected by this life-altering disorder in the UK alone. Medically speaking, endometriosis is where cells like the ones in the lining of the womb are found elsewhere in the body. In reality, this typically causes debilitating pain that affects sufferers in all aspects of their lives. Yet my diagnosis has only encouraged my love of everything beauty. It’s taught me to appreciate the role cosmetics can play in forging our identities, especially during periods of ill health.
Personally, I can pinpoint moments of my life by what I was wearing on my face. I remember rummaging through my grandmother’s dressing table when I was five and excitedly combining blue, sparkly eyeshadow and coral lipstick. The teenage years I spent paying homage to Lauren Conrad’s signature cat-eye flick and failing miserably. My first year of university was defined by a selection of NARS red lipsticks as I tried the ‘outgoing party girl’ persona on for size.
But when I was diagnosed with endometriosis two years later, I suddenly wanted to look like the most natural version of myself. I instinctively gravitated towards tinted multipurpose balms and dewy foundations. I stopped highlighting my hair quite so blonde. During a particularly trying time in my life, my failsafe products – and some trusty new additions – allowed me to hide the hell my body was putting me through.
My fellow #endowarriors confirm that I’m not alone in relying on beauty as a means of coping with this condition. Bryony, 20, uses makeup to "hide the destructive nature of endometriosis". She tells me that she "can make [her] skin glow and [her] nails sparkle and the rest of the world is none the wiser." Meanwhile, Emily, 25, chooses to "spend copious amounts on bath stuff" to literally soothe her pain.
Dr. Tania Adib, a consultant gynaecologist, asserts that "because [endometriosis] is a gynaecological illness, and sexual health is inextricably linked with self-confidence, having this condition can affect one’s self-esteem." As a result, makeup allows us to "create a mask to face the world." Beauty becomes a way of coping and it’s only natural that "the more it hurts, the more [we] cover up."
Yet in the same way that this condition manifests itself differently among sufferers, for some women, their appearance understandably takes a back seat to the symptoms. Lucy*, 27, confides that when her pain is at its worst, "it’s hard enough to get out of bed and shower," let alone think about her makeup or nails. Another sufferer agrees, telling me that "makeup is the last thing I worry about, what with working, family life and managing pain, too."
it can be a conscious choice to allow our time and attention to be just on ourselves and allowing ourselves to feel good
Self-care is an incredibly individual, personal thing. While I take comfort in my makeup routine, other women tell me how they have found strength in beloved pets, extravagant designer purchases, and glamorous photo shoots.
Dr. Sheri Jacobson, clinical director of Harley Therapy in London, agrees that "each woman is free to define 'beauty' and 'self-care' for herself," recommending that if you "feel beautiful when you walk in nature or practice mindfulness, then that can be the best way to practice self-care in the face of health challenges."
Equally, Dr. Jacobson recognises beauty as a form of self-care: "Like exercising, eating better, or making time for a relaxing bath at night, it can be a conscious choice to allow our time and attention to be just on ourselves and allowing ourselves to feel good." Especially as endometriosis sufferers are at risk of developing anxiety and depression, "self-care has now been linked to better psychological health."
Beyond prescribing stronger painkillers, there is not much my GP is able to do for me. I get home, shower immediately and blow-dry my hair. I apply some luxurious body butter, specifically reserved for bad pain days.
I take my time as I apply my makeup, pausing for sips of tea and to sing along to old Oasis songs, enjoying the therapeutic process after a particularly draining morning.
Feeling refreshed yet still uncomfortable, I decide to paint my nails, choosing to self-medicate with a bottle of Essie’s "Ballet Slippers" polish. I feel more like myself with a fresh manicure. Because that’s the beauty of makeup. Its effects are not simply skin-deep.
