What Happened to Victor Tapia on 'Narcos: Mexico'? (SPOILERS)
Published Nov. 10 2021, 4:54 p.m. ET
Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Narcos: Mexico Season 3.
What happened to Victor Tapia (Luis Gerardo Méndez) on Season 3 of Narcos: Mexico? Victor Tapia was a new character introduced for Season 3, which also happens to be the final season of Narcos: Mexico.
What role did Victor play in Season 3 and did he make it to the series finale alive?
We'll explain everything we know about Victor Tapia below.
Who is Victor Tapia? Is Victor Tapia based on a real-life person?
Victor is a cop barely scraping by as he patrols the streets of Juárez. He lives there with his wife, Tenci. Victor is a flawed but decent man who gets caught up in issues that ultimately cost him a great deal. After searching for a missing girl named Teresa, Victor discovers that women all over Juárez are being murdered, so he tries to figure out if there's one serial killer behind it all.
Newsweek conducted an interview with Luis about playing Victor, and Luis confirmed that Victor was not based on anyone in real life. Luis noted in the interview that he did find inspiration for Victor's character after speaking to real-life cops who worked in Juárez.
"In my case I had to find some cops from Juárez," Luis said. "I found this cop who was working in Juárez in the '90s, and we spent hours on the phone talking about the way it was, the accent I'm doing on the show came from that guy, and trying to understand his point-of-view in that specific place in that specific moment."
What happens to Victor? Does he find the killer?
Victor discovers a killer. Taking justice into his own hands, Victor shoots the aforementioned serial killer dead, only to discover afterward that there's more than one serial killer out there on the loose. Check out the moment Victor enacts justice below. (Content warning: blood, guns.)
Sadly, Victor ends up meeting the same fate at the hands of his police partner Rogelio (Markin López). Rogelio murders Victor after discovering that Victor has been secretly informing the DEA about Amado Carrillo Fuentes' operations as a drug lord in charge of the Juárez cartel.
Rogelio is hired to kill Victor after Victor's connection to the DEA results in arrests and drug confiscations. It's a sad moment, and ironically, Victor meets his end the exact same way as the serial killer he shot to death.
It's an unfortunate end for Victor. His character certainly was no saint, but he did seem interested in trying to do the right thing, particularly for the women killed in Juárez. Luis said he was grateful to shine a light on an issue that is ongoing in Juárez.
He said, "When they told me the storyline of the character I was fascinated because I think that's, for me, the biggest problem we have in Mexico right now, the issue of femicide. Every single day 10 women get killed in Mexico and that, in a way, started in the '90s in Juárez because of the rise of violence and the rise of crime because of the drug trafficking situation."
Luis continued, "I thought it was really moving and relevant for me that the creators and showrunner decided to bring that storyline into the show because this storyline talks about the consequences of the actions [of the cartels]."
Stream Seasons 1–3 of Narcos: Mexico only on Netflix.
