Season 1

**Season 1** of Queen of the South consists of 13 episodes and it premiered on June 23, 2016.

## Plot overview

While living in the barrio of Culiacán, Mexico, poor Teresa Mendoza falls in love with a member of a successful drug cartel, hoping the love will help her rise above the hopelessness she feels in her life. When it doesn't happen, she is forced to flee the country after her boyfriend is murdered. She seeks refuge in America, where she teams up with an unlikely person from her past to take down the leader of the drug ring that is after her.

## Story

Teresa’s boyfriend of 1 year, Guero Davilas, is dead and she is chased to be killed by the Vargas cartel from whom Guero stole as the rules of the cartel leave no family alive. Teresa is saved by the drug operation of Camila Vargas, the estranged wife of the cartel boss Epifanio Vargas, who is running for Governor of Sinaloa. To save herself from prostitution, Teresa offers to transport coke in faulty balloons that are known to burst in the stomach of the mule. Teresa is unable to throw up all the balloons and is saved by the drug runner James Valdez, who runs the operation and is Camila’s right hand man.

Teresa impresses James and Camila and as Epifanio is searching for Teresa and the book of details on his operation that Guero left her, Camila decides to keep Teresa close and let her participate in the operation. Teresa becomes a drug runner under James’s guidance. Teresa has great math skills and performs well under pressure, as such she and James forge a partnership, whereby they help and save each other, talk about the violence in the cartel life, which is a problem for both. James acts as her mentor and protector.

Teresa helps her friend Brenda and her son Tony escape the Vargas Cartel and make it to Dallas, where Brenda sets up an amateur meth cooking and coke selling op to support herself and her son.

Teresa kills a man for the first time to protect James’s identity and as the level of violence becomes too much for her, she and Brenda embark on a plan to obtain legal papers with the money from selling Guero’s book of secrets, the final goal being to disappear.

Camila’s operation has supply problems as Epifanio Vargas wants his wife to return to Mexico and stay by his side as he runs for Governor rather than run a Texas coke distribution network. Epifanio disrupts her supply and puts her at odds with the rival Jimenez cartel. After being elected governor he chooses to destroy his narco operation and kill many of his men only to not allow Camila to take over.

On the way out of Mexico, Brenda is killed and Teresa fails to get paid for Guero’s book. Teresa saves Pote Galvez, one of Epifanio’s men who had been after her and Brenda as per Epifanio's orders. Seeing grace for the first time in his life, the hardened sicario, pledges loyalty to Teresa.

When tasked with locating a hotel maid who can identify them, James lies to Camila to protect Teresa for the first time.

Teresa meets James and Camila after James succeeds in extracting Camila from Epifanio’s reach.

Teresa offers the book and its secrets to Camila in exchange for partnership in her operation. Camila agrees to give Teresa a chance and the four of them cross the border back into the USA chased by the DEA, and hide in a property owned by Camila in an effort to recoup forces and start a new.

It is revealed that Guero is alive and is held hostage by the DEA.

## Episodes

1. Piloto
2. Cuarenta Minutos
3. Estrategia de Entrada
4. Lirio de los Valles
5. Un Alma. Un Mapa. Dos Futuros.
6. El Engaño Como La Regla
7. El Hombre Pájaro
8. Billete de Magia
9. Coge Todo lo Que Puede Llevar
10. Esta Cosa Que Es Nuestra
11. Punto sin Retorno
12. Quinientos Mil
13. Cicatriz

## Media

* Brenda and Tony in Piloto
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