Queen of the South's final season was a reminder of how it was forced to fight for its place on television as a drama with a Latina lead

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The Alice Braga-led USA series, which ended this week, "tried its hardest to try to reclaim the narco world away from emphasizing that all Latinos are involved and are thus evil," says Kristen Lopez. "When the series started, Teresa Mendoza’s introduction into the world is through her boyfriend; one of several instances in the series where men were often the first to let women down and proverbially throw them under the bus for their own aims. Braga showed a woman who was a survivor, intelligent, and understood her privilege as a woman. Teresa often used that to help other women, like a case of human trafficking she witnesses. The first three seasons saw Teresa sparring against fellow narco queen, Camila Vargas (Veronica Falcon) and this is where Queen of the South truly set itself apart. In these shows about the drug trade it was rare to get one woman with substance, but the show gave us two compelling women characters who were at the top of their game. They were the ones dominating and their sparring wasn’t petty, but grounded in real issues of this business they were both involved in. Similar to Teresa, Camila also struggled with issues that have defined women for generations. She struggled to have a successful business and a family life. Where women are told they can’t have it all, but should try like hell to do it, Camila was showing the fruits of that labor. But the show’s final season wasn’t just sad because it was the end of her story. It was also a reminder of how Queen of the South was forced to fight for its place on television. This last season benefited the most from USA Network’s advertising strategy of being plastered on all NBCUniversal channels — but for some reason it is not streaming on NBC’s streamer service, Peacock. And despite having a titan like Braga in the cast, it has not been campaigned seriously for Emmy consideration."