In the documentary Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ With the Godmother, her former lover and drug dealer, Charles Cosby, shared a story about Blanco’s first kidnapping. He claimed that Griselda was only 11 years old when she abducted a minor from an upscale neighborhood in Colombia. And when she didn’t get a ransom for the kid, she shot the child dead to prove she wasn’t bluffing. Committing such atrocities so young, it’s no surprise that Griselda developed a thirst for blood early on and often settled her problems (both personal and professional) by killing throughout her life. In a perhaps more nuanced depiction, these details could’ve helped us understand and delve into Blanco’s personality and psyche a little more.
As a young adult, Griselda also had her first clash with the law long before she arrived in Miami in 1978 — where the series begins. She lived in the United States from 1964 as an illegal immigrant with fake documentation, setting up a successful drug operation in Queens, New York. Even though she later became known as a prominent cocaine dealer, sources claim that she initially started drug trafficking with large amounts of marijuana. Her main reason for switching to cocaine was the easier transportation. Nevertheless, Blanco had to flee America in 1975 when she was indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges — but it only took her three years to return and set up shop again.
The Godmother’s Peculiarities
Sofia Vergara’s casting for Griselda’s leading role was a curious one for several reasons. Not only she’s significantly taller (5’7”) than La Madrina was (5’0”) but a lot slimmer, too. This only matters because, according to The Independent’s reporting, Blanco was a true “chameleon.” Besides uncanny wardrobe choices (on some days, she dressed as a typical American soccer mom from the suburbs while on others as an eccentric Colombian woman), she often altered her physical appearance by dyeing her hair and losing and gaining massive amounts of weight (30 pounds). This aspect of her lifestyle (which may’ve been a strategy to throw off her enemies) is entirely dismissed in the series.
Though Vergara wears a ton of makeup and prosthetics to look rougher and less attractive than she really is, her appearance barely changes throughout the six episodes — despite the series covering nearly a decade of Griselda’s life. It feels like a wasted opportunity (even if it’s reasonable) that the creators didn’t include this in some form.
But there’s an even more puzzling choice of omission in the titular character’s depiction that the show barely touches on. It wasn’t a secret that Blanco was attracted to women as much as she was to men. She was bisexual, often throwing drug-fuelled orgies, not to mention her sexual encounters with women while she was married. We get a taste of that to some extent, but this is definitely something that could’ve gotten more screen time, especially during the relationship with her third husband, Dario Sepulveda (Alberto Guerra).
Griselda’s Sons Were Much More Involved in the Business
Blanco’s three eldest sons (Uber, Dixon, and Osvaldo) have a vital role in humanizing Griselda in the miniseries. However, their involvement in the drug business is only partially shown in the last two episodes. In reality, they played a much more significant part in maintaining their mother’s reign. According to Blanco’s youngest son, Michael Corleone Blanco (yup, she named him after Al Pacino’s character in The Godfather), when they lived in California, his brothers were running the family business in Miami, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco.
