Almost Paradise (2020), a tv series on Amazon: : When hypertension forces DEA Agent Alex Walker into retirement, he moves to the tropical beach he visited years ago. Unfortunately, it is now full of touristy resorts and drug dealers, so he gets drawn back into the War on Drugs again.
A tropical beach is Paradise? No way! Paradise has bookstores, museums, theater, Ethiopian restaurants, and sex clubs. Maybe Paris or Prague.
Plus 100 to 1 that tropical beach will be cluttered with girls in bikinis.
Plus the War on Drugs was a big, bloated, racist mess, putting millions of people, mostly African-American men, in prison for marijuana possession, and doing nothing to stem the flow of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. Prohibition fuels drug cartels, increases the addiction and overdose rate, drains the economy, empties neighborhoods, and plunges entire populations into perpetual poverty. HOw about addressing the social and economic factors that push people into illegal drug use instead?
But I'm still watching. It's set in the Philippines, so maybe there will be some street shots of Manila or people speaking Tagalog.
Ok, Cebuano. Even better.
You are invited into my mouth.
Tagalog: Inaanyayahan ka sa aking bibig
Cebuano: Malipayon ka sa akong baba
Cebu City, by the way, is one of the biggest cities in the Philippines, with a population of nearly a million. You can visit the Crus Ni Magellan, a relic of Magellan's missionary trip to the island during his round-the-globe voyage; and the Shrine to Lapulapu, the leader of the resistance force that killed Magellan.
Back to the story: The base doctor examines Alex: blood pressure 180/90! He doesn't want to take his blood pressure medication due to "sexual side effects": he won't be able to get it up as readily. She says "Heart failure is worse than penis failure." He scoffs: "That's your opinion."
So this guy would rather die than take his medicine, just so he can have better sex? Is that supposed to make him endearing?
He announces that he's going to cure his high blood pressure by retiring to an isolated beach on the island with "no tv and no cell phones" and open a gift shop. Wait -- if it's isolated, who is he planning to sell the gifts to?
Scene 1: Montage of the "isolated beach," now a ritzy resort. The patois-talking manager shows him the run-down gift shop and horrible apartment he bought -- on resort property, but far from any foot traffic. Besides, the resort already has about a dozen ritzy stores. Uh-oh I hope you have a 401K to live on.
They're ready, so they go to the docks and meet with Teo (Willl Devaughn, below) on his yacht. Cute Guy represents the Manila Mob, who wants to move into the local drug trade. But Teo doesn't cotton to the idea, and stabs him. Hey, I thought Cute Guy would be a regular, Alex's estranged son or something. The guys will continue to work for Theo, providing protection for the drug in transit.
Scene 3: Colorful Orientalized montage of Mabuhay City. Alex is buying stuff to fix up his gift shop, when he sees a girl walk buy and drops everything, the quest for sex taking precedence. He follows her into a bar. Addressing the waitress as "sweetheart" and speaking English like an Ugly American, he asks for a "Jim Beam neat" and stakes out his prey.
Whoops, the girl is meeting with a guy who has a gun in his back pocket. And more guys show up carrying a suspicious satchel. Alex approaches, badgers them until they attack, and thwarts them with a pool cue. The girl, an undercover cop about to make a bust, arrests him.
Scene 4: At the police station, the girl -- Detective Mendoza -- tells Alex about himself (it's plot exposition, it has to come somewhere). A legendary DEA agent, yaers doing deep cover in the Golden Triangle and Spain. If he's so expereinced, why did he intervene? . He explains that it was a set-up; the drug dealers were planning to kill Detective Mendoza and her partner, Detective Alamares.
She just stares. 100 to 1 she'll be a regular, calling him "Arrogant" for about half a season, then jumping into bed with him.
Chief Ocampo offers Alex a job working on drug cases for their department. He refuses.
Scene 5: Alex is painting the gift shop when a guy rushes up and garottes him to death. Nope -- after the commercial break, we see Alex fighting him off, taking his gun (then why the garrotting?), and rushing to the police station to yell at Chief Ocampo: "Somebody jsut tried to kill me!"
Ocampo says that "somehow" word got out that there's an ex-DEA agent on the island, so now there's a price on Alex's head. He has to help them.
Scene 6: Having no choice, Alex goes to a briefing led by Detective Mendoza: lots of drug-related murders in town since "frost" hit the street. ("synthetic heroin laced with speed, makes crack look like asprin," in other words, gibberish). Local gang leader Kobe Rodriguez is in charge of distribution.
Alex interrupts. Her presentation is bull. The precursors are manufactured in China, cooked on the island, and then shipped to the U.S. The gang in charge is from Taiwan or Malaysia. (I have to admit, Alex knows his drug distribution networks.)
Scene 7: Detective Mendoza and Acuna and Alex stake out Teo's yacht. Malaysian flag! See, Alex is right! Mendoz wants to get a search warrant, but Alex has a better (albeit illegal) idea.
Meanwhile, guys visit Teo with some bags full of money. Teo deposits it in his safe, and when he returns, Alex is there!
Meanwhile, Mendoza puts on a bikini -- gratuitous boob shot, yuck -- and heads to a nearby boat to eavesdrop.
Scene 8: Alex convinces Teo that he's sick of the DEA game, and wants a piece of the drug action; he wants to buy $2 million in drugs tomorrow. Then he convinces the cops that he was just playing Teo; they can do the bust
Scene 9: Back at the station, we meet the Evil DEA Agent Zivic (Simon London), one of Alex's old nemesis, who is taking over the case for the DEA (wait -- the DEA is U.S. only. They have no authority in the Philippines). He's the guy who "called Pablo Escobar a nancy-boy and got away with it." Homophobic slur! Personally, I think these people are all a bunch of homophobes. In a later episode, Alex goes undercover as gay wedding planner, no doubt with the fruitiest limp-wrist swishing he can muster.
Scene 10: Detective Mendoza finds Alex drunk on the floor. He's depressed: the War on Drugs has been going on since before he was born, and it's been a mnumental failure. We arrest them, they bribe a judge and go free. You realize that the Philippines has some of the strictest drug policies in the world? Private citizens have permission from President Duarte to kill any anyone they see using drugs, or who admits to using drugs.
He had a partner in Spain who cared too much, so he switched teams. To prove his reliability, they gave him the job of killing Alex.
"But he didn't," Mendoza points out. "Oh, didn't he? Trust in my partner was all I had." First gay subtext of the show!
To get him out of his funk, Mendoza shows him the street corner where her nine-year old cousin was killed by a stray bullet from a drug deal gone bad. That doesn't help, so Detective Alamares (Arthur Acuna) gives him a pep talk. Then Mendoza tries again. This goes on for a long time. I'm getting annoyed at the whiney little bugger.
Scene 11: Alex meets with Teo, tells him that it's a trap, and offers a way out. First, get rid of the evidence. Then get into the car with me, and we'll go out the back way and escape. Well, that was unexpected.
They rush to the yacht -- where Mendoza and Acuna are waiting ! A triple cross, cool! There's a cool underwater fight scene. They arrest Teo for murder, not drug dealing, so he won't be back on the street right away. Evil DEA Agent sputters and threatens, but he can't make a drug bust -- no evidence.
Scene 12: After it's all over, Mendoza visits Alex at his gift shop to ask him out on a date. Turns out to be a party to celebrate the elimination of all drugs from the Philippines forever. So, what social problem will they solve forever in future episodes?
Beefcake: Alex takes his shirt off.
Heterosexism: Alex forgets that he's a drooling, sexist horndog after Scene 3. But of course he and Detective Mendoza will be falling in love soon.
Gay Characters: None specified.
Orientalsm: Lots.
The War on Drugs: Take out a bad guy and end drug addiction forever -- there will never be any new bad guys rising up in the ranks. That is, in fact, the main strategy of the War on Drugs, and it's useless. Try what Portugal did -- treat drug addiction as a public health issue, not a crime, legalizae small quantities of every drug, and watch usage go straight down.
Will I Keep Watching: Heck, no. But I do want to find out else Cute Guy (Joe Vargas) as been in.