Fans of the popular USA television series “Queen of the South” may no longer follow Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) on her ascent to wealth and power. The fifth and final season of the programme ended its lengthy run on June 9, 2021, when the finale aired.
Teresa begins as a drug dealer, wanting to keep her lover out of danger. However, she gradually moves up the food chain, gaining control and influence over the illegal drug trade. She makes important contacts along the way with individuals like the initially unreliable James (Peter Gadiot), the protective Pote Galvez (Hemky Madera), and Kelly Anne Van Awken (Molly Burnett), whom Teresa originally meets as a housewife in way over her head.
“Queen of the South” is a whirlwind tale that is based on the drama “La Reina del Sur,” which itself is based on the book of the same name by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The show’s final act includes plenty of action, romance, and loss. Here is the “Queen of the South” Season 5 ending, explained, in case you need a little assistance understanding what what happened to Teresa and her crew and what it all means.
Pote, Kelly Anne, and James avenge Teresa’s death and settle her business
There is a lot of pressure on “Queen of the South” Season 5 to satisfactorily conclude Teresa’s narrative. The show’s premiere episode, which debuted back in 2016, opens with a flash-forward scene that shows Teresa leading a lavish life supported by her drug empire up until the point when she is shot and presumed dead in her home. The fifth season of the show has the duty to confront this predictable conclusion because viewers will be thinking about this scenario for the duration of the programme. Yes, that is true, but it also manages to surprise everyone.
This happens to Teresa in the second-to-last episode of Season 5, when her lover, James, kills her. This is a heartbreaking revelation because it’s safe to say that the majority of the show’s viewers want James and Teresa to find true love. After establishing that Devon (Jaime Hector) gave him the order to assassinate Teresa, James leaves to avoid detection. James still does not want Devon to take over Teresa’s firm, which makes Devon a threat despite his betrayal. A heated exchange still needs to occur when you throw in a spiteful Pote.
Even though Pote ends up serving three years in prison after cremating Teresa and travelling to Mexico to scatter her ashes, his desire to get revenge on Teresa’s killers is unaffected.
Teresa fakes her death to start a new life
Of course, not even James can defeat Teresa, and the series’ concluding episode reveals just how crafty the lead character truly is. Before her alleged assassination, Teresa devises a scheme with James, Kelly Ann, and Pote to simulate her demise and trick everyone else into believing she has died. They pull it off, and Pote exacts revenge on the evil Boaz (Joseph T. Campos) before rejoining the team in a stunning isolated paradise, despite it initially appearing implausible that Pote’s imprisonment is a part of their plan.
With Teresa and James in a loving relationship and Pote and Kelly Ann reunited with their daughter Lena (Mileiah Vega), “Queen of the South” closes on a cheerful note. What else is there to ask for? Even with this idyllic conclusion, the show still touches on the larger narrative of Teresa’s two selves since very early in the first season, Teresa begins to glimpse the dispassionate, focused version of herself dressed in all white (the same attire she wears in the pilot flash-forward). This image of Teresa frequently appears in significant situations, almost like a ghost, to serve as a reminder of everything Teresa has been through and what she has become as a result.
Although Teresa legally doesn’t pass away from the bullet at the end of the series, a voiceover explains that the intense, materialistic version of the character is killed off symbolically. Teresa says, “I, a Culiacan money changer who beat all odds to live, killed her. They claimed that my only options were death or prison. What do they know, though? I selected life.”
The showrunners imagine the group is thriving after the finale
The showrunners weren’t sure if there would be enough time to deepen Teresa’s tale before it was revealed that Season 5 of “Queen of the South” would be the final season. Sadly, it was decided that the show would be ending, but happily they were able to give the characters a happy ending. However, many fans still have questions about what might have happened to the gang after that or what Teresa, James, and the others might be getting up to in their tropical paradise.
The showrunners Benjamin Lobato and Dailyn Rodriguez explained in an interview with Deadline that they purposefully decided not to murder Devon in order to leave a loose end for a potential Season 6. This leaves it unclear whether or not Devon actually believes Teresa is dead. Fans will only have to speculate as to what might have transpired because they were unable to continue the series. In a similar vein, Lobato and Rodriguez indicated that they believe Teresa and James end up starting a family in the wake of the events of the finale. The previous few years that Pote has been imprisoned, in the words of Rodriguez, “I do feel that what they’ve been doing is trying to find who they truly are, without the death continually looming over them.”
The five seasons of “Queen of the South” have centred on Teresa’s inability to escape her future, but it’s encouraging to see that she can ultimately put her past behind her.
