When Does El Chema Season 2 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is El Chema about?

El Chema traces the rise of José María Venegas from streetwise kid running drugs to ruthless cartel boss, and it's the kind of show that works best if you come in hungry for spectacle and don't mind the moral bankruptcy that usually comes with it. Mauricio Ochmann carries the narrative through its transformation story with enough charisma to make the character's ascent feel earned, avoiding the sense that it's simply inevitable. The supporting cast (particularly Julio Bracho and Itatí Cantoral) grounds the violence and ambition in something resembling personal stakes. If you've watched the narco-drama boom on Spanish-language television, you know what you're signing up for here: cartel intrigue, betrayals, people getting killed for talking too much, women caught in the machinery of men's wars.

The show doesn't pretend to be sociology or journalism. It's pulp, committed to the momentum of a criminal empire's growth without any deeper examination of how those empires function or why they persist. That clarity is actually refreshing. There's no moralizing narrator, no documentary pretense. The tone is consistent: dark, violent, and oddly soapy in the way telenovelas can be, mixing family melodrama with genuine brutality. It leans harder into the personal relationships than into geopolitics, which means scenes of betrayal or loss carry actual weight even when the plot mechanics are familiar.

Audiences and critics responded lukewarmly. The IMDb score sits at 6.9, which reflects a show that delivers what its premise promises but doesn't transcend the formula or offer much that feels fresh within the crowded narco-drama space. The show ran for two seasons before ending in early 2017, suggesting it had an audience on Telemundo but not one large enough to justify continuation. There's no sense that it was building toward some revelation or that cancellation cut off an important story midway.

Among the wave of cartel dramas that have flooded prestige and commercial television in the last decade, El Chema is competent but interchangeable. It exists alongside shows that asked bigger questions or took stranger stylistic risks. What it does have is eighty-five episodes of steady narrative momentum and Ochmann's commitment to a character who earns his way into monstrosity, not one who is simply handed it.

Created by Luis Zelkowicz

Is El Chema renewed or cancelled?

Why did El Chema end?

El Chema wrapped up its run after just over four months on the air, concluding what amounted to a single extended season spread across two production cycles. The show, which debuted in December 2016 on Telemundo, followed the crime-drama formula that had worked for the network before, but it failed to sustain audience interest beyond its initial stretch. Spanish-language television demands steady viewership to justify production costs, and El Chema's ratings trajectory apparently didn't meet that threshold. The IMDb score of 6.9 suggests the show found some audience appreciation, but appreciation alone doesn't cover the expense of making 85 episodes with the production values a crime drama requires.

The decision to end the series appears to have come from Telemundo itself rather than from a predetermined creative plan. The network had bet on El Chema as part of its slate of original dramas aimed at the U.S. Hispanic audience, a market where telenovelas and crime serials had historically performed well. When viewership softened, continuing the show became less attractive than investing in other projects. By April 2017, the network had made its choice, and the show concluded without a properly planned sendoff. For a show that burned through 85 episodes in such a short window, El Chema was essentially a failed experiment, one of several dramas that Telemundo tried during this period with mixed results.

El Chema Season 2 Release Date

El Chema seasons

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