There’s something hypnotic about Peacock’s M.I.A. Maybe it’s the neon-soaked Miami skyline. Maybe it’s the emotional wreckage hidden beneath every cartel deal and gunshot. Or maybe it’s the fact that beneath all the crime-thriller chaos lies something far more intimate: a story about grief, identity, survival, and the families we choose when everything else falls apart.
Created by Bill Dubuque — the Emmy-nominated co-creator behind Ozark — the nine-episode Peacock binge-drop quickly evolved into one of the most emotionally layered dramas of the year following its May 7 premiere. Across its explosive first season, M.I.A. transformed from a revenge-fueled crime saga into a surprisingly tender meditation on loyalty, legacy, and the cost of vengeance.
At the center of it all is Shannon Gisela’s star-making performance as Etta Tiger Jonze, a whip-smart Florida Keys native whose life is shattered after her family’s brutal murder sends her spiraling into Miami’s dangerous cartel underworld.
And if there’s one thing the cast agrees on, it’s this: Gisela absolutely carries the show.
“The secret is that’s her first job on television,” Maurice Compte told Celeb Secrets exclusively during a virtual junket while promoting the series. “The person who was on that page when we read it and the person who we saw performing is one of the best performances I’ve been able to be a part of. It was absolutely wonderful to watch.”
His co-star Marta Milans echoed the sentiment immediately.
“She carries the entire weight of our show on her shoulders with an incredible arc of a character,” Milans shared. “Her entire family gets murdered in the first episode, and then she has to go on this ride to avenge the death of all the members of her beloved family. And you see her doing that with grace and fun and comedy and empathy. It’s mind-blowing.”
For Gisela herself, stepping into Etta’s complicated emotional world felt immediate and visceral from the moment she read the script.
“Etta is so dynamic,” Gisela told Celeb Secrets. “She is badass, she’s incredibly smart, she has a huge heart and loves her family. It was just such a rainbow of a character. It’s the dream of any actor to get to dive into something like that.”
What makes M.I.A. stand out from other crime dramas isn’t simply its violence or high-stakes action — though the series certainly delivers on both fronts with boat chases, cartel warfare, explosions, and brutal revenge missions. It’s the emotional complexity underneath it all.
“I think the show is about legacy,” Compte explained. “And I think the show is about relatedness — how people relate to one another. Even though the show is a lot about revenge, I think at the core of it is what is family and what does it mean to be part of a community and a larger group.”
That emotional push-and-pull becomes especially fascinating within the Rojas family, the powerful cartel dynasty whose internal fractures become just as dangerous as the enemies circling around them. Compte’s Mateo and Milans’ Caroline aren’t portrayed as stereotypical villains; instead, they’re deeply human characters wrestling with inherited expectations, grief, and power.
“We wanted characters who weren’t typical cartel leaders,” Milans said. “There are many more layers to each character and that’s what makes them so compelling.”
Compte added that the siblings are essentially trying to preserve a legacy they may not actually be equipped to handle.
“When you really see the complexity of what one man is able to build, and then they hand that over to you, you really do feel inept in the beginning,” he explained. “There’s emotion, there’s insecurity, there’s time that it takes to get into the rhythm of what they’re doing.”
Meanwhile, Alberto Guerra’s Elias quietly emerged as one of the season’s most intriguing wild cards. Reserved, calculating, and emotionally buried beneath layers of control, Elias became a character audiences couldn’t quite predict — which is exactly how Guerra wanted it.
“We knew that we didn’t want him to be a man of many words,” Guerra told Celeb Secrets. “He’s very skillful at what he does. He has turned his life and his body into a machine to get whatever needs to get done.”
But beneath that hardened exterior, Guerra hinted at something more vulnerable simmering underneath.
“You go on set and you try to hide what the character is hiding,” he explained. “That’s it.”
Of course, M.I.A. wouldn’t feel nearly as immersive without Miami itself serving as a central character. From Little Haiti to Biscayne Bay to the Florida Keys, the series captures every electric, chaotic, beautiful side of South Florida — and for several cast members, filming there became deeply personal.
“I’m from South Florida,” Gisela shared. “So for me, shooting there was a real big homecoming. It felt like a miracle that this is my first TV job and I got to do it in my hometown.”
The actress described filming in Miami as both surreal and emotional, especially while creating lifelong memories with a cast that became genuinely close off-camera.
“We’d do karaoke nights together,” she revealed with a laugh. “Our cast is so close.”
And according to Gisela, one particular cast member dominated those karaoke sessions.
“You wouldn’t know that Cary Elwes does a really mean Elvis impression,” she teased. “He’s really awesome at karaoke.”
Compte, who also hails from Miami, believes the city’s unpredictable energy mirrors the emotional intensity of the series itself.
“The series is a thunderstorm moving through a cloudy day,” he said. “That’s exactly what the series is.”
Even with all of its cartel politics, betrayals, and revenge-fueled violence, M.I.A. never loses sight of its emotional core — particularly through Etta’s evolving found-family dynamic with Lovely and Stanley.
“What makes it really special is that it’s a choice,” Gisela explained. “They trauma bonded, but they’re choosing to stay in each other’s lives. For Lovely and Stanley to choose Etta and love her through all of that is really special.”
That theme of chosen family versus blood family becomes one of the season’s strongest throughlines, especially as the Rojas empire slowly begins to crack from within while Etta unexpectedly builds meaningful connections amid chaos.
And perhaps that emotional duality is exactly why M.I.A. works so well. It’s stylish and brutal. Funny and heartbreaking. Intimate and explosive all at once. Or, as Gisela perfectly summarized it in three words: “Dangerous, heart, action.”
With powerhouse performances, razor-sharp writing, stunning South Florida cinematography, and enough emotional twists to keep audiences hooked through all nine episodes, M.I.A. has officially cemented itself as Peacock’s newest prestige crime obsession — and we can’t wait to see what this shark-infested world has in store for us in the future.
