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TV Media Weekly | March 28 - April 3, 2015 through solitary confinement in or- der to avoid blowing his cover. But through it all, Falco re- mained unwavering in his new- found pursuit of justice. He was given a second shot at life, and he took it. His intelligence shone through with each day that he went deeper undercover, and it's something that was not lost on Nunes or Runyan as they acted out his story. "He's a keen observer of human nature, and he had to be to do what he did," Nunes said. "It was pretty apparent that this was a guy who, if his circumstances had been different, could have done some- thing very different with his life. As it turned out, because of the bad choices that he made early on, this was kind of his shot at redemption, going into the situation and taking these guys down." "His intelligence is the thing that kept him alive and also was able to allow him to get so deep," Runyan added, "and not only do one gang, but three gangs." These days, Falco has put his ac- tive undercover work behind him. He's since earned a graduate de- gree in criminal justice and works as an instructor for a national law enforcement training institute. Of course, for him, there'll always be a nagging fear for his safety. "I think you always have to fear for your safety," Falco said in an in- terview with "Los Angeles Maga- zine." "I have a witness protection program ID that I use. I don't hang out in bars. I don't live in an area where any of these groups live. By Cassie Dresch TV Media I t's a story right out of Holly- wood. A man, fully immersed in the drug culture of South- ern California, deals meth- amphetamine to the tune of more than $500,000 a year. The only direction he's headed is straight to the pen, especially af- ter he's caught in a raid by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ex- cept, the DEA gives him a choice: go to prison for 22 years with no chance of parole or become an undercover informant. While it may seem almost too good to be true, there's no deny- ing that this story did, in fact, take place. The born-again infor- mant is none other than Charles Falco, a burly man whose ex- ploits as an undercover operator for the DEA and Bureau of Alco- hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Ex- plosives in three of the most no- toriously dangerous biker gangs in SoCal are the stuff of legends. In 2013, Falco published a memoir detailing his rise as an undercover agent titled "Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infil- tration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs." Now, History has created a six-episode fact-based drama that draws its material from the book and Falco himself, and offers viewers a look inside the life of this zero-turned-hero of sorts. With only one episode left, it's time to hunker down as "Gangland Undercover" brings the chills and the thrills when the season finale airs Tuesday, March 31, on History. Falco is a fascinating man. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he saw his life take a turn for the worse that landed him at rock bottom. After being contracted by the ATF to infiltrate the Vagos in 2003 (and later the Mongols and Outlaws), he quickly rose through the ranks of the biker gangs and gathered evidence that led to 62 total arrests. Now, due to the nature of his past ef- forts, Falco is in the witness pro- tection program. This, however, doesn't stop him from actively being involved in telling his story — spearheading "Gangland," writing for the show and even appearing before each episode. "Right from the start, he was available to me," "Gangland's" star Damon Runyan ("One Starry Christmas," 2014) told TV Me- dia. "In preparation for the role, I could contact him at any point. When we were doing the exteri- or shots in Arizona, he came down and he was accessible to all of us. I still talk to him pretty much on a daily basis now." Paulino Nunes ("The Firm," "Bitten") — who plays Schizo, the primary antagonist in "Gangland" and the Vagos pres- ident — says that he first met the real-life Falco when they were shooting in Arizona and was struck by how cool he was. "He's a really super nice guy," he said in the same interview with TV Media. "I know that sounds like a kind of banal thing to say, but ... it's not necessarily what you'd ex- pect. It was really cool meeting him, and it was hard to reconcile the guy you were meeting with the guy in the book and the guy who did all that stuff." "All that stuff" being some truly horrific and gruesome acts he had to witness and commit, including beating up rivals, watching Vagos bikers kill rivals and civilians, sell- ing drugs and even going to prison for an assault committed by anoth- er Vago, where he had to suffer Paulino Nunes in "Gangland Undercover" Going 'Undercover' History tackles the true story of undercover informant Charles Falco 2 | Cover story CHANNEL GUIDE Comcast Walton Cable- Vision Sammo ns of Indiana Tipton Cable TV Oak Hill Cable Swayzee AT&T U-Verse

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