It was a good decision to separate the first two episodes of the second and last season of Romanzo Criminale which entered a significant new phase with the third shown on Tuesday evening October 2nd in the UK. A feature of this series is that there are few good people. The time setting of the series coincides with the discovery of Roberto Calvi
’s body found hanging under a bridge in London, the then Chairman of the Italy’s largest private bank which collapsed and was known for being the Bank used by the Vatican, the Mafia for laundering money and infamous Masonic Lodge P2 regarded as a state within a state with the most prominent and well known figure the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlosconi, one of whose publications was behind the criminally obtained photos of Duchess of Cambridge while she and her husband were on holiday.
The episodes open with men from the Italian security services filming a prominent Italian Member of Parliament enjoying a bondage and sadism session at the brothel operated by Patrizia the woman companion of Dandi, one of the key figures in the Rome drug distribution gang. This coincides with a raid by the Police Commissario whose purpose was to put pressure on its manager to yield the dirt on Dandi and other gang hierarchy and to yield to him. The discovery of the Member of Parliament being filmed enabled the Government officers to be arrested and charged with attempted blackmail and the tape of the session held as evidence. When the Member of Parliament requests the tape and the Commissario refuses despite the offer of being made a police chief, the girl involved changes her story and says the film was being made by the subject for his private use, this part of the case has be dropped and the film handed over. We know that the girl was offered a significant amount of money to change her story and the same again if the outcome was the return of the tape. However it does not lead to the release of the security men who are told they will stay in prison for a time by their immediate boss so as to keep below the radar.
The holding in custody, a feature of the Italian system without bring to trial for up to a year is one to perils of travel in that country/ Patrizia is stripped and examined on arrival in custody and Dandi keeps his distance. When her only visitor apart from the Commissario is her faithful assistant who presses Dandi for news about getting her out of prison and if he has a message for her. Dandi says she is always in his thoughts which the Commissario says means she must fend for herself. Dandi is prepared to abandon his woman when the Mafia make doing so and finding himself a proper wife a condition of their intention to make him head of the Rome drug distribution. When the Inspector decides that she can be released on bail and Dandi goes to meet her she tells him to get rid of the flowers he has brought and then drives of in the car he has travelled. She then calls on the Inspector and takes him to a hotel for sex. She is not yet done with Dandi.
Meanwhile Dandi is apprehended by the former Drug distribution king for a major part of Rome who still provides the Gang with their Cocaine supply, Sardo, of the Sardinians who supplies via the Comorra of Naples and area, Mafia like but with a single hierarchical command. He demands a doubling of his take and control of the area previously operated by the assassinated Lebanese. He tells Dandi that their problem is Freddo and demands that Dandi helps them get rid of Freddo by bringing him to them. Dandi who I think is tempted by the offer, given the likelihood he would be taken out if he refuses is also approached by the rest of the gang who had previously waited in his home uninvited to express their discontent that a woman and someone previously unconnected with them had been put in control of the sector previous controlled by the Lebanese. Dandi tells the other members he has a solution.
Freddo arrives on his motorcycle separate from Dandi in his expensive racing type car and while Freddo is frisked for a weapon Dandi is allowed his because of Sardo’s intention they should take Freda out. Instead Dandi shoot Sardo dead in the head while the rest of the gang have come through woods and fencing and take out the guards. The price for Freddo release is Lebanese’s sector which is to be shared. Freddo tells the girl offering her to manage his area. She refuses. Suggesting that he is no longer in charge.
Whether it arose from his night with Patrizia, the Commissario gets a warrant to inspect the offices of the Ministry where at the ground level with an external door and locked armoured door behind which is the arsenal of the gang. The security man, paid to the keep door closed. is able to identify that all the members of the gang used the facility but they are tipped off and disappear before they can be arrested. They go in hiding to a place used by Sardo where they are contacted by the Comorra and invited to the meeting with the head to discuss business; Instead he demands to know what happened to Sardo or who was responsible for his disappearance. They have two days and they take Freddo as prisoner who will be killed if their concerns are not resolved.
Dandi first uses the girl friend of the “Kid“, killed in the attack on the Deputy chairman for the Mafia in relation to the P2 and Bank scandal. She is tasked to contact the child of the security guard who continues to go to school while his father and mother are in protective custody. She gives the boy a message whispered in his ear which had the desired effect. He retracts his statement alleging that the only person with whom he had contact was the Lebanese. He is released on bail but will still go to prison because he provided the place for the weapons for significant payment. However this means the rest of the gang are able to return to Rome without fear of immediate arrest.
However the security officer is not off the hook because those examining the weapons discover that the gun used to kill Leban is one of those found. As the Inspector tells the security guard, how is it the weapon found its way back, by a ghost? Someone must have asked the security guard to open the door!
Dandi approaches the Mafia to see if they are willing to help secure the release of Freddo. They ask him to do a favour via a third party. This is to kill Nemo, one of their mutual associates and weapons expert. They do not tell Dandi but Nemo and the Kid were responsible for the taking out of Lebanese for the Mafia. They tell Nemo to disappear because the gun has been found as well as the gun used in the attack on the deputy bank manager and other killings. Dandi appears to decline because he does not know who the third party is. He gets Nemo to arrange an immediate fresh gun supply in exchange for new identity documents which he pays a source exceptionally well to deliver quickly.
Nemo secures the required weapons from a Professor a Fascist who has accumulated weapons for an uprising, They pay him 2 million lire despite his wanting 4. Dandi insists the young man accompanies them on an arrange exchange for Freddo. The rest of the gang and Nero are under the impression they are about to go to war with the Comorra to get Freddo back. However Dandi is showing himself worthy of being groomed to be the new King of Rome by the Mafia. He shoots Nemo in front of the Comorra saying the man was responsible for the death of Sardo.
He suggests to the Don, the head criminal, that surely it would be better that the gang is allowed to peddle their drugs throughout Rome than engage in war. The head recognises how ruthless and single minded Dandi has become and accept the deal releasing Freddo.
They return to the Sardo hideaway where news comes that the security has changed his story and they can return to Rome in time to witness the last moments of the World Cup 1982 in which Italy beats Germany 4.1 leading to wild celebrations throughout Rome. Dandi gives the rest of the gang the explanation why he sacrificed Nemo without making reference to the Lebanese, although Nemo had admitted that he had pulled the trigger for the Mafia. He sends Freda home knowing that he has saved him twice from death recently.
He calls on the girl to thank her for doing the set task and she says it was a test because he suspected she had said where their guns were being held. She tells Dandi to look closer to home, suggesting to us that she knows it was Patrizia, Dandi leaves saying that Freddo is home and alone without anyone to celebrate the World Cup win. He seems to now be in control of the girl.
Meanwhile the Inspector has recognised the girl in two photos associated with surveillance of the gang and starts to keep personal watch seeing Dandi arrive and then leave. He then tails the girl as she makes her way to the home of Freddo and through a window sees the couple begin to have sex. Dandi meets the Mafia and wants to know why Lebanese was killed. He is told that Lebanese had become mad and out of control. In any event he was taken out to make it easier for Dandi to become the new King of Rome a title which they now officially crown him. He asks, “what of Freddo,” and the reply is that this is for Dandi to decide. It is a night for celebration and not for questions.
In the fifth episode the disintegration of the original gang and the elevation of Dandi in terms of personal wealth and potential power under the direct control of the Mafia continues. He is offered a land deal which involves the purchase of a substantial area of farming land which will yield tremendous returns when Italy gain the World Cup and which they did in 1990 thus suggesting the Mafia money was behind the decision and also the selection of sets including new ground developments. Over the series we have seen the private accommodations of the gang members and their associates improve exponentially in terms of locations, sizes and quality of furnishings including original artwork. This was the era when internationally the Mafia and other criminal networks and known to have intensified their move into legitimate business in which to launder their criminally obtained money primarily from drugs, gambling, prostitution and human trafficking.
A side story is one of the members of the gang who has invested heavily in a supermarket run by his father in law, Perfumery for his wife and another enterprise but as no elementary business skills fails to keep up with bank loan repayments and is threatened with foreclosures if he does not come up with 200 million lire a modest some say around 100000 euros given the millions of euros involved in the drug trade alone. He turns to everyone except Dandi and then agrees to torch the supermarket but the insurance refuses to pay based on the assessment that the blaze was professionally ignited. He eventually turns to Dandi who agrees to the give him the money but takes two of the premises in exchange leaving him and his wife with the perfumery.
The main story of this episode is the fate of the two gang members in prison because of the failed attempt to kill the man they believed was responsible for the death of Lebanese and when Dandi got cold feet in the get away car and drove off. Freda has a plan well used by others to have is closest ally declared unfit to plead and moved to a psychiatric institution from which he can expect to be discharged within a couple of years compared to the 30 anticipated from the charges. Freddo is confident because the psychiatrist appointed by the court is known for being bribable. Unfortunately before he can submit his report the Mafia decide that he is to be killed for taking money from a number of sources other than they authorise and they ask Dandi to arrange this but Freddo insists that they wait until after the submission. The man is nevertheless found dead and the two gang members are sentenced to 24 and 28 years respectively.
Freddo is incensed and accuses Dandi who denies that he killed the man so Freddo orders everyone to go out and find who is responsible. By this time the girl previously taken on to run Lebanese territory, but removed when Dandi saves Freddo from the Comorra, advises a name in the territory of other gang members where the takings are down 30% allegedly because someone is also selling drugs from a different source.
Freddo then discovers that the man was actually killed by his new girl friend paid for by Dandi who is able to say he did not kill the man himself. Freddo realises that he is no longer dictating what the gang should do, moreover one of the men sentenced effectively to life imprisonment tells Freddo that it was not Gemito and his brother who killed Lebanese as the gun came from their own arsenal of weapons, something which Dandi knew and kept from him and the others.
Meanwhile those controlling the area with the taking down, kill the man fingered by the girlfriend despite being told to bring the man to Freddo, suggesting that it one of the area controllers who in fact as been selling drugs from another source and now covering their tracks. Dandi remains convinced, rightly, that it was Patrizia who revealed the location of their weapons arsenal in retaliation for being left in prison on the orders of the Mafia as he is told to get himself a regular wife and family. He learns that her homosexual assistant and friend has been sighted in Accona and he arranges for associates to lean on the man to reveal the whereabouts of Patrizia. He finds her running a flower shop and expresses contempt for her and her friend. She sends him packing. Back in Rome Dandi is enjoying a new level of company attending “sophisticated” parties during which he meets and beds an attractive woman from Sweden. They are interrupted by Patrizia who had decided to come back to Rome because she misses the highlife. But she warms Dandi that if he betrays her again she will betray him again to the police. The episode commences with Dandi in prison and being stabbed by one of the men he abandoned at the attempted Gemito killing. It is a nightmare. As is the state of the original gang, one dead, two in prison, one sidelined others with major problems and Dandi another instrument of the Mafia and the Comorra. The near becomes more close.
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