Gomorrah – Season Three

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read this if you haven’t already seen it!

Cristiana Dell’Anna who plays Patrizia

Now that Gomorrah is streaming on a few networks, I thought I’d mention some of the highlights that jumped out for me in Season Three. Most notably, we have two very strong woman characters, Annalisa (Cristina Donadio) and Patrizia (Cristiana Dell’Anna).

Annalisa is a hardened, mature woman whom just about everyone hates. Her glittering androgyny and roughhouse humor are hard to miss and make for compelling viewing.

Patrizia begins as the ‘nice girl’ who doesn’t really want to get into a life of crime but after being coopted by her uncle, gradually finds she has a talent for it. By the end, I wasn’t sure just what Patrizia was up to. She was fooling everyone until she made it painfully clear whom she betrayed and to whom she remained loyal.

Not just because she’s still young and pretty, Patrizia is a fantastic study. Her icy cold walk, propped up on f*** me pumps, and her perpetual stoneface compel us to search for cracks in her psychological armor. We don’t see those cracks too often. Only perhaps when she blasts someone dead from point-blank range.

Genny and Annalisa

Meanwhile, another favorite of mine, Ciro, bites the dust in Season Three. I knew this was coming because one night I mistakenly inserted the Season Four DVD and watched for a while until I clued in that I had jumped ahead a couple of seasons. But knowing that Ciro was going to meet his maker didn’t really spoil it for me. His death comes quite unexpectedly and is full of drama.

Ciro was so bored with life by the time of his death that he was almost like a Buddha in his detached calm. He felt nothing really mattered other than doing what he should do, even if that meant dying.

Ciro (cap) talks with Blue Blood

This is interesting, coming from a crime drama because it encapsulates an essentially religious idea that we should do whatever we must, regardless of the consequences. In Hinduism, for instance, we often hear the phrase “Action Without Fruit,” meaning that we fulfill our dharma (right action) without considering the worldly rewards or punishments that may follow. And in Christianity, we hear of saints who willingly went to their deaths to do what they believed was right in the eyes of God.

The right thing? Right action? How can I discuss these ideas in a review of a bitter crime drama? one might ask.

On that point, we have to consider the possibility that some ‘criminals’ see themselves in a very different light than the standard take on crime. Criminologists say they may justify their behavior on the basis of several factors. Many have suffered a past of discrimination by the moral majority and seek revenge (e.g. some early immigrants in New York City). Others discover their unconventional talent and pursue all that capitalism can provide. And another view is that organized crime really isn’t so different from mainstream politics. Both may resort to extreme measures when certain ideals and territories are threatened.

Returning to the ‘scene’, Ciro helps to free a young woman captured as a sex slave

In fact, I would venture to guess that crime syndicates reach far deeper into legal society than most of us would imagine.

You never really know and these players are usually careful to mask and cover. Some may spend a lifetime living a life of duplicity, even take ‘respectable’ jobs, and in extreme cases fall in love and marry innocents who haven’t a clue what they are getting into.

Gomorrah is pretty dark and gritty. Like all TV shows, I need to be in a certain frame of mind to watch it. But when I do, it is engaging. Not only the performances but the cinematography are light years ahead of most hokey North American crime dramas.

Check it out if you have any interest in a fictional account of how those street gangs we hear about in the news actually get their drugs.

Patrizia and Annalisa

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