Warning… Contains spoilers!
Another night of captivating viewing as I finished up Season 4 of the Italian crime drama, Gomorrah.
Admittedly, I don’t know much about the world of organized crime which, as suggested in the fictional Gomorrah, usually takes place in the shadows. But after a confusing and traumatic encounter with a professor some years ago, I wanted to know how things really work, behind all the spin and lies we hear in the media.
I’m not so naive as to think that crime shows tell it like it is. They’re just fiction. Gomorrah is a dramatization for everyday people like me. It’s a story. One apparently not just playing on the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah but on the Italian organization known as the Camorra, which Wikipedia notes goes back to the 17th century.
If interested, read this excellent article, replete with an interview snippet from Cristiana Dell’Anna who plays Patrizia, who incidentally meets her end at the close of Season 4.
It was hard for me to feel any sympathy for Patrizia when she was killed by Genny, mostly because she was complicit in killing a couple of cops moments before her escape, even smiling in relief as she was driven – so she thought – to her freedom. And previously she killed two youngsters who messed up after she gave them a break, trying to show that she was the boss. But I think the youths could have been warned once more, maybe taken off their dealing spots for a while, instead of being shot dead at point-blank range.
Patrizia turned out to be a rose with thorns and not a very insightful boss. By the time she died, I was liking the character less and less and my primary interest was in the performance of Cristiana Dell’Anna, who plays the part impeccably.
We don’t know if Patrizia ratted on Genny in prison or not. That is left somewhat ambiguous but logic suggests she did. Still uncertain, Genny’s wife Azzurra insists that Patrizia must die because she’s been arrested and will likely spill the beans. Genny doesn’t want to kill Patrizia but eventually comes to agree with Azzurra. At least, that’s how I read it. Genny holds his cards pretty close to his chin. We rarely know what he’s thinking.
Genny reminds me a bit of Tony Soprano. As “antiheroes” we can almost begin to like them and then they do something so horrible we’re left in shock. That’s the power of stories like this. They pull you in and then, bam, you’re horrified again. After all, Patrizia was pregnant and knowingly or not, Genny makes sure the unborn child dies too.
Read related reviews here: https://epages.wordpress.com/?s=Gomorrah
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