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defensefilms · 2 years

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Reviewing The 5th And Final Season Of Gomorrah

*WARNING: THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS MAD SPOILERS*

Sad to see this show come to an end but it had to end.

As the 5th season begins, Gennaro Savastano is still on the run from prosecutor Ruggieri, who almost came within an inch of getting Patrizia, Gennaro’s most trusted employee, to turn on him, but moreover, Gennaro Savastano is literally and figuratively, in a hole.

He has literally taken to living underground to avoid being seen, and from a business perspective, he is as isolated as he has ever been with many of his block bosses ready to look elsewhere for new supply.

Ciro’s death in the finale of season 3, coupled with Patrizia’s betrayal in season 4, and the attempted takeover by Gerlando Levante’s family, thought to be Gennaro’s last remaining relatives, has all left Gennaro a tad bit desolate.

And add to that, his wife won’t speak to him.

But make no mistake, Gennaro is not a sympathetic figure. He’s a mob prince turned mob kingpin. About as far from relatable as a man can possibly be. Guy went from rich to richer and keep this in mind because it’s going to matter as far as the alliances that are formed later.

Among the things that are very real, and/or genuine, about Gennaro, was his affinity for his best friend, Ciro Di Marizio.

When Gennaro finally gets the prosecutor off his back, thanks to an alibi provided by his wife, Azzura, he wipes out what remains of the Levante clan and then sees to it that some of the their co-conspirators meet the same fate, and it’s here that Gennaro finds out that Ciro Di Marizio is still alive.

While you are more than welcome to have your doubts, given how tired this trope is, you have to bear with me because the writers of this show took it, and absolutely gave it new life with how much subtexts it adds to the themes of this show in it’s 5th and final season.

When the two are reunited, Gennaro appears to embrace Ciro and even talks about bringing him back in to the fold and “taking over the world” again.

When Ciro refuses, he proceeds to calmly sit back as his bestie is kidnapped and taken to what looks like a dog pound to be kept as a slave, because he dared to try to establish any kind of independence from Gennaro.

See that’s the major difference between Gennaro and Ciro.

The reign of the Savastanos, both Pietro and Gennaro, has been particularly brutal and treacherous.

Forgiveness doesn’t exist in the Savastano realm and what cannot be controlled, or manipulated, must be destroyed. There is no room for oxygen at the top of this pyramid and it’s an all-or-nothing game with anyone and everything the Savastano’s come in to contact with.

Contrast this with Ciro, whom upon freeing himself, seeks out SangreBlue, the man thought to have killed him, and allies with him.

This in itself shows the differences between Gennaro and Ciro.

Gennaro could never allow SangreBlue to live even if his reasons for “killing” Ciro were justified, and indeed SangreBlue is still on the run from Gennaro and his business partners in season 5, having lost his territory due to not having any supply because he trusted Patrizia.

That type of benevolence doesn’t exist in Gennaro’s world.

In fact, while Gennaro and Ciro’s relationship is very much built on loyalty, and the two have always insisted that it was them against the world, and that they are two peas in a pod, the way friends do, this season showed they are, in fact very different people.

I mentioned how treacherous Gennaro’s time as a mob kingpin had been, but it has also been efficient, pragmatic, adaptable and reliable. His business partners knew that he could come through, no matter what.

But the drawback of this, is a man who allows his need to control, and moreover his desperation, to get in the way of what is actually best for him, his business and his family.

He makes an unnecessary enemy out of the Gentlemen’s wife when he cannot accept the Gentlemen’s refusal, and that turns out to have long term consequences but also speaks to Gennaro and the Savastano way.

What we are watching, are two conflicting styles of leadership.

Gennaro’s being the more traditional, pragmatic, business-minded, and at times even corporate, leadership style.

Ciro’s style is one that borders more on kinship, loyalty, and most of all, belief.

While Genaro gives his business partners confidence, Ciro gives his closest allies faith, and these things are, in fact, very, very different.

Gennaro’s allies back him because they think his triumph is the likeliest outcome, Ciro’s allies having nothing but a belief in the idea that a man once thought to be dead, is said to have come back to life, and this turns Ciro into something of an urban legend and a unifying force against the Savastanos.

Gennaro has had many different foes throughout five seasons of this show.

He went to war with the old time mobsters in Rome, and claimed one of their daughters as a prize. He built his drug empire up again at a time when it seemed that no one could possibly control the block bosses of Naples, and one-by-one, he has eliminated the top bosses of his father’s generation.

None of those people were like Ciro.

His old foes were leaders because of their business savvy, their charisma, their money, or their legacy/ family name.

That is nothing like a guy that people believe to be immortal. A guy that fills them with belief in something outside of themselves.

Gennaro’s defeated foes always had someone that would turn on them for the right price. Ciro’s followers appear to be operating on blind faith and an out of place sense of moral justice, much like the Gentlemen’s wife.

As it turns out, it’s way harder to pay people off when they’re fighting for something other than money.

The politics of Gomorrah have always been fascinating to observe or ponder, and this season, it really feels like the writers were more ham fisted in depicting how each situation, or new scenario forces a kind of compromise that otherwise wouldn’t be ideal.

That’s not new as far as this show’s themes are concerned, the difference is for a change it actually harms the Savastano clan in a way that Gennaro cannot recover from.

His decision to trust the Monk and bring him in to the fold of his organization is arguably his worst mistake in the war against Ciro, and he completely misreads The Mistral’s devotion to his wife, a decision that weakens him severely in his war effort.

He also unnecessarily makes an enemy out of Nunzia, who ironically browbeats Gennaro about a lack of respect for his elders and the dead, which pretty much sums up Gennaro better than most.

Up to this point, Gennaro’s leadership is the tried and tested, immovable institution of the criminal world. It’s as set in stone as the monarchies of King Louis the great, and as expansive and as robust as the Roman Empire before Christ. It is the hegemonic power of it’s day.

But even empires have limits.

The Soviet Union, Germany in World War 2, and yes, even the Roman Empire, all collapsed because it is not practical to wage war on two different fronts, and in the same way, Gennaro simply had too many enemies.

Compare this with Ciro, whose leadership is like socialist democracy in action. He unites what remains of his own loyalists with SangreBlue’s that remain in Forcella, then allies with Gentlemen’s wife for financial backing.

However that doesn’t mean Ciro is free, and his unholy alliance with the Gentleman’s wife, is the constant theme of his life and it is really unironic at this point, how his own goals always clash with those in power, leadership, or in this case, positions of leverage.

Ciro really only wants to take down the Savastano clan and claim Naples as his own. The Gentlemen’s wife wants to go a few steps further than this, and Ciro is in the same pattern, he’s always been in, doing the bidding of more powerful forces even when he’d rather not.

Gennaro’s price to pay is that he is betrayed by those closest to him, in very much the same way as he had encouraged those that eventually betrayed his foes in almost every conflict he’s ever been involved in.

See, Ciro and Gennaro, are reunited at very different points of their narratives in this 5th and final season, and for as intelligent, pragmatic and resourceful as they are, neither truly attains what they set out for.

Gennaro is not venerated as the gangster-turned-businessmen, and in doing so also legitimizing his family, and thus becoming the greatest of the Savastano line.

Ciro doesn’t attain any sense of freedom or independence. HIs proletariat visions of the common criminals ruling over the blocks of Naples are never realized.

Gennaro is at a point where years of controlling and monopolizing Naples’ drug market, compounded with the isolation of his time on the run, has resulted in him being pushed as close to breaking point as he’s ever been, as shown when he admits feeling overwhelmed to Azzura on a few occasions this season.

The demands of Gennaro’s business, his ambitions and his family life, stretching him thin before all coming together to contribute to his demise.

Ciro has reached where he is for very different reasons, which are explored better in a prequel called l’immortale, but Ciro realizes how good criminal independence could be, and this is the reason he does not return to Naples, even if Gennaro is his friend.

While Gennaro seeks to maintain control, Ciro seeks to dismantle and disrupt the old order, but the way he approaches this is with a sense of inevitability, a sense that what will be, will be, and always clouded in desperation.

You get the sense that this guy actually thinks he’s immortal.

Ciro assembling a ragtag group of dealers with no funding or arms, to take on the machine that is the Savastano empire, is a suicide mission, and Ciro approaches it with a brazen, devil may care attitude, that requires one to lose all regard for themselves before undertaking it.

In the end, for all the ways these guys differ, they still shared the same ending, and the series end the way it began.

Genny and Ciro in a hail of bullets versus everyone else.

I enjoyed this series more than any other television series in this decade, and it’s rare for there to be a show that I like as much as this given how narrow my tastes can be sometimes when it comes to television.

I mentioned earlier that there was a kind of follow up, with a show called l’immortale, which depicts what Ciro’s life was, in between being thought to be dead and reuniting with Gennaro in season 5.

it’s worth checking out for the Ciro fans like myself, but note to future producers of Italian television shows, don’t bother re-dubbing with English voice actors, the shows are better when dudes are speaking their native tongues and subtitles are still cool.

I don’t care what anyone says, SUBTITLES WILL NEVER BE OUT OF STYLE!!!!