Washed down by booze (not by me)
Jan. 3rd, 2026 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessHotel Portofino - 3.4 Experiments
The title to this post refers to the characters, particularly Cecil, whose episode started off badly as he learned how bad a hit his finances had taken from his stockbroker, and then it got worse. From his perspective, he was doing the decent thing wanting to ask his father in law whether he wanted to sell off or ride it out, but Bella quite rightly vetoed that, as the man had had a heart attack. (I would have liked to have seen Alice and Lucian acknowledge that their grandfather had had one, but we didn’t see the moustachioed one until halfway through the episode.)
Wedding no. 2 was off for Cecil, he had to lie to mollify his entitled fiancée and send her away to London, Danioni expected Cecil to cough up the mafia’s money, and then Jack from season 1 turned up (and I scrambled to remember what had happened with the picture.) Jack had a gun. Cecil had pretty much reached a point where he didn’t much mind if Jack used it on him, but eventually pointed him to Bella’s mother’s ring (which Danioni had specifically said he wanted back, which seems stupid, because his wife now knows it’s someone else’s property, even if she doesn’t know where her husband’s money and power have come from.) Bloodied and beaten, he encountered Bella and told her the truth, namely that he couldn’t pay for the divorce and the family pile was probably gone. But she had found photographic evidence of his infidelity and told him she’d be divorcing him as the injured party (which feels fair.) Really strong sense of the characters’ long, entwined history in their scene.
Bella wasn’t having a great time of it and also drunk a fair bit, as her sister was being horrible to her. Given what we’ve seen of him, I feel zero sympathy for Mr. Men Know Best and his snobbery making him invest borrowed money on Cecil’s say-so, and so he wants to save his business…for his untested daughter to ruin it? It seemed as if the sister was being a right old bitch, not letting Bella see her father, insisting she pay him back the loan for the hotel.
Claudine turned out to be a cod-psychologist, delving into the tension between the sisters, getting Bella to remember a time when they had been friendly, and then recalling how her sister’s wilfulness had led to her getting viral pneumonia and their mother catching it from her and dying. So, young Bella had been holding it against her sister, even though, as an adult, she could now see that her sister had been a child and it hadn’t been intentional. (It wasn’t clear which was the elder, I don’t remember if we’ve found that out.)
Bella, Claudine, Constance and Paola had been working on her potions at Vito’s lab, when Bella was called away by Alice (in fairness, because Danioni had marched into the hotel to ‘offer’ to buy it. Bella foolishly said she’d rather see it burn to the ground, probably giving him ideas.) Constance was nominally in charge, but Claudine and Paola thought they knew best when teacher was gone and mucked things up, using the last of the precious rose oil! Oh, noes!!!
As Bella was feeling the financial pressure, it was oh, noes for her, although on the longest night, she happened to use an orange to mix its juice with the booze she was drinking and got inspired to add orange to her concoctions. Remember when she was just an artistic businesswoman? Rather makes it hard to swallow that she’s now a chemistry whiz and Constance is her apprentice.
Perhaps to leaven some of this darkness, we had some business with Alice, Billy and a horse. Poor horse! Alice was clearly uneasy, Billy was pushing too hard, and had uttered the clunker that it was about earning trust (reminding us that horses are stand-ins for Albini). As Alice would later be really bitchy – through entirely truthful – to Lucian, she needs this redemption arc, and by the end of the episode, had talked herself into going to spend time with the horse, feeding it sugar cubes, while wearing unsuitable shoes, which, shoes aside, was probably a better idea than trying to ride it when she was clearly uncomfortable.
But we also had Our Betty doing war with The Italian Mama, who her future husband expected her to move in with (and though she was an older lady, on an Italian diet, you couldn’t just wait her out). Their field of war? Bread. Salvatore (who seems to be an excellent English-Italian interpreter) and Billy wisely refused to do the taste test, so both women had to pretend not to like each other’s bread. How I didn’t laugh.
Lucian and Varun turned up midway through the episode with Marco to follow one of Danioni’s henchmen, who Marco thought knew something about Nish. Marco said they’d have to beat him up, Varun wasn’t keen, Lucian wondered why Marco cared so much. Marco claimed it was anti-fascist sentiment.
Both Alice and Bella pointed out to Lucian that he was miserable (only one of them did so tactfully.) He’d had a moment where he’d seen Constance, turned around to speak to her and after saying her name, blethered some upper class English sounds. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t get him anywhere.
He accidentally saw and heard Bella confide in Marco, who said he loved her, and then Alice blabbed about the divorce. Unlike her, Lucian – who had a better idea of his father’s character – was all for it, and told Bella that she deserved to be happy (with Marco) too. He went off to find Constance, and saw her at Vito’s (where Bella had requested her to go, to work on the concoction with added orange zest that would make her £10,000), getting on well with him.
Jealous, he stormed off to meet Marco and Varun, abduct the henchman and try to rough him up. After hours of Marco’s efforts, Lucian decided it wasn’t good enough, imagined the guy was Vito and started pulverising him. The others tried to stop him, but he argued it would work, (erm, not sure about torture eliciting the best intel as a rule). On the episode it did, as the guy named Danioni as being responsible for Nish and Gian-Luca not coming back. (I’d forgotten that.)
Seeing violent!Lucian was a reminder that he is Cecil’s son, and Cecil too had turned violent out of jealousy. Although in this episode, we’d seen Cecil get beaten up – and though much of what he got this episode was just deserts, the violence had been A LOT. Non-violent Varun was clearly wondering what he’d got himself into.
I watched this last year!
The title to this post refers to the characters, particularly Cecil, whose episode started off badly as he learned how bad a hit his finances had taken from his stockbroker, and then it got worse. From his perspective, he was doing the decent thing wanting to ask his father in law whether he wanted to sell off or ride it out, but Bella quite rightly vetoed that, as the man had had a heart attack. (I would have liked to have seen Alice and Lucian acknowledge that their grandfather had had one, but we didn’t see the moustachioed one until halfway through the episode.)
Wedding no. 2 was off for Cecil, he had to lie to mollify his entitled fiancée and send her away to London, Danioni expected Cecil to cough up the mafia’s money, and then Jack from season 1 turned up (and I scrambled to remember what had happened with the picture.) Jack had a gun. Cecil had pretty much reached a point where he didn’t much mind if Jack used it on him, but eventually pointed him to Bella’s mother’s ring (which Danioni had specifically said he wanted back, which seems stupid, because his wife now knows it’s someone else’s property, even if she doesn’t know where her husband’s money and power have come from.) Bloodied and beaten, he encountered Bella and told her the truth, namely that he couldn’t pay for the divorce and the family pile was probably gone. But she had found photographic evidence of his infidelity and told him she’d be divorcing him as the injured party (which feels fair.) Really strong sense of the characters’ long, entwined history in their scene.
Bella wasn’t having a great time of it and also drunk a fair bit, as her sister was being horrible to her. Given what we’ve seen of him, I feel zero sympathy for Mr. Men Know Best and his snobbery making him invest borrowed money on Cecil’s say-so, and so he wants to save his business…for his untested daughter to ruin it? It seemed as if the sister was being a right old bitch, not letting Bella see her father, insisting she pay him back the loan for the hotel.
Claudine turned out to be a cod-psychologist, delving into the tension between the sisters, getting Bella to remember a time when they had been friendly, and then recalling how her sister’s wilfulness had led to her getting viral pneumonia and their mother catching it from her and dying. So, young Bella had been holding it against her sister, even though, as an adult, she could now see that her sister had been a child and it hadn’t been intentional. (It wasn’t clear which was the elder, I don’t remember if we’ve found that out.)
Bella, Claudine, Constance and Paola had been working on her potions at Vito’s lab, when Bella was called away by Alice (in fairness, because Danioni had marched into the hotel to ‘offer’ to buy it. Bella foolishly said she’d rather see it burn to the ground, probably giving him ideas.) Constance was nominally in charge, but Claudine and Paola thought they knew best when teacher was gone and mucked things up, using the last of the precious rose oil! Oh, noes!!!
As Bella was feeling the financial pressure, it was oh, noes for her, although on the longest night, she happened to use an orange to mix its juice with the booze she was drinking and got inspired to add orange to her concoctions. Remember when she was just an artistic businesswoman? Rather makes it hard to swallow that she’s now a chemistry whiz and Constance is her apprentice.
Perhaps to leaven some of this darkness, we had some business with Alice, Billy and a horse. Poor horse! Alice was clearly uneasy, Billy was pushing too hard, and had uttered the clunker that it was about earning trust (reminding us that horses are stand-ins for Albini). As Alice would later be really bitchy – through entirely truthful – to Lucian, she needs this redemption arc, and by the end of the episode, had talked herself into going to spend time with the horse, feeding it sugar cubes, while wearing unsuitable shoes, which, shoes aside, was probably a better idea than trying to ride it when she was clearly uncomfortable.
But we also had Our Betty doing war with The Italian Mama, who her future husband expected her to move in with (and though she was an older lady, on an Italian diet, you couldn’t just wait her out). Their field of war? Bread. Salvatore (who seems to be an excellent English-Italian interpreter) and Billy wisely refused to do the taste test, so both women had to pretend not to like each other’s bread. How I didn’t laugh.
Lucian and Varun turned up midway through the episode with Marco to follow one of Danioni’s henchmen, who Marco thought knew something about Nish. Marco said they’d have to beat him up, Varun wasn’t keen, Lucian wondered why Marco cared so much. Marco claimed it was anti-fascist sentiment.
Both Alice and Bella pointed out to Lucian that he was miserable (only one of them did so tactfully.) He’d had a moment where he’d seen Constance, turned around to speak to her and after saying her name, blethered some upper class English sounds. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t get him anywhere.
He accidentally saw and heard Bella confide in Marco, who said he loved her, and then Alice blabbed about the divorce. Unlike her, Lucian – who had a better idea of his father’s character – was all for it, and told Bella that she deserved to be happy (with Marco) too. He went off to find Constance, and saw her at Vito’s (where Bella had requested her to go, to work on the concoction with added orange zest that would make her £10,000), getting on well with him.
Jealous, he stormed off to meet Marco and Varun, abduct the henchman and try to rough him up. After hours of Marco’s efforts, Lucian decided it wasn’t good enough, imagined the guy was Vito and started pulverising him. The others tried to stop him, but he argued it would work, (erm, not sure about torture eliciting the best intel as a rule). On the episode it did, as the guy named Danioni as being responsible for Nish and Gian-Luca not coming back. (I’d forgotten that.)
Seeing violent!Lucian was a reminder that he is Cecil’s son, and Cecil too had turned violent out of jealousy. Although in this episode, we’d seen Cecil get beaten up – and though much of what he got this episode was just deserts, the violence had been A LOT. Non-violent Varun was clearly wondering what he’d got himself into.
I watched this last year!
