What's the Italian for bad plans, again?
Jan. 28th, 2026 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessHotel Portofino - 3.6 Masquerades
Danioni, his thugs and the dogs, especially the dogs, made enough of a noise that they woke Marco, who changed and escaped to the rooftop, rather impressively.
Nearly everyone else was preparing for the party, though Constance and Lucian were still having a fight over whether he could remain himself and be a cold-blooded killer, and Cecil was putting plans in place by inviting Danioni to the party for his purposes, even though Bella would hate it, and Danioni was planning to invite himself to the premises with a warrant to look for Marco anyway.
Bella’s pitch with the Monsieur the money man (and his daughter) was pushed earlier, and turned out to be a tour de force. The name of the company was Sorelle, and would be named Sisters in the language of each territory. His daughter was impressed, he was impassive. Amelia was supportive.
Alice was given a shiny green gown from ‘Carlo’ and the caricature of a party planner dictated that she had to wear it at some point in the party. I was mainly obsessing over her opening the box on the floor of the entrance hall.
Lucian’s preparations (for what can barely be dignified as a plan) mainly revolved around his gun, and Varit, as his room-mate, saw where he hid it. Lucian would later force Varit to dress up and come to the party, pretending everything was fine for Bella.
The party started on the grounds, guests started arriving, and then the uninvited: Luca turned up and asked Constance to marry again, leaving the ring with her. (This was a foreshadowing of what happened to Bella’s ring, but, really, couldn’t Signor Impatient wait for more than a couple of days for her to change her mind? This felt like it was just there to ramp up the tension, not a credible action by the character.)
Marco came to the edge of the party to explain what had happened to Bella, who confidently said he could stay in her lab, because there was only one key, so he’d be safe. Cecil had a word with Jack, who was hidden in one of the guestrooms – you have to do a lot of ‘it was busy’ handwaving to believe that so many people were wandering about unnoticed.
Next Danioni and his blackshirts turned up, to put the lie to Bella’s assurance, and she saw both the warrant and the invitation (thanks, Cecil!) Billy suggested a way of getting the blackshirts away, at least, and guilted Vito as his future stepfather into lying to his blackshirt cousin. It worked up to a point, although there were still blackshirts about, and Danioni ordered at least one of them to search the hotel.
Carlo arrived, reassuring Bella that his friends the police were coming…tomorrow. Cecil invited Danioni for a word. Lucian caught wind of this and followed them into the hotel, and saw through decorative glass that his father handed Danioni a lot of money and Bella’s ring, but then Jack appeared with chloroform, subduing Danioni. Cecil just watched, and then had to watch as Jack pointed his gun and Danioni’s at him and took the money. Cecil complained, but really, he shouldn’t have been surprised at the double cross. Jack told him to deal with Danioni himself.
Cecil did eventually, carrying Danioni through the kitchen and out across the grounds and to the sea. Apparently nobody saw this except for Lucian. He only made himself known at the jetty, stopping Cecil from putting Danioni into a rowboat by claiming he was going to shoot him, because he’d killed Nish – something Cecil hadn’t known previously. Except the Lucian Constance loves/Bella’s son couldn’t do it, when it came to it. He told his father he shouldn’t kill Danioni either. From the sofa, I observed that if Cecil was going to, he should really tie Danioni’s hands up, because the man was sure to come to at the most inopportune moment. Truly, the Ainsworth men showed English amateurism at its worst when it came to killing.
Lucian returned to the hotel, told Constance he wasn’t a killer, but he still had to leave Portofino – the memories of the place were too painful. She agreed. Off they went to pack, and he returned his gun to the box under his bed.
Cecil was rowing the boat out to sea and dropping Danioni into it as Claudine sang and danced a mildly anachronistic song, Alice came on in Albini’s fancy green dress, showing off Claudine’s new perfume. Amelia had finally got their cantankerous father to the party, Bella was doubting they’d hear anything about the business deal that night, but Claudine turned up with a hefty cheque and a deal. Bella’s father grudgingly said the right things about Bella’s achievements.
Bella then bumped into Lucian, who, thinking Danioni was as good as dead, told her that now was a good time for Marco to leave, as he was doing. A roaming blackshirt had just broken the door to the lab when he was called away, so she was able to lead Marco out and send him away. Also getting a romantic moment? Carlo and Alice, who had decided to forgive her man for calling her a horse if he gave her such nice dresses, or something. If I’d seen Alice be sisterly this episode or series, I would be buying her redemption arc a bit more.
The reason the blackshirt had been called away? Danioni had come to just as Cecil was celebrating having drowned him, pulled Cecil into the water with him, resisted his attempts to drown him again, and made such a ruckus that his men had been alerted. Cecil had got picked up as he returned to shore, and a still living Danioni was going to get him hanged, I think.
Lucian had just spotted Constance and Tommy waiting for him where they’d arranged when he heard shouting. For of course, Varit, who had said he was still furious that his Nish’s body was where it was, had found and taken the gun, and had as good a reason as Lucian to want him dead, and having renounced his faith, with less to live for (by which I mean no Constance) was determined to avenge his big brother. But he went about it by marching into the party armed and started shooting like someone who wasn’t used to guns. The blackshirts were used to guns.
Bella and Lucian rushed towards the action, trying to stop it, and Lucian got shot – pretty badly. His parents flew to him, Cecil calling for someone to call a doctor, then, as they were staunching the bloodflow, realised Bella had been shot too. Constance, bidding Tommy to stay put, had followed the sounds, and she, like a solitary Alice, saw Lucian bleed out, leaving a howling Bella in Cecil’s arms.
SO MUCH DRAMA. And for much of it, the wheels within wheels – the multiple plots to kill Danioni, all for understandable reasons, even if I thought every plot had glaring problems, interacting, as well as all the other drama – worked together well. I kept expecting Jack and Claudine to cross paths, but they didn’t!
There were glimpses of hope: Lucian having that moment where he could see a happy future lying ahead of him – Constance and Tommy about to join him now, his mother believing Carlo’s associates could make it safe for him to return – perhaps to Nish’s cremation, before it all turned. The father and son seeing each other more clearly for who they were!
That it all went wrong was, of course, down to human nature and suggested that wily Danioni, representing fascist Italy, had accumulated enough power to avoid justice for now. There were other bits that worked slightly less well, (I thought that the fact that actual blackshirts had crashed the party might put a dampener on Claudine’s business ventures.) But it was pretty gripping, and paid off a lot of things that have been set up since the show started.
I suppose the moral is that if you have guns, you really should put them away where grief-stricken brothers can’t get at them. Also, don’t be a fascist or take out a loan to invest just because your posh son-in-law says the stock market is a sure thing.
Will there be another series? I dunno. The attention has shifted from golden boy Lucian, to a recognition that the women really drive the action, with Cecil (and others) representing the awfulness of the patriarchy, and Danioni representing the awfulness of fascism. Bella – who should recover from her gunshot wound – has lost a second son, Cecil is probably going to face the law as is Varit if he’s still alive (only with even more racism.) There is the question of whether Carlo’s friend will come through, whether Alice and Carlo can get through this, whether Betty (and a shattered Constance) will end up marrying Italians. And Marco, Vito and Luca etc are probably no more fascists than Paola is, but I’m screaming, ‘Get out of Italy now’ at all the nicer English people (Cecil and Bella’s father don’t belong to that group.) Though the setting is in fact this show’s trump card – the sea was so vividly blue behind Lucian and Constance in one of their scenes.
Danioni, his thugs and the dogs, especially the dogs, made enough of a noise that they woke Marco, who changed and escaped to the rooftop, rather impressively.
Nearly everyone else was preparing for the party, though Constance and Lucian were still having a fight over whether he could remain himself and be a cold-blooded killer, and Cecil was putting plans in place by inviting Danioni to the party for his purposes, even though Bella would hate it, and Danioni was planning to invite himself to the premises with a warrant to look for Marco anyway.
Bella’s pitch with the Monsieur the money man (and his daughter) was pushed earlier, and turned out to be a tour de force. The name of the company was Sorelle, and would be named Sisters in the language of each territory. His daughter was impressed, he was impassive. Amelia was supportive.
Alice was given a shiny green gown from ‘Carlo’ and the caricature of a party planner dictated that she had to wear it at some point in the party. I was mainly obsessing over her opening the box on the floor of the entrance hall.
Lucian’s preparations (for what can barely be dignified as a plan) mainly revolved around his gun, and Varit, as his room-mate, saw where he hid it. Lucian would later force Varit to dress up and come to the party, pretending everything was fine for Bella.
The party started on the grounds, guests started arriving, and then the uninvited: Luca turned up and asked Constance to marry again, leaving the ring with her. (This was a foreshadowing of what happened to Bella’s ring, but, really, couldn’t Signor Impatient wait for more than a couple of days for her to change her mind? This felt like it was just there to ramp up the tension, not a credible action by the character.)
Marco came to the edge of the party to explain what had happened to Bella, who confidently said he could stay in her lab, because there was only one key, so he’d be safe. Cecil had a word with Jack, who was hidden in one of the guestrooms – you have to do a lot of ‘it was busy’ handwaving to believe that so many people were wandering about unnoticed.
Next Danioni and his blackshirts turned up, to put the lie to Bella’s assurance, and she saw both the warrant and the invitation (thanks, Cecil!) Billy suggested a way of getting the blackshirts away, at least, and guilted Vito as his future stepfather into lying to his blackshirt cousin. It worked up to a point, although there were still blackshirts about, and Danioni ordered at least one of them to search the hotel.
Carlo arrived, reassuring Bella that his friends the police were coming…tomorrow. Cecil invited Danioni for a word. Lucian caught wind of this and followed them into the hotel, and saw through decorative glass that his father handed Danioni a lot of money and Bella’s ring, but then Jack appeared with chloroform, subduing Danioni. Cecil just watched, and then had to watch as Jack pointed his gun and Danioni’s at him and took the money. Cecil complained, but really, he shouldn’t have been surprised at the double cross. Jack told him to deal with Danioni himself.
Cecil did eventually, carrying Danioni through the kitchen and out across the grounds and to the sea. Apparently nobody saw this except for Lucian. He only made himself known at the jetty, stopping Cecil from putting Danioni into a rowboat by claiming he was going to shoot him, because he’d killed Nish – something Cecil hadn’t known previously. Except the Lucian Constance loves/Bella’s son couldn’t do it, when it came to it. He told his father he shouldn’t kill Danioni either. From the sofa, I observed that if Cecil was going to, he should really tie Danioni’s hands up, because the man was sure to come to at the most inopportune moment. Truly, the Ainsworth men showed English amateurism at its worst when it came to killing.
Lucian returned to the hotel, told Constance he wasn’t a killer, but he still had to leave Portofino – the memories of the place were too painful. She agreed. Off they went to pack, and he returned his gun to the box under his bed.
Cecil was rowing the boat out to sea and dropping Danioni into it as Claudine sang and danced a mildly anachronistic song, Alice came on in Albini’s fancy green dress, showing off Claudine’s new perfume. Amelia had finally got their cantankerous father to the party, Bella was doubting they’d hear anything about the business deal that night, but Claudine turned up with a hefty cheque and a deal. Bella’s father grudgingly said the right things about Bella’s achievements.
Bella then bumped into Lucian, who, thinking Danioni was as good as dead, told her that now was a good time for Marco to leave, as he was doing. A roaming blackshirt had just broken the door to the lab when he was called away, so she was able to lead Marco out and send him away. Also getting a romantic moment? Carlo and Alice, who had decided to forgive her man for calling her a horse if he gave her such nice dresses, or something. If I’d seen Alice be sisterly this episode or series, I would be buying her redemption arc a bit more.
The reason the blackshirt had been called away? Danioni had come to just as Cecil was celebrating having drowned him, pulled Cecil into the water with him, resisted his attempts to drown him again, and made such a ruckus that his men had been alerted. Cecil had got picked up as he returned to shore, and a still living Danioni was going to get him hanged, I think.
Lucian had just spotted Constance and Tommy waiting for him where they’d arranged when he heard shouting. For of course, Varit, who had said he was still furious that his Nish’s body was where it was, had found and taken the gun, and had as good a reason as Lucian to want him dead, and having renounced his faith, with less to live for (by which I mean no Constance) was determined to avenge his big brother. But he went about it by marching into the party armed and started shooting like someone who wasn’t used to guns. The blackshirts were used to guns.
Bella and Lucian rushed towards the action, trying to stop it, and Lucian got shot – pretty badly. His parents flew to him, Cecil calling for someone to call a doctor, then, as they were staunching the bloodflow, realised Bella had been shot too. Constance, bidding Tommy to stay put, had followed the sounds, and she, like a solitary Alice, saw Lucian bleed out, leaving a howling Bella in Cecil’s arms.
SO MUCH DRAMA. And for much of it, the wheels within wheels – the multiple plots to kill Danioni, all for understandable reasons, even if I thought every plot had glaring problems, interacting, as well as all the other drama – worked together well. I kept expecting Jack and Claudine to cross paths, but they didn’t!
There were glimpses of hope: Lucian having that moment where he could see a happy future lying ahead of him – Constance and Tommy about to join him now, his mother believing Carlo’s associates could make it safe for him to return – perhaps to Nish’s cremation, before it all turned. The father and son seeing each other more clearly for who they were!
That it all went wrong was, of course, down to human nature and suggested that wily Danioni, representing fascist Italy, had accumulated enough power to avoid justice for now. There were other bits that worked slightly less well, (I thought that the fact that actual blackshirts had crashed the party might put a dampener on Claudine’s business ventures.) But it was pretty gripping, and paid off a lot of things that have been set up since the show started.
I suppose the moral is that if you have guns, you really should put them away where grief-stricken brothers can’t get at them. Also, don’t be a fascist or take out a loan to invest just because your posh son-in-law says the stock market is a sure thing.
Will there be another series? I dunno. The attention has shifted from golden boy Lucian, to a recognition that the women really drive the action, with Cecil (and others) representing the awfulness of the patriarchy, and Danioni representing the awfulness of fascism. Bella – who should recover from her gunshot wound – has lost a second son, Cecil is probably going to face the law as is Varit if he’s still alive (only with even more racism.) There is the question of whether Carlo’s friend will come through, whether Alice and Carlo can get through this, whether Betty (and a shattered Constance) will end up marrying Italians. And Marco, Vito and Luca etc are probably no more fascists than Paola is, but I’m screaming, ‘Get out of Italy now’ at all the nicer English people (Cecil and Bella’s father don’t belong to that group.) Though the setting is in fact this show’s trump card – the sea was so vividly blue behind Lucian and Constance in one of their scenes.
