‘Suburra: Blood on Rome’ Season 2 Episode 2 Review: Sister Midnight

One of Suburra‘s many strengths, and the one most responsible for making it such a strangely endearing show regarding its dirtbag characters —other than the fact that they’re all played by incredibly beautiful actors I mean— is how emotional it is. I think I’ve used that word every time I’ve discussed the show at any length, but it’s the only one that fits. There are so many shots of so many people quietly crying about losing other people while that lush, mournful theme hits in the background that you can’t help but feel something like what they’re feeling, you know? It’s the contrast between everyone’s affected tough-guy personas and their tendency to melt into sobbing puddles when they’re rejected or bereaved that makes you care.

“Consequences” (Suburra: Blood on Rome Season 2, Episode 2) counts on this. It drills right down into one of the series’ closest and most volatile relationships, and then ends it.

There’s a lot more to this installment than just the saga of the Adami siblings, but it’s the beating heart of the thing…and maybe some other body parts besides. The idea that Aureliano and his big sister Livia have had an incestuous relationship at some point or another has been teased throughout the series, more through body language and facial expressions and line readings than through anything explicit. By the end of the first season I wondered if my Lannister-addled brain had just dreamed the whole thing up. But the flashback that opens this episode reveals that Livia, at least, once had designs, at least, on such a relationship.

And you can read an entire encyclopedia between the lines of her interactions with Aureliano as he holds her prisoner, following her hand-delivery to him by Spadino and Lele last episode. “That day changed everything,” she says regarding the day they kissed—hard to imagine it was a well the two teens did not return to. When they list the things they’ve been to one another over the years—brother and sister, friends, bosses—there always seems to be something they’re pointedly leaving out. The introduction of purple, the color of royalty, as Livia’s signature hue by director Andrea Molaioli calls to mind the…complex familial relations of such families throughout history, too.

Alessandro Borghi and Barbara Chichiarelli are dynamite in these roles, needless to say. Particularly strong: the scene in which Aureliano leads Livia to an abandoned building in the middle of a forest (the green trees are another new thing for the show in terms of mood and palette), tries to execute her as she tries only to apologize for killing his girlfriend rather than begging for her own life, and winds up firing wild on purpose, collapsing to the ground and gagging from the stress of it all as she runs over to comfort him. Yes, she runs over to comfort the man who was about to murder her. They’re pretty close.

Realizing that he can’t kill her, Aureliano swerves 180 degrees, as is his wont. (Seriously, his mercurial nature is one of the things people can always count on where he’s concerned. Elsewhere in the episode, Spadino tells Lele he’s concerned that Aureliano will never trust them again because “We had an argument.” “Everyone argues with Aureliano,” Lele sighs in response.) He decides they will rule Ostia together: “Me and you. Against everyone.”

Their joint rule is tragically short-lived, however. While the younger generation—Aureliano, Livia, Lele, Spadino, and Spadino’s wife Angelica—are all on the same page about returning Livia to her brother rather than holding her captive in the Anacleti compound as a bargaining chip for the Roma crime family’s plan to move up the food chain, their elders certainly aren’t. Spadino’s mom Adelaide, the family’s acting boss, immediately rats them out to the big man himself, Samurai, who personally breaks into the Adami compound to force Livia to sign over their land to him at gunpoint. (Spadino and Lele knew this was coming and planned a police diversion so they could sneak in and protect the Adamis, but all they wound up doing was drawing the family guards away from the house as Samurai and his goon Saverio arrived first.) Aureliano and Samurai exchange words, but before long, Samurai gets tired of talking.

The murder of Livia comes as a huge shock this early in the season. The whole thing started with her return to Rome to atone for the crime she committed last season, right? No way they’d kill a central character this quickly, right? Here’s where that emotional connection comes in. We’re nearly as shocked and appalled as everyone else.

The other storylines proceed apace, of course. Buoyed by his surprising showing in the mayoral election, Amedeo Cinaglia seems poised to go against not only the wishes of Samurai, his Sicilian partners, and the powerful political kingmaker the Countess but also his own political background by throwing his support behind the xenophobic Right rather than the Left in the runoff election to come. We learn that Adriano, the local sports-talk radio guy who rants about immigration all the time and seems like a key player in Cinaglia’s pending political transformation, has some kind of long-standing relationship with Samurai, whom Saverio calls “the man who raised you” when he’s sent by Samurai to shut the shock jock up about the Ostia land deal. And Sara Monaschi winds up with a stake in the deal again quite unexpectedly, when Cardinal Nascari, the Vatican’s new pointman on refugees in Rome, unilaterally sets up a refugee camp for her to run right in the middle of the Church’s former land holdings in Ostia, which haven’t quite finished changing hands.

But Livia and Aureliano are the stars of this episode, no question about it. And it’s a genuine shock to see one of those stars go out.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

Stream Suburra: Blood On Rome Season 2 Episode 2 ("Consequences") on Netflix