‘Suburra: Blood on Rome’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: Livia and Let Die

How confident in its storytelling is Suburra: Blood on Rome at this point? Confident enough to introduce purple as a signature color for Livia Adami during the episode in which she dies, then paint the whole world with it as her brother Aurelio gives her a burial at sea.


Confident enough to reunite its three main characters early in its second season’s run for the express purpose of doing something long overdue: teaming up to kill Samurai, the taciturn Roman crimelord who’s been screwing with all their lives like a capricious deity from the start. Not just planning to do it, either—deciding to do it, tonight.


And confident enough that even though it seems unlikely that our three amigos would succeed in taking out the show’s number-one villain in episode three of Season Two, the death of Livia in the previous episode (at Samurai’s hands, no less) is enough to make us in the audience believe that anything could happen. In other words, it’s exactly as confident as it deserves to be.

Of course, the Samurai situation doesn’t quite go down the way the boys hope, though not for lack of trying. I’m not sure why this ep is titled “Closer,” exactly, but certainly both Spadino and Aureliano come thisclose to assassinating Samurai, on two separate occasions. Their plans were rock solid, and the moment was there for each—Spadino during a reconnaissance mission to Samurai’s beloved stables, Aureliano during a subsequent attempt to intercept Samurai when he and his men burn Sara Monaschi’s refugee camp to the ground to reclaim the Ostia real estate it’s built on. Only dumb luck kept the man alive.

Dumb luck, too, seems to have kept Sara alive as well. On site when Samurai’s men hit the camp, she succumbs to smoke inhalation while desperately trying to escort people to safety from the out-of-control fires. (To be fair, Samurai only intended to burn parts of the camp where no one was sleeping, more to avoid having the land roped off as a murder scene than anything else, but still.) Her ex-boyfriend Lele happens to spot her, and with Spadino’s help, they pick her up and carry her off to safety.


This sets up the possibility of a new united front between the three hoodlums and the one-time power broker. Samurai had already threatened her by the time he torched the camp, but her new contact at the Vatican, Cardinal Nascari, blew her off. (Samurai’s own pet cardinal tells him Nascari can’t be bought, and Nascari seems a little too proud of this fact.) Now Samurai has seen Aureliano open fire on him with his own eyes, so all four are likely in his crosshairs. Hitting him again is the best insurance for the whole gang.

On a thematic level, the introduction of the politics of immigration into the storyline is some pretty heady stuff for a show that has typically relied more on tension and emotion for fuel. Most likely there are nuances specific to Rome that a yankee like me is missing. (Was I the only one thrown for a loop that the Sicilian and Roman mobs’ preferred political partners are on the Left rather than the Right?) But there’s something fitting about the show’s characters using these people almost entirely as pawns in a chess game with the Ostia development deal in the balance.

Indeed, Adriano, the xenophobic sports radio guy, is horrified by his apparent one-time father figure Samurai’s actions at the camp. “This has nothing to do with ideals!” he yells at the old man. Honestly the idea that a guy who makes his living demonizing immigrants would balk at actually physically harming them doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when you apply the lessons of the last two years of American history, but within the world of the story it makes sense. Adriano is the only character approaching the issue from an actual political perspective, even if it’s a shitty one.

The show’s actually pretty deft at using the camp to reveal character. In addition to Adriano’s righteous rage at its destruction, Aureliano straight-up stops in the middle of trying to assassinate the most powerful crime boss in the city when a lost little girl runs up to him; it seems like he’s about to drop everything to try and help her find her family when someone scoops her up. Earlier, when Cinaglia, who’s in the middle of a right-wing rebrand, comes to confront Sara about the refugee camp, he’s on the outside of the fence with the howling mob of racist protesters; almost no sooner does he turn around that Samurai appears to confront her too, only he’s on the inside. The message is pretty clear: Amedeo is not yet the kingmaker he wants to be, while there’s no structure in the city Samurai can’t infiltrate.


Elsewhere, while Livia may now be out of the picture permanently, Angelica, her opposite number on the Anacleti side of things, is coming into her own. She’s on the verge of getting tossed out of the family compound by matriarch Adelaide for her role in helping Spadino free Livia when she figures out a way not only to stay in the inner circle but move closer to the center: She brokers a deal with her father’s own powerful Sinti Roma crime family to pony up the cash the Anacletis need to buy their way into running the Ostia territory from Samurai now that the Adamis have been swept aside.

She’s not the only woman making money moves either. Cristiana, Lele’s underling in the police department, is starting to suspect something’s strange about her inexplicably high-ranking young boss. A conversation with his late father’s former partner (in work and romance) reveals her suspicions are correct: Gabriele has not inherited some mystery informant from his old man who gives him intel on the Adamis, any more than being the son of a slain cop accounts for his quick rise through the ranks. So she does a little Spadino-style recon of her own and spots Lele receiving his marching orders from Samurai’s right-hand man Saverio.

And though I’m pretty sure she’s gone unnamed within the show itself at this point, aspiring young gangster Nadia Gravone, daughter of the man Aureliano clipped in the premiere (everyone kills everyone else’s dads on this show, people deal with it, shit happens), aids her once (and future?) boss in stealing back the drugs and guns her own cousins stole from the Adamis. Rather spectacularly, in fact.


It’s not all people dying and crying and refugee camps getting burned down—sometimes people drive cars through windows too. And while I’m going to miss Livia a lot (seriously, great character, great performance, great look, great voice, you name it), Cristiana and Nadia and especially Angelica all seem like they could take on a similar female-frenemy role for the core trio. I’m excited to see how it all shakes out. I’m excited to see more Suburra, period.


Stream Suburra Blood On Rome Season 2 Episode 3 ("Closer") on Netflix