The War Ciro Chooses in Gomorrah
Spoilers follow for the first season of Gomorrah.
Attilio dies in the first episode of Gomorrah fighting a war that Don Pietro Savastano decided to start. He was the closest thing Ciro Di Marzio had to a father. Pietro wanted to put Salvatore Conte in his place, and by the end of the episode Conte is alive and on his way to Spain. Ciro is the one who has to live with what the decision cost. Remember Attilio when you get to “Gelsomina Verde,” eight episodes later. Once again, an attack on one of Conte’s people threatens to bring the two clans to war. This time Ciro is the man who wants it to happen. It takes most of the season for him to get there, and somewhere along the way he comes to believe he’s better at thinking like a boss than the people who’ve been giving him orders.
Pietro teaches him plenty about the job, mostly by letting him see the mistakes up close. When Genny can’t bring himself to finish a killing, Ciro does it for him. Genny gets a motorcycle for passing his father’s test. Ciro, once Pietro finds out, is made to drink urine to prove his submission. It’s a vile scene, and what makes it stick is how little Pietro seems to understand about the man in front of him. Ciro has just demonstrated how much the family depends on him to cover for its heir. Pietro sees a subordinate who needs reminding of his place. And while he’s busy looking for a traitor, he settles on Bullett’, one of his own veterans. By the time Pietro is arrested, Ciro is already at a pay phone, on the verge of betraying him. The season gives us that moment early. Ciro’s obedience has been hanging by a thread for a long time.
Imma is harder to dismiss. She sees that Genny is unready, takes charge while Pietro is in prison and sends Ciro to Barcelona to make peace with Conte. Ciro comes home with the agreement Pietro’s war could never have delivered, and finds that Imma has used the intervening time to secure her own position. She eventually puts him in charge of a new drug-selling spot. He takes it as an insult. From Imma’s side, giving a capable man responsibility for a valuable part of the business makes sense. From Ciro’s side, he’s just handled a negotiation that will shape the future of the whole clan, and here he is being handed a corner of it. Then Genny comes back from Honduras. He’s learned a few things himself, as the election in Giugliano shows. Ciro still expects the friend he once covered for to give him a place at the top. Genny has his own men now, and Ciro has to absorb the fact that the old friendship counts for less than he thought.
That’s what makes Tonino Russo’s murder in Episode 9 feel like a culmination. Tonino is one of Conte’s trusted men and has a stake in Genny’s development deal. Ciro sees what his bosses have missed about the position they’ve left him in. The man they send to clear an obstacle to the deal knows enough about both sides to wreck it, and he knows the veterans have doubts about Genny that they’ve so far kept to themselves. By the time Genny asks Ciro to find Tonino’s killer in the next episode, Ciro has already decided what kind of crisis Genny is going to face. Later, when Genny calls for retaliation and the younger men agree while the veterans object, you can see how accurately Ciro has read the room. It’s easy to imagine him looking at that split and thinking he’s been doing the hardest part of the boss’s job for years.
Gomorrah gives that realization an ugly echo. Genny got a motorcycle when Ciro did the killing for him. Daniele gets a motorcycle and money when Ciro gives him a killing to do. Daniele spends some of the money on an engagement ring for Manu, and later, after Ciro kills her, he recognizes the ring from a description on the news. Ciro has spent the season learning how it feels to be useful to a man who thinks he can spend your life. He remembers what Pietro’s war cost him. By the ninth episode, he has the confidence to start a war of his own, and it’s Daniele who finds out what Ciro thinks somebody else’s life is worth.