Scripted series about real-life serial killers tend to be hit and miss because the shows’ creators are always tempted to lean the story towards the more macabre and sensationalistic. That feels like what we get with a new Italian drama about one of that country’s most notorious murderers.
Opening Shot: “June 19, 1982.” A car goes down a desolate road in Florence late at night.
The Gist: A young couple park on that desolate road and have sex in the back of their car. Soon after, they notice a man walking up on the car with a gun. They try to escape but the man shoots both of them, killing the woman instantly and gravely wounding the man.
While at the scene, ADA Silvia Della Monica (Giulia Battistini) tells her boss, “It’s him again.” “Him” is the Monster of Florence, a notorious serial killer who just claimed his eighth pair of victims, starting in 1974 but clustering around 1981 and 1982. Prosecutors and the Carabinieri are no further along in their investigation than they were in previous years, so Della Monica decides to let the public know that the male victim, who would eventually succumb to his injuries, described the shooter — it’s a lie, but it’s one described to prompt the killer to make a mistake.
Another new approach is to see if there were any similar killings prior to 1974. After searching case files, they find the 1968 double murder of Barbara Locci (Francesca Olia) and Antonio Lo Bianco (Claudio Vasile). They were also found shot in their car on a similar lovers’ lane-type road. The bullets ended up being from the same exact gun used in the more recent murders.
They call in Stefano Mele (Marco Bullitta), who was convicted of the killings but is now in a halfway house after serving over a decade in prison. Barbara Locci was his wife, and Antonio was one of her many lovers, so it was assumed it was a crime of passion. While reluctant to relitigate the killings, Mele does start to open up once he’s told that the same weapon was used for the murders that took place while he was in prison.
We flash back to their fateful wedding in 1959, when Barbara was literally a runaway bride, then the next year they bring in Salvatore Vinci (Valentino Mannias) as a roommate to help make ends meet, but we also see Salvatore force himself on Barbara, who gets pregnant. Eight years later, Salvatore’s brother Francesco (Giacomo Fadda) comes around, and his attention empowers Barbara to step out on Stefano whenever she wants. On the fated date with Lo Bianco, her son Natalino was in the back seat of the car, and he eventually tells police that his father took him to a neighboring house to get help, which is when Stefano was told by his family to take the fall for the killings.
Photo: EMANUELA SCARPA/NETFLIX
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Stefano Sollima (Suburra) and Leonardo Fasoli, The Monster Of Florence falls somewhere between the sincerity of Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy and the sensationalism of Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
Our Take: The Monster Of Florence is a grim series that tries to dig into the origins of the Monster, and try to divine who is really behind these murders, especially given that the case remains unsolved to this day. It makes for a confusing narrative that ping-pongs back and forth in time, going back to aspects of certain suspects’ lives in an order that’s perplexing to us.
Where the issues come in is in telling the stories of Stefano Mele and Francesco Vinci. Both of their relationships with Barbara Locci are told in such disjointed fashion that we’re left scratching our heads about what everyone’s motivations are.
Our first glimpse of Barbara and Stefano is seeing her running away in her wedding dress, but then we see him essentially being a cuckold, letting other men boss Barbara around and have sex with her with his knowledge. What was behind the seemingly arranged marriage and the affairs? And how did Barbara transform once Francesco came into her life? Both aspects are going to be examined in subsequent episodes, but it seems like that should have been laid out in more of a sequential order so the first episode made more sense.
Sollima (who also directed) and Fasoli’s writing staff weren’t shy in showing just how these young couples were killed. The way Barbara and Antonio were killed, for instance, seems especially grim to eyewitness, especially because Barbara’s 8-year-old son was sleeping in the back seat at the time. It’s hard to say that the grimness is unnecessary, given that this is a portrait of a serial killer that ultimately never got caught.
Photo: EMANUELA SCARPA/NETFLIX
Sex and Skin: There is certainly sex, but none of it is sexy.
Parting Shot: Francesco comes home after the shooting in 1982, and listens to the news report about one of the victims describing the killer. His wife asks him when he came home.
Sleeper Star: It’ll be interesting to see the transformation of Francesca Olia’s character Barbara during her tumultuous marriage to Stefano.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pretty much all of the police and prosecutors feel interchangeable to us, which might speak to how many law enforcement officials actually worked on the case.
Our Call: SKIP IT. The Monster Of Florence is a depressing slog of a show that feels exploitative at times and disjointed at others.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
