If there is a flaw to underline in The Bad Guy 2 it is that the second season was released too long after the first: the two years that passed between the debut on Prime Video of the Italian TV series starring Luigi Lo Cascio and his return with a new applause season had erased a good part of the memories, the plot, the characters, the twists and in general the pathos that we had experienced in 2022. We know and understand the reasons for certain timing, even if we would like the houses Of production were able to somehow shorten the waiting times between one season and another.
The ending of The Bad Guy 2, however, made us want to rewatch the first season, to be sure of one thing. And after this rewatch we can say that not only did the screenwriters of the series Ludovica Rampoldi, Davide Serino and Giuseppe G. Stasi forget anything, but that they had actually foreseen everything from the beginning, as a precise detail confirms. But first, a brief explanation of the ending of The Bad Guy 2.
What happens in the finale of The Bad Guy 2
Halfway through the episode there is an exchange at sea between Luvi and Major Testanuda on one boat, who deliver the cassette with Mariano Suro’s archive, and Nino/Balduccio with Teresa and his men on the other boat, who deliver Fiume, the nephew of Minister Marmora, who accepted the kidnappers’ offer after seeing a piece of ear with his nephew’s DNA in an envelope delivered to him by the mafiosi. But Luvi immediately discovers that Fiume did not suffer any cuts to his ear. Instead, it is Nino who cut off his ear, on which he then placed drops of the child’s blood, taken with a small needle.
In any case, Nino discovers that Testanuda gave him a fake cassette and becomes desperate. Luvi sends his location to Leonarda who finds them and shoots Testanuda in the leg, managing to take back the cassette with the archive, which she gives to Luvi to deliver to Nino.
Nino/Balduccio therefore leaves Wowterworld, Teresa and the others thinking that thanks to the diffusion of the tape he will be able to go back to being Nino Scotellaro, while Luvi will end up in prison for aiding and abetting. The two spouses therefore spend one last night together, at home and out and about, having sex, drinking, dancing and having fun like in the old days.
But when they return home they are surprised by the revived Testanuda, who has discovered that he has been deceived and now points a gun at Luvi to get the archive from Nino. When he hesitates, Testanuda immediately makes it clear that he is not joking and fires a shot at Luvi’s head, who falls dead to the ground. This unleashes Nino’s anger, and he attacks the major. Who, despite being trained in fighting, at a certain point trips due to the cast on his leg and hits his head against a nail in the wall. At that point Nino recovers after being knocked out, gets up and kills the soldier played by Stefano Accorsi by hitting him with all his strength with a bedside table. And after this it is very difficult for our hero to return to being the anti-mafia magistrate. But then again, we already knew that, didn’t we?
How The Bad Guy began
In the first scene of the first season, in fact, we saw Nino/Balduccio barricaded in the farmhouse that we saw in this second season, surrounded by the ROS led by his sister Leonarda. Who orders him to get out, while a mine has hit and mangled the legs of poor Nicola, Leo’s Apulian colleague.
Leonarda tells the mafioso “You know who I am and I know who you are, so get out now because otherwise your sister might pay the price.” But Nino continues to do push-ups, eat curls and smoke a cigar, while Franco Battiato’s White Flag plays. And this is where you have to be careful, if you want to have proof that the authors of the series had already foreseen everything.
Nino’s ear at the beginning of The Bad Guy
Because in the entire scene of this flash-forward, from the future finale of the series, Nino’s right ear is never framed even for an instant, the one that will partially mutilate itself by passing it off as little River’s ear. The left ear is shown several times, and the hair gathered behind the neck shows it to us in its entirety, but the other ear is never seen. All expected, as well as – shortly after – the song “Se Telephone” which serves as the soundtrack to the failed blitz to capture Suro during his kidney transplant. The same song written on the case of Suro’s archive, because that blitz fails due to a phone call from Luvi, which in fact is resumed shortly afterwards with an expression that, two years later, we understand perfectly.
