S01.E05: V LUCIO

[AnimeMania]

Ensconced in a lovely Rome apartment, Tom's perfect life is threatened by the arrival of an unexpected visitor.

Premiere Date: April 4, 2024      Netflix   

[KatBee]

Disappointed that there was not much activity in this forum for Ripley, I popped over to Reddit to see if there was a going discussion following my viewing of episode 6. The first thread that came up had a huge spoiler in the title (which also said “spoiler alert” but didn’t hide the actual spoiler). I am not being dramatic when I say this has ruined my day. Avoid Reddit until after you finish the whole series. 😡

[Sweet-tea]

Thanks for the warning. I'm also surprised there aren't more comments. I just finished episode 5. I saw the movie long ago and don't remember if the details are the same, but it appears Ripley is getting sloppy. 

Edited April 22, 2024 by Sweet-tea

[Jordan Baker]

I loved this episode. I found myself in the strange position of wanting Tom to succeed. Or maybe it's just that I was relieved when he finally accomplished his goal. This is not how I usually react to conmen/murderers!

The suspense in this one was off the charts. And how great a prop is that elevator? And the stairs, each of which let out a great bonk each time the head connected with it?

Andrew Scott continues to mesmerize me. This is, IMO, an Emmy-winning performance.

 

 

 

[candle96]

On 4/30/2024 at 12:00 PM, Jordan Baker said:

I loved this episode. I found myself in the strange position of wanting Tom to succeed. Or maybe it's just that I was relieved when he finally accomplished his goal. This is not how I usually react to conmen/murderers!

The suspense in this one was off the charts. And how great a prop is that elevator? And the stairs, each of which let out a great bonk each time the head connected with it?

Andrew Scott continues to mesmerize me. This is, IMO, an Emmy-winning performance.

 

 

 

That is exactly how I felt - somehow wanting him to get away with it, but then not also? I saw the movie years ago but honestly don't remember how it all ends. 

I kept thinking every time Freddie's head bonked on the stairs - pick him up by the shoulders to avoid all the blood from the head on the floors! Haha, as if I have any experience moving a dead body. 😳 (thankfully, nope!)

[mbgriffith1]

That Freddy character was so obnoxious and completely miscast (I didn't for one second buy that he was a man - note to Hollywood, don't cast nonbinary actors to play cisgendered characters...) that I was very relieved when he was killed off.  

[Blakeston]

I despised the Freddie character in the movie, but this version of Freddie didn't seem like a bad guy to me.

He looked down his nose at Tom, but I think that's at least in part because he correctly intuited that Tom was bad news.

I didn't really buy that he would turn his back on Tom like that, though, after revealing that he was coming back with the police. He seemed way too savvy to do something that stupid.

[sugarbaker design]

The closing shot of the cat's pawprints in blood on the white tile was amazing!

[Wonderlad71]

That cat was such a casting coup!

Ripley is a real psychopath !!

All that blood in black and white!!! 

The architecture/aqueducts in chiascuro - really sublime!!!

 

[SoMuchTV]

On 6/5/2024 at 4:56 AM, Wonderlad71 said:

On 6/3/2024 at 9:30 AM, sugarbaker design said:

The closing shot of the cat's pawprints in blood on the white tile was amazing!

 

On 6/5/2024 at 4:56 AM, Wonderlad71 said:

That cat was such a casting coup!

Ripley is a real psychopath !!

All that blood in black and white!!! 

The architecture/aqueducts in chiascuro - really sublime!!!

As I watched, I thought, that stands out - the red blood in an otherwise black and white series. But now I’m questioning whether my mind filled in the color and it actually was black and white!  

And, no, of course cats aren’t judging us!

Edited June 22, 2024 by SoMuchTV
Meant to quote two posts instead of one, messed up slightly when I tried to fix it

[sugarbaker design]

2 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

But now I’m questioning whether my mind filled in the color and it actually was black and white!  

And, no, of course cats aren’t judging us!

I remember it as black and white kitty paw prints.

[meep.meep]

I just watched it - the pawprints are in red.

I keep wondering why no one is concerned about the Picasso going missing, as well as what Tom intends to do with it.

[Tiggertoo]

Good work, kitty!  I loved the paw prints in red.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

The clerk at American Express who served Tom when he picked up the check for the sale of Dickie's boat under his own name noticed that he has now claimed to be Dickie when picking up the box of painting supplies, even though she was serving a different customer.

The women in Tom's orbit (Marge,  Ermelinda (Dickie's housekeeper), the AmEx clerk) are much more suspicious than most of the men, except for those who commonly deal with con men eg Carlo (the Mafioso) and the watch repairman. I suppose Freddie might be the exception, except that he seems to have hung out with less savory types in NY than Dickie did.

I also forgot to mention the earlier parallel moments when Tom was very surprised that Dickie didn't recognize the taxi scam, and Dickie was shocked that Tom (seemingly) didn't recognize that Carlo was a dangerous guy to get mixed up with.  I was also expecting the Picasso to be stolen in the near future, even before we had seen Carlo's warehouse of stolen goods.

 

[aghst]

Tom has some refined tastes or is trying to develop some, with Dickie's money.

I thought he'd pawn Dickie's ring, watch, cigarette case, pen, etc. but no, he gets the watch fixed so he could wear it.

Of course Freddie knows that it's Dickie's Rolex and loafers that Tom is wearing.

So confronting him and threatening to bring the police was going to get him killed with the "excellent choice" crystal ashtray.  Tom isn't just a fraudster as he learned from an American mutual friend, he's obviously capable of much worse -- not to mention Freddie is a little too light in those Ferragamo loafers to be threatening most other men.

The early episodes established that Tom was miserable before being plucked to enter this Greenleaf orbit, a small-time grifter posting as a collection agency man making a couple dozen bucks per mark, while his bathroom had unreliable water and was overflowing with back-up sewage.

His lifestyle expectations really raised up once he got some of that Greenleaf money, even before leaving NY when he went to Brooks Brothers to pick up new clothes, including that tell-tale ghastly robe -- we have to take the word of the characters that the color is as garish as they said.

He was not going back, not when papa Greenleaf cut him off, not when Dickie was going to cut him loose.

Was he improvising or was his plan to impersonate Dickie after killing him a slow burn?  Because clearly he improvises every day in his exchanges with strangers and acquaintances and the biggest improvisation was killing Dickie, who was leaving and Tom grabbed the ash tray, which he didn't plan to use as a weapon when he bought it.

As for the Picasso, this is taking place in the '50s or the early '60s.  That painting was a Cubist painting, after which he became like a superstar for the rest of his life, which lasted decades more after the Cubist period.  I thought it was funny that Tom and Carlo both feigned ignorance of what it was.

The art market back then wasn't as crazy as it is now but they had to know it was very valuable.

 

 

 

Edited January 16 by aghst