The Cigarette Butt
Episode 4 of Il Processo sees us jump back 10 months earlier where we return to Elena grilling Linda surrounding her whereabouts that night and her ill feelings toward Angelica. This inevitably spills into the phone call she made to her Father asking for help but Linda bites back, questioning just why Elena is getting so involved in this case. After this, we then cut back to the present where Ruggero scouts out the white catering van and contemplates the best way to handle this situation. It’s here we return to the court-room for the sixth hearing. Mr Monaco is next up on the witness stand and Elena probes him surrounding the phone call he received from Linda the night of the party. She admitted to feeling sad but he didn’t press and question why. As Elena continues, she goes on to insinuate he may have known what was going on. After Lorenzi left the country earlier in the day for Brazil, it looks suspicious that his Head of Security left in the middle of this trial. She brings this up with him and questions why Lorenzi phoned him at 12.02am. It’s certainly a bit suspicious and as she brings this up, she goes on to suggest that he checked on Linda Monaco and he “fixed” the situation by buying off those who knew what Linda had done, including Lorenzi. It turns out Mr Monaco actually has properties in Brazil too and given his head of security has left there, it’s another dark mark over his name. Monaco loses his temper in the court-room and this paints him in a really bad light too. It’s not a good start for Ruggero and in private, Mr Monaco tasks with breaking the rules going forward. He speaks to Linda and tells her she needs to tell him everything that happened but instead, she walks away from him leading Ruggero to try and work out the best way of pursuing the case from here. Things go from bad to worse for him too, as he and Mara learn that an incriminating piece of evidence from the crime scene points at Linda being guilty. Given the cigarette is a crucial piece of evidence, Ruggero prepares for the worst in court. February 10th sees us cut forward to the next witness called to the stand – Andreoli, after Ruggero decides not to cross-examine the DNA from the forensic expert. He talks to the court about finding Angelica’s dress and the heroic story of the cigarette butt. Given Linda claimed to have never been in the garden, this evidence clearly contradicts this. Ruggero stands up and questions Andreoli over his story and spins it into fabrication given there were no witnesses to corroborate what he saw. Given he has no experience in forensics or murder scenes before this one, Ruggero saves his final knock-out punch for last. He asks whether Andreoli collected the evidence using sterile gloves and a bag… which he unfortunately did not. Given he tampered with the evidence completely, it basically makes the entire case built around this useless. In the aftermath of this bombshell reveal, Andreoli realizes how much he’s messed up and apologizes profusely to Elena. It’s not enough though and she suspends him immediately. Even worse, when she speaks to Fabrizia, she suspects that there’s a mole in the department which is why this line of questioning was pursued. After Elena confronts her Father, where we learn she gave up Angelica when she was 18 years old, she throws herself into Stefano’s arms and makes love as a way of hiding her pain. Only, it turns out someone is snapping photos of her from afar. As the episode closes out, Ruggero heads back to the prison and admits he’s been watching Linda for a long time, professing his feelings to her and admitting the real reason he’s doing this. With another love-making scene (I’m guessing this will be a consistent trend every episode now) and more melodrama, Il Processo instead takes a slightly different approach this time, showing a lot more of Ruggero and allowing his point of view to come across. It’s certainly something that softens that abrasive attitude we saw so much of during the first episode and in doing so, allows a more human side to shine through. The biggest drama is definitely what’s going on inside the court room though and learning Andreoli tampered with the evidence, regardless of whether he had the best intentions or not, is something that really puts a black cloud over the case. As both our lawyers become emotionally invested in this case and lots of drama to come, the door is left wide open for the second half of this drama to follow.
