'Hotel Portofino' Recap: Season 2 Episode 6

Hotel Portofino is available to stream by WTTW Passport members. Recap the previous episode.  
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It’s the biggest party of the season. Farrino is opening his casino with an extravagant gala featuring a performance by Claudine, lots of alcohol, and plenty of gambling. Rose indulges heartily in the latter two. Once thoroughly drunk, she confronts Lucian and questions him on his aversion to her; he s that he doesn’t love her. You didn’t have to propose, she tells him sadly.

The gala feels like a vindication for Cecil. He triumphantly shows Danioni the hotel deed giving him majority control, and tells Farrino he can increase his shipments of whisky. Farrino says he’ll still need more, but in the meantime agrees to Cecil’s request to teach the architect Marco a lesson for taking an interest in Bella. The casino will let Marco win a few hands to make him confident, then stack the deck against him to make him lose it all.

Bella finds Rose distraught and tries to offer some advice, but just hurts Rose more by telling her that she spoke about her marital problems with both her mother Julia and Lucian. 

Lucian sees Danioni ordering some policemen outside the hotel on an operation and worries that they’re setting out to search for Anish and Gianluca, who are escaping that night. Billy knows where Gianluca is going to land after picking up Anish, so Lucian convinces him to take him there, even though Bella has requested that Billy stay at the casino to take any guests back to the hotel. Lucian will have to make his own way back, so that Billy can return to the casino.

Bella is worried about Rose, who has gone missing, so she and Alice try to check if she and Lucian went back to the hotel with Billy – but Billy is gone.

Cecil challenges Marco to a card game, offering a duel of sorts: if Cecil bows out first, he’ll go back to London. If Marco does, he can never see Bella again. Marco agrees.

Julia told Rose that she would disown her if she couldn’t make her marriage work. Rose has realized she can’t, so she is contemplating taking the only escape she sees: jumping off a cliff.

Claudine, reunited with her co-star and lover, warns Bella that Cecil and Marco are playing cards – probably over Bella. Victor is also in the game (as is Albani), and Alice is worried that her fiancé and Cecil might be at odds. 

Lucian meets Gianluca and Anish and warns them the police are out in force. In fact, they’ve already followed Gianluca, not that he knows. Lucian and Anish reluctantly part with a fond hug. 

Cecil goes all in at a signal from Farrino, just as Bella appears. Marco leaves the game without matching Cecil’s exorbitant bet, telling a grinning Cecil to keep the money Marco already won from him. Then Victor intervenes: he’ll call Cecil’s bet – and raise it exponentially. Cecil throws in the hotel deed to match the raise, to Bella’s horror. He reassures Bella that the game is rigged. 

It’s just rigged against him. Victor wins. 

Danioni follows Cecil out of the hotel, who realizes that Danioni was scheming against him. Victor was told by Farrino to go all in when he got a certain hand. Danioni tells Cecil he was in over his head – and he’s still stuck supplying whisky to Farrino, or else. 

As the police rush to find Gianluca and Anish, Lucian has to dive out of the way while on his way back to the hotel and injures his ankle. The police soon apprehend Anish and Gianluca.

Betty tells an exhausted Bella about Constance’s mother’s health, and the need to find a home for Constance’s son Tommy. Bella tells Betty to leave it with her.

She then finds Cecil and dresses him down. They rehash their marital issues, with him complaining that she never apologized for carrying on an epistolary affair. He saw her meet her erstwhile lover Henry the previous day in Genoa, but she tells him it was only ever just letters. You haven’t wanted to talk to me for years, she accuses Cecil; when they lost an infant son, she also lost a husband, who withdrew into himself. He says it’s too late for him to change.

Their marriage is over. She tells him to go try to buy back his deeds from Victor – and reveals her own scheme. She sold her controlling shares of the hotel to Albani, who as an Italian citizen can help protect the business from the scheming Danioni. The deeds Cecil signed aren’t legally binding, because Claudine signed as a witness – but Claudine is not her real name. Cecil was still just a minority owner – until he lost it to Victor.

But Albani has that covered, too. He has looked into Victor’s background and learned that he is a fraudster who has assumed the identity of a wealthy man to woo Alice. Victor is wanted in several jurisdictions for unpaid bills. Albani offers to have those charges overlooked by his friend at the Interior Ministry if Victor gives him the hotel deeds – and his gambling winnings, to pay the jeweler for Alice’s engagement ring. Victor accepts.

The next morning, Alice is waiting for Victor at the train station. She knows what he did – and yet she thanks him. He let her escape from her tightly wound self for a bit, and that’s all she ever needed from him – in addition to the bracelet from Albani that he stole from her. He hands it over. 

When she returns to the hotel, she goes to see Albani and is wearing the bracelet. In his ceaseless efforts to protect her family, she has realized her appreciation, perhaps even love, for him. She kisses him. 

Billy finds an injured Lucian at the gate in the morning, and everyone realizes that Rose never came back to the hotel. A search party is organized by Marco, who apologizes to Bella for his behavior at the casino. She doesn’t care; she’s just glad he is there.

With Betty, Bella tells Constance about her mother and suggests that she return home to London. Constance cries. 

She finds the sketch she made of Lucian with her things, with a note from Rose on the back: “love him for me.” She tells Lucian that Rose knows about their affair, and that Constance is going back to England.

Danioni tells Gianluca and Anish that they are going to Turin to await trial, before having his men put bags over their heads and thrust them into a car. He stops in a forest and makes the prisoners walk into the trees, a gun at their back. He orders them on to their knees. They hold hands. Two gunshots ring out.

Bella receives a letter from the snooty writer Jonathan, who has recently left the hotel. He was the reviewer for the travel guide – and he is giving the hotel a rave review.

No one has found Rose yet. Her body floats in the ocean.