'Hotel Portofino' Recap: Season 3 Episode 5

Hotel Portofino airs Sundays at 7:00 pm and is available to stream by WTTW Passport members. Recap the previous and following episodes.  
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Chastened by the loss of huge sums of money in the stock market crash and the effect of that on their lives and plans, Cecil and Bella are now dusting themselves off and devising schemes to salvage things.

Bella thinks she can raise enough money through a cosmetics business to pay off at least the principal on a loan her father took out, thus staving off the loss of his company and repaying part of her debt to him – if she can convince Claudine’s fashion house to sell her products. Claudine’s party planner, Ernesto, has arrived to organize the launch of Claudine’s perfume. He immediately denigrates the hotel, but he does at least have some good news: the fashion house has granted a half hour meeting to Bella and Claudine for them to pitch the cosmetics the day after the party.

Bella gains another booster in her sister, Amelia, after the pharmacist Vito brings her finished cosmetics to the hotel and Amelia tries them. Amelia agrees to help Bella come up with a name for the line.

Bella has repaired her relationship with her sister by apologizing for being a bad sister. She has realized, thanks to Claudine, that she unconsciously blamed her sister for her mother’s death, and has always been jealous of her parents’ love for Amelia. She gives a photo of her and Amelia as children to Amelia as part of her restitution.

After Vito drops off the cosmetics, he finds Constance and fumbles a ring out of his pocket. But she stops him before he can say anything, telling him no, not yet. He says he will wait and ask again, then leaves.

Claudine spots Constance looking troubled and asks what’s wrong. Constance explains that Vito started to propose, and Claudine tells her that he’s an exceptional man. But Constance isn’t in love with him. Claudine starts to tell her that love is not worth it, then stops herself and advises Constance to simply follow her heart.

Alice is following her heart and learning to ride horses with Billy’s help, despite her fear. Feeling confident, she visits Albani and asks to ride with him. She gets wrapped up in the thrill and rides too fast, getting bucked off her horse. Albani rushes over, displaying his intense concern for her. They kiss passionately.

But when she tries to remount her horse, it bolts. Albani shares an ill-advised stable adage, likening the horse to a headstrong woman, and Alice gets upset, thinking he was purposefully ignoring her in order to incite her passion. She leaves in a huff.

Cecil has a plan to team up with one of his debtors in order to save himself as loans are called in by dangerous people. He goes to meet Jack Turner, who has resurfaced and demanded money from Cecil for stealing a painting from him, and learns that Jack is broke. His wife left him, and her father bankrolled Jack. The Italian financial police also started investigating him, leading him to lose his business after selling some less-than-authenticated artworks. Jack wants to return to America and restart his life, but he doesn’t currently have the funds – hence his visit to Cecil.

Cecil shows Jack that one of the hotel employees who helped him steal the painting was actually a spy for Danioni and is now an outright blackshirt – Danioni helped mastermind the theft. He was probably also the person who set the financial police on Jack.

Cecil offers Jack the money Danioni currently makes from Cecil and his business exporting whiskey to the American mob if they can remove Danioni from the picture. Jack agrees, and asks what the plan is. Cecil asks for the return of Bella’s wedding ring, which he gave to Jack at gunpoint, and tells him that item and a stack of money is all they need.

Lucian, Virat, and Marco are still searching for Anish. Acting on information beaten out of the Fascist Antonio, they search the woods to which Antonio says Danioni brought Anish and Gianluca. Bella wonders why Antonio “volunteered” the information and why Lucian’s hand is injured, not knowing about the beating. She also worries the search is dangerous.

She’s right. Danioni gets the bruised Antonio to reveal that he told the people who beat him– he didn’t see who they were – about the forest. Danioni rushes off to the forest with his thugs.

Lucian has brought a gun to the search, to Marco’s displeasure. Virat asks to look at the gun, and Lucian tells him that Anish was braver than him in the war, going into battle as a pacifist to treat soldiers as a medic. With the help of a dog, they pick up a scent and begin digging. They unearth a hand, and Virat screams. Danioni and his Fascists hear and run towards the sound. Virat grabs a bracelet he gave his brother from Anish’s dead hand before fleeing. Danioni finds Marco’s dropped handkerchief and the unearthed hand, but doesn’t catch the men.

Anish’s body still has to be formally identified, but the men don’t want to go to the police, given their entanglement with Danioni and his Fascists. Marco wants to fight back and expose Danioni as a murderer. But Bella wants to ask the well-connected Albani for help, to Marco’s frustration. He argues with Albani in Italian, saying they should retrieve that bodies that night, before Danioni moves them. Marco storms off while Albani says he’ll go to Rome for help from a friend in the government. Before Albani leaves the hotel, he sees Alice in another room. She purposefully closes the door on him.

Marco later apologizes to Bella for being jealous of Albani; he wishes she looked to Marco himself for advice. He will wait to do anything until Albani returns from Rome. Bella then happily introduces him to Amelia. When he returns home to his apartment, Danioni gathers an army of Fascists and descends on the dwelling.

Virat’s reaction to the death of his brother has been to close himself off; he tells Bella he can’t eat, isn’t fit for company, and is losing faith in his religion. Lucian decides after the shock of Anish’s murder to confess to Constance that he’s still in love with her, after all. But everyone close to him – Anish, Rose – dies, so he can’t grow too close to Constance. She tells him that she’s still in love with him, too, but pulls away after they kiss. This won’t work, she says, crying.

The next day, Lucian asks Constance to come away with him – he’ll be the father to her son in a new home. He has to do something first and then will have to flee Portofino. Paola interrupts their conversation, disappointed that Constance is still drawn to Lucian when she has the much less tempestuous Vito as an option.

Constance later finds Lucian sitting alone with his gun, which he tries to hide. She insists on seeing it; he says he needs to use it to avenge Anish. She tells him she can’t be with him – she can’t live with a murderer.