Is anyone watching Gomorrah? Italy's anwer to The Wire

It's an absolutely superb TV show, it's an original dramatic serialisation of a non-fiction book that was written about ten years ago called Gomorrah. The book was written by an Italian journalist about the Camorra, a criminal fraternity somewhat similar to the Sicilian mafia but it originates from Naples and the Campania region of southern Italy.

They are extremely violent and successful drug traffickers (one of the biggest Camorra bosses in the 2000s, Paolo di Laoro, was pulling in around 250 million euros a year), but they are much more fragmeneted into small clans than Sicilian or American mafia families.

The name Gomorrah is a word-play on Camorra and of course the biblical cities of sin, Sodom and Gomorrah. It's well-worth checking out. The cinematography is absolutely amazing (though of course since the days of Breaking Bad that is kind-of expected now for a prestige drama)

[video="youtube;-4QORgagblU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QORgagblU[/video]

Awesome series. I'd highly recommend if you
don't mind watching something in subtitles, or speak Italian of course.

There's another good Italian drama I'd recommend called 1992, it dramatises mass corruption being exposed in 1990's Italy. Makes our expenses scandal look like stealing from the school tuck shop.

Nothing is the answer to The Wire.

Finest show ever on TV.

Funnily enough the author and series creator was recently slating the UK for being far more corrupt

Isn't that because the clan leaders pretty much have to live in Secondigliano/Scampia? That's why they're living, basically, in *****y council flats but they have them all blinged up with gold. To maintain control of the clan / piazzas they have to be in the area, not living on the other side of the city in a nice house.

Have you seen the second season? I think the second season (except for the last couple of episodes) is a lot better than the first. I still can't stand Gennaro and I think he's a useless character, but they introduce so many more interesting characters like Scianel and Prince (d'aww, he was so darn cute).



What a preposterous idea. The Partito Democratico of the current PM, Matteo Renzi, has been caught relying on mafia for votes in the north (just as the Chrisitan Democrats and then Forza Italia always have). The Sicilian mafia killed two investigating judges with giant car bombs in the early 1990s, ffs. And not that long ago you had garbage piling up in the streets of Naples because the camorra had basically screwed the municipal garbage collection system with corruption and illegal dumping. The idea that the UK is more corrupt must come from some kind of psychological defense mechanism.

Ironically enough, these days southern Europeans like Italians are considered quite hot-blooded, and the English are circumspect and calculating. But in the middle ages it was the opposite; the barbaric and backward English were hot blooded, and the northern Italians in Florence and Venice, with their banking and their trade, were considered cool and calculating