withdrawing from political work. She is married, wants to adopt a daughter, and has just applied for a transfer to the juvenile court. Ramonte does not hesitate for a moment to take his place at the head of the Thule organization again. For this he needs Tano Cariddi, however, who lives in a castle ruin on Mount Etna. Cariddi begins to position himself to take over the organization by slowly poisoning Ramonte with arsenic. Tano soon becomes the leader of Thule, a position of unprecedented power. Giulia Mercuri (Elena Arvigo), daughter of Thule's chief financial officer, finds out about her father's criminal dealings and about Ramonte's involvement in Corrado Cattani's murder, and she reveals this to Silvia Conti. Giulia is kidnapped and held in Tano's custody to silence her and blackmail her father. Conti, against the advice of her husband and her superiors, decides to get involved once more and begins to investigate. As she delves deeper into the case, and as the criminal dealings of Cariddi continue, Conti barely survives an assassination attempt against her. Tano becomes gradually more delusional and he begins to imagine that Mercuri is his ex-wife Ester, whom he strangled in season four. In his madness, Tano tries to strangle Mercuri but fails. In the end, as Conti closes in on the archvillain, Tano sees no way out, so he drives to the top of the volcano and enters the crater holding a disc which contains a complete database of his criminal organization and business holdings. He waves to Conti one last time, and the show ends. Filming and reaction The last scene in season 4, in which the Mafia kills Commissioner Cattani, generated an incredible number of reactions from all over the world. A mysterious letter was allegedly sent from the US, in which an unnamed billionaire offered several million dollars to the creators of the show to film more episodes. Michele Placido had already turned down the role at that point. Audiences continued asking for more, so the filmmakers decided to make another season. Without Placido, however, the show was a commercial disappointment. Despite this, six more seasons were filmed. After the launch of the first season, the filmmakers and Placido himself received threatening letters from the Mafia to stop filming immediately. For security reasons, the second season was filmed mainly in secret locations outside Italy, including in Germany, Switzerland, Britain, and Greece.