to work together again on the feature film The Stolen Children, among other productions. The season was filmed at Giardini Naxos and Taormina, Sicily, as well as in Milan and in the medieval abbey of San Pietro in Valle in Umbria. The show's ratings in Italy remained high, but started to show a slight downward trend. While an average of 15 million viewers had watched the first two seasons, the third one was watched by an average of 12 million Italian viewers. It was also sold to 77 countries, including the Soviet Union. In this season, the action moves to Milan. The story exposes the actions of the financial mafia and international money-laundering channels. Corrado Cattani launches an investigation into the largest Italian bank, Antinari, and he meets members of the Antinari family. He falls in love with Giulia (Giuliana De Sio), the daughter of the family patriarch, Carlo Antinari, who runs the bank with his father, Nicola Antinari. Gaetano "Tano" Cariddi (Remo Girone), the most notorious mafia character of the series, initially holds the role of assistant at the Antinari Bank, before becoming its sole owner at the end of the season. Season four Again directed by Luigi Perelli, the fourth season, launched in 1989, proved to be the most successful of the series. It reached an average of over 14 million viewers, a noticeable uptick from the previous season, and the last episode achieved a peak of 17.2 million viewers. The number of episodes returned to 6, but the length of each one was increased from 60 minutes up to nearly 100 minutes. Luigi Perelli was back at the helm of the project, with Petraglia and Rulli once again writing the screenplay. The fourth season was the last one featuring Michele Placido in the lead role of Corrado Cattani. Placido had made the decision to leave the production and return to other projects after five years, as he no longer wished to be associated with the character he had portrayed so successfully. The fate of the beloved commissioner preoccupied the Italian public weeks before the new season's launch, and there was much speculation as to which way the show would end. La Repubblica, one of the largest daily newspapers in Italy, produced several reports on the subject in a single day. After the last episode, speculations arose that Rai had filmed an alternative and more positive ending to