Summary
The ending of Sara – Woman in the Shadows is more about examining the fallout of its revelations than the revelations themselves. It’s a meaningful payoff the core characters, even if it yields few surprises in its developments.
Sara – Woman in the Shadows is pretty explicitly about institutional corruption and moral decay, which is precisely why its ending is less about revelations than it is about the ensuing fallout and the comparative lack of resolution. Unusually for a Netflix thriller, that lack of resolution isn’t a cap-in-hand play for another season, but instead a reminder that the system remains intact regardless of a few individuals being exposed. Sara, at least, is comfortable with this idea, after a lifetime spent playing the game. It’s the personal, emotional resolutions that are of more concern to her.
This is perhaps why Episode 6 doesn’t really concern itself much with the incident that kick-started the show – the death of Sara’s son, Giorgio – and instead focuses on resolving the mystery surrounding Sergio Minucci’s death, and how that relates to her own past. But beneath all that, there’s still a worthwhile emotional contour to be unpacked, along with many other key developments. So, let’s get on with it, and fair warning, this is a pretty dense show with a lot of moving parts, so do try to keep up.
Sergio Was Killed To Hide A Political Conspiracy
Just in case you needed reminding that politicians are generally all despicable, you can trace Sergio’s death right back to Tarallo, the corrupt politician he was working for. But it’s a lot more complicated than that. Observe.
So, Sergio’s girlfriend Rachele was the daughter of Paolo Anzovino, who headed up Tarallo’s security detail and had some connections to the mafia, especially Enrico Vigilante. Vigilante had been pulling Tarallo’s strings from the shadows and finessing a bunch of false flag operations to create anti-immigrant antipathy and thus rig the upcoming election in favour of Tarallo’s right-wing campaign. It was Rachele who got Sergio the job in the first place, and Rachele who got him killed by taking her suspicions about him meeting with Teresa to her father, who took them to Vigilante.
To be fair, Sergio was planning to expose Tarallo with the help of his journalist friend Edoardo Belliti, so Vigilante had two of his goons, Aldo Esposito and his father Vito, kidnap and interrogate Sergio, which ultimately resulted in his death.
Teresa Takes Justice Into Her Own Hands
A fitting component of the ending of Sara – Woman in the Shadows is that a man named Vigilante is ultimately killed in an off-the-books assassination by an intelligence officer. But, again, there’s a little more to this. While Teresa could have used the information dug up by Sara and Pardo to have Vigilante brought to a more conventional idea of justice, there was previous precedent that this would have amounted to very little.
This is how Sara’s backstory comes into it. Back in the day, her lover Massimiliano, whom she consistently imagines as being with her in the present day, had discovered evidence that Vigilante was planning an attack in Florence. When he took this to his superior, Lembo, though, he was shot down. Of course, the attack took place because Lembo was working from within the system to cover up Vigilante’s activities. Massimiliano ended up blaming himself when it was really the system that was at fault.
Teresa, working within the system herself, knows that the truth is unlikely to mean anything. So, without telling anyone, Teresa tracked Vigilante down to the park where he liked to enjoy his morning runs and shot him dead.
Teresa Saponangelo and Claudia Gerini in Sara — Woman in the Shadows | Image via Netflix
Vigilante By Nature
It’d be unfair to argue that Sara – Woman in the Shadows tacitly supports vigilantism, but it works twice here. The example described above is the second time. The first comes much earlier, in the very first episode, after Sara discovers that her son was deliberately killed by a man named Ludovico Terzani. Sara’s son, Giorgio, was having an affair with a woman Ludovico was keen on, which for some dudes is motive enough for murder.
Sara didn’t even flirt with the idea of handling this through proper channels. Instead, she killed Ludovico in the same way that he had killed Giorgio. An eye for an eye might leave the whole world blind, but it certainly cuts down on paperwork.
In case you hadn’t noticed, this draws very explicit parallels between the heroes and the villains in this story, which kind of puts paid to the idea of referring to them as heroes and villains in the first place. Vigilante also solves his problems the same way, as with Sergio and eventually with Tarallo, whom he has assassinated during a speech after he flip-flopped on his energy stance (Vigilante wanted him to greenlight a nuclear power plant).
Personal Resolutions
With most of the plot stuff out of the way, the ending of Sara – Woman in the Shadows can reel through a series of personal developments that leave Episode 6 on a mostly happy note, at least for the individuals we’ve been rooting for. The system itself remains fundamentally corrupt, but what can you do?
For one thing, not only does Edoardo survive, but he also accomplishes his objective of exposing Tarallo with a USB drive detailing his involvement with the mafia. He also cleverly reveals his survival to Sara and Pardo by using the real estate website that he used to organize his clandestine meetings with Sergio. Smart guy.
This leaves Sara herself as the only loose end. With Viola giving birth to a son, she finally has a second chance to be there for the kid in the way that she never was with Giorgio, and thanks to a CD left for her by Massimiliano, she’s able to achieve some closure there and leave that lingering aspect of her life behind. All in all, it’s a productive day’s work.
