Summary
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox turns its attention to Raffaele in Episode 5, to great effect. Giuseppe De Domenico excels here.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that a show titled The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is primarily about Amanda Knox. But it’s worth remembering that she wasn’t the only person wrongly imprisoned for the murder of Meredith Kercher, and Episode 5, “Mr. Nobody”, shifts its focus to her fellow accused, Raffaele Sollecito. This is welcome, since the Foxy Knoxy narrative and the spiteful treatment of Amanda as a heathen foreigner don’t really apply to a native Italian, so other tactics are required to make the shoe fit.
“Make the shoe fit” is an appropriate expression since a shoeprint is one of the pieces of highly circumstantial and sometimes outright fabricated evidence that the authorities are using to attach Raffaele to the crime. Another is Meredith’s bra, on which his DNA was supposedly found, despite not being present anywhere else. One of his knives is claimed to be the murder weapon on the basis of what seems indistinguishable from a hunch, and he’s folded into the Foxy Knoxy idea as a kind of submissive plaything, like a dog on the end of a leash.
This is all speculation or hearsay or complete fantasy, but nobody cares. As in Amanda’s ruthless cross-examination, the court scenes and the evidence and arguments presented therein aren’t intended to build suspense around the verdict. We already know what that will be. There’s never a moment when we believe that Raffaele or Amanda might walk free. Instead, we get angry at the injustice and become increasingly aghast at the theatrics — again.
As with Amanda, what’s more interesting about Raffaele is the internal turmoil of being trapped in this impossible situation, being framed for a crime he knows he didn’t commit by the Italian authorities themselves. Italy’s international image is all that matters. Someone must be held responsible, and it has been decided that it will be Amanda and Raffaele. The latter, a meek mummy’s boy who still harbours crippling guilt over his mother’s death from a heart attack stemming from his father remarrying, has to come to terms with that.
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox Episode 5 occasionally indulges in flashbacks to Raffaele’s childhood, as well as ping-ponging between different key events before and after Meredith’s murder. None of this is especially illuminating beyond the obvious value of adding context to the police’s narrative, which imagines Raffaele, an unabashed fan of manga and anime, as a kind of misanthropic sexual sadist. It’s a ridiculous characterisation given how meek he really is, but ironically, it’s his sheer strength of character that gives “Mr. Nobody” its emotional depth.
The key thing to understand is that Raffaele, already prone to guilt, feels responsible for Amanda after turning on her during his initial interrogation. He, like her, was buffeted by a torrent of accusations and, in his fear and confusion, implicated her in the same way she implicated Patrick Lumumba. Now, all the advice he’s receiving from his family and legal team is to distance himself from Amanda as much as possible. She’s going down regardless, but if he simply claims not to be able to account for her whereabouts on the night of the murder, there’s a chance he might not go down with her.
And why should he? He barely knows Amanda Knox. She even “dumps” him during their incarceration, giving him the “we’re just friends” routine through handwritten correspondence. He has no loyalty to her, or, at least, he shouldn’t have. But given that we know he’s predisposed to guilt and self-loathing, how could he square turning on her with his conscience? In a brilliant scene where Raffaele meets with his sister before the sentencing hearing, Giuseppe De Domenico is riveting as a man thoroughly examining his own character and finding few answers he feels comfortable sharing. Grace Van Patten remains the show’s MVP, but De Domenico is deserving of serious respect for this scene alone.
The sentencing, for what it’s worth, is a fiasco. The prosecution literally invents a story of what might have happened, complete with a dramatic re-enactment rendered in something that looks like The Sims. Of course, we already know the outcome before it arrives, but it’s still staggering to hear Amanda and Raffaele both being found guilty of all charges, and sentenced to 26 and 25 years, respectively, in prison. However, in his final statement in his own defense, Raffaele refuses to sell Amanda out and maintains the innocence of both of them. That’s one thing, at least, that he won’t need to feel guilty about.
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