'A Taste For Murder' Serves Up "The Perfect Breakfast"
As Gennaro preps the fish, he explains its colors attract mates, and protect its nest from predators – distraction display, practiced by many species. Joe looks thoughtful and comments that humans do too. “Best bloody breakfast ever,” Joe adds.
A Taste for Murder's “The Perfect Breakfast” (La colazione perfetta) opens as tensions grow within the Gennaro-Mottram family. However, most of the action in this episode takes place in a villa on Capri, where there’s a whole lot of screaming going on. A couple of women are exploring the villa’s cellars by candlelight and find a skull, which by daylight is clearly fake; they are thrilled to win complimentary tickets to Andrea Carlotti (Giuseppe Bonifati) and photographer Santino Musella’s (Rocco Fasano) gala event, dinner, and a ghost hunt.
Mottram and his daughter, Angelica, disembark from the ferry from Capri. They have, for the moment, made peace with each other; he’s learning to listen, and she’s being truthful. They have different destinations – Angelica is off to see her favorite movie, Roman Holiday, with her boyfriend Daniele, whose sleazy side is not yet obvious enough to put her off. Joe is off to the police station for a final briefing on the case in which he unofficially assisted Inspector Lara Sarrancino.
When he arrives, Martin Laxman (Peter Hamilton Dyer), of the British Consul, is hobnobbing with Lara’s boss, Commissario Curti (Pasquale Esposito). Martin is thrilled to meet Joe, who is held in high regard by the Consulate – “The pride of British policing!” Martin offers Joe a drink and has a favor to ask: his writer niece, Camilla, was to present a murder mystery event, but she's sick, and his brilliant idea is to have a real British cop replace her. It’s a paying gig, so Joe agrees. A storm blows in as Gennaro decides to close the restaurant for the night. With no work, Daria agrees to be Joe’s date; dressed up, she’s stunningly beautiful.
At the event, Camilla (Claudi Jolly), the allegedly sick writer, seems perfectly healthy. Guest Max Murray (Deni Sankovic), meanwhile, is embarrassed by his partner, Oscar Miller (Henry Felix), going for a swim before dinner. Andrea invites Joe into his study, where he pays him. It’s quickly obvious Andrea has money problems; Joe points out he’s a cop, not a lawyer. He notices Andrea doesn’t look well, and when Andrea mentions Type II diabetes, he suggests drinking less brandy. On his way out to find Daria, he overhears Camilla complaining about being dropped as the evening’s narrator.
When Joe and Daria return, Santino asks if they’ve seen Andrea, who has disappeared just as the guests are about to move to the dining room. Camilla decides it’s time for everyone to be seated at the long, beautifully decorated table, when the guests hear a shout from a nearby room. Joe is the first in, finding Andrea dead, his throat slashed, with glass visible in the wound, as Santino weeps over him.
Daria returns to the town in a taxi, while Joe stays on to help with the investigation. In Andrea’s office, they discover his financial documents are covered in sand.
Later that evening, Angelica is in her room when she receives a text from Daniele, who found the party boring without her. She promised her dad she wouldn’t go to the party, so Daniele suggests the beach instead. Once out, he produces a joint which they share, until Angelica tells him it’s time for her to go home. Gennaro is still awake and sad after arguing with Elena again. He and Joe drink a glass of grappa while the not-particularly-angelic Angelica climbs back up into her bedroom, assisted by Daniele. Joe has guessed that Gennaro is a victim of a protection racket and insists that he accept a gift of €1,000 – it’s not an insult; they’re family. Upstairs, Joe finds Angelica fast asleep, but after he’s left her room, she opens her eyes and giggles.
The following day, Joe meets Lara at the harbor, who jokes that he’s jinxed and is leaving a trail of bodies behind. At the station, Martin Laxman is immensely relieved that Joe is there. He’s upset Camilla’s passport has been taken; Joe says she’s not under arrest, she just has to account for her movements. Apparently, changing her dress after helping Andrea staunch a nosebleed that came from them arguing over his refusal to give Santino a job. As she left, she threw a glass at him, which explains the shard – but that wasn't the cause of death. His insulin levels were very high, and he was taking the drug warfarin; excessive bleeding is a side effect. There was also lithium in the brandy decanter.
Joe takes the crew to his in-laws’ restaurant for dinner. Seeing Joe with Commisario Curti and Lara, Elena sighs, wishing Joe could just get hired here. Meanwhile, Joe, Lara, and Curti are discussing the cause of Andrea’s death. When Elena comes to the table to refill glasses and hears Lara suggest it could be an insulin overdose, she joins the conversation, saying it sounds like the plot of the Scorsese movie Killers of the Flower Moon.
Santino is a big Scorsese fan, but he claims he was taking photographs all night. Why would he kill the one person who loved and supported him? His site history on his laptop brings up an article about an insulin overdose, which he tries to pass off as if Andrea needed assistance. But Lara discovered he also has his deceased mother’s insulin, and Santino admits he was giving him extra to keep Andrea dependent on him.
That evening, Elena finds Joe poring over the villa scrapbooks. It was sold to the Carlotti family when the Allies took over Italy; the deeds were never found. When the Carlottis tried to sell it, it wound up in court for decades. Joe tells her he’s been hired as a consultant, but only for the summer. Excited, Elena tells him there’s a whole smuggling culture in Capri, made possible by the landscape of coves and inlets.
Joe also bonds with Genarro, who takes him fishing as a gesture of thanks. Genarro admits he’s terrible with money and talks about Sofia. Joe admits he can’t bring himself to. Just as it looks like they'll catch nothing, Joe gets a bite and lands a colorful parrotfish. It's a perfect breakfast. As Gennaro preps, he explains its colors attract mates, and protect its nest from predators – a distraction display. Joe looks thoughtful and comments that humans do too.
At the police station, Joe searches Santino’s photos from the gala, all time-stamped. They prove Camilla told the truth about getting changed and the nosebleed. When a photo of Joe and Daria comes up on the screen, Lara comments that she didn’t know he took a date. Embarrassed, Joe says it wasn’t. Santino took 232 photos, proving he was busy the whole night. Joe shows them shots of Oscar Miller – it’s a distraction display, Joe says. Oscar made sure Santino and Andrea knew he was going swimming.
Joe and Lara don wetsuits and set off to see if there are hidden caves beneath the villa. They find one filled with artifacts and oddities, with access to the villa, through which Oscar enters. Lara arrests him.
Oscar, it turns out, is the grandson of Peter Miller, the builder of the villa, and he inherited documents to guide him to the deed for the house. He is bipolar, has a prescription for lithium, and poisoned the decanter. He wasn’t trying to kill Andrea, just enough to send him to hospital. Oscar intended to search while he was gone, with the goal of getting the property returned to his family.
That evening, Joe explains to Camilla over drinks at the restaurant* that even if Andrea had fallen onto the glass, it would have caused only superficial wounds. But the warfarin in his system caused massive bleeding, followed by a heart attack. As they leave, they run into Daniele, on his phone, and Joe asks if he’s contacting his dealer. (Unfortunately, probably.) He’s waiting for Angelica; he’s taking her to a party with a bonfire and music. It sounds fairly harmless.
(*For those keeping track, yes, this is the third woman he's gone on a non-date with this episode.)
As Joe continues on his way, none other than sleazebag Fabio Pigozzi (Yuri Buzzi) shows up, gives Daniele a big hug, and, more significantly, is his dealer, handing him a vial of white powder. Angelica arrives just as Fabio leaves. After Daniele tenderly fastens her helmet for her, they ride off together. Fabio heads in to join his friends Rocco Di Biasi (Bruno Bilotta) and Bernardo Renzi (Dusan Bucan) at the restaurant, who greet him loudly and boisterously at the table intended for Joe and Camilla. Elena watches them, radiating disapproval. It looks like there’s more trouble ahead.
A new episode of A Taste For Murder will release every week through May 5, 2026.
A Taste for Murder
