"Chief of Police Manara" is an Italian crime drama about an unconventional Sicilian police commissioner working in Tuscany. Luca Manara, played by Guido Caprino, breaks all the rules, while his partner, Inspector Lara Rubino, played by Roberta Giarusso, tries to do things by the book. All kinds of sparks fly between them. The show ran very successfully for two seasons.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Toscani isn't thrilled with organizing the birthday party for the guy who "stole" his job, and is complaining to his wife. She steers the conversation around to their love life. The party gets cut short because Luca has a flash of genius, and figures out the case based on what Toscani says in his toast. He leaves for the hospital with two detectives and barely has time to acknowledge Lara when she walks in late to the party.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Marcuccio is in the hospital, and as planned, zia Caterina goes to see him. But all he will come out with are lines from one of Leopardi's poems. Meanwhile Romei is anxious to have the letters he considers his own, but things aren't so simple.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Back at her aunt's house, Lara deals with Giulia when she comes back, and hashes things over with her aunt in the morning. Meanwhile Manara is once again moving his desk around, while discussing both the case and Giulia Chiamparani with Toscani, who's curious as to why Giulia disappeared so quickly.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
In the eyes of Manara's boss, Giulia is the heroine, having recovered the letters, and Manara is a failure for having let the murderer escape from under his nose. Now Giulia's work is finished and she's just about ready to go back to Rome, but she still has some unfinished business... business she doesn't want Lara's help with.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Luca and Giulia are finally alone, in a car, at night, in a typical spot for lovers. Hmm...
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
After a fruitless search in the rain, Luca and Brigadiere head home, but all of a sudden the dog starts sniffing around a hunter's shack, and sure enough, Luca discovers Marcuccio hiding inside, but the big man is not talking. And if that weren't enough, Manara's boss continues to put pressure on him and his team to bring in the perpetrator.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Marcuccio has gotten hungry, and so he's gone to see the only person he could trust, Lara's zia Caterina. But by the time anyone could come to help her, he'd disappeared again, leaving his jacket behind. Lara's dog, Brigadiere, gets a good whiff and goes off with Luca to look for Marcuccio. A storm has come up, making things more difficult.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara and Luca go to interrogate a suspect whose only alibi for the night of the murder depends on Marcuccio, who is still missing. Meanwhile, Giulia intercepts a cryptic phone call.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Amidst murder and insomnia, Manara is attempting to eat his croissant during the autopsy in the morgue. And Ginevra... well, she has an infallible solution to help him get back to normal.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The police intercept a phone call between Marcuccio and his mother, but it's too short to trace. Marcuccio recites the first line of Leopardi's most famous poem, "L'infinito" [The Infinite] to his mother. Giulia spends the night at Lara's and they watch the movie of the famous party. The next day Lara has some interesting news for Manara, from both Giulia and from her aunt!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara and Giulia have some catching up to do, but how candid are they being with each other? Do we detect a bit of jealousy? Meanwhile Commissioner Manara has to deal with both Romei, the chicken guy, and his buxom, brassy wife, who keeps trying to catch Luca's eye.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The arrival of Giulia Chiamparini, the expert in Cultural Heritage, makes quite a hit at headquarters!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara goes to see the mother of Fazi's missing assistant, Marcuccio. It turns out he's "different" but with a phenomenal capacity for numbers. He's also a big guy, with big feet! Meanwhile, Lara and Luca are called to their boss's office. He wants results, fast, and so he's called in an expert in Cultural Assets from Rome to work alongside them.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Murder in the library. The curator of the town library was found dead by his secretary, and the assistant librarian hasn't shown up for work. Some valuable correspondence is missing, and there are some suspicious shoe prints on the floor. Manara and his team have gotten busy trying to figure it all out.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissioner Manara is back with a new episode, which opens, not only with the usual murder, this time in a library, but also with a care package from Manara's mother, full of Sicilian specialties such as melanzane sottolio or sott'olio, (eggplant in oil). Sottolio is a traditional and well-loved way of preserving many foods, and can be distinguished from sottaceto (in vinegar), or in salamoia (in water and salt). Of course, everyone at headquarters is more interested in the Sicilian pastries!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
In the end, Lara decides that Luca Manara isn't such a bad commissioner after all. She might even tell him that to his face... sooner or later.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Although Commissario Manara's has resolved the case, his unorthodox methods are unacceptable to his superior, who threatens to have him transferred to the hinterlands of Sardinia.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
At this point the murderer is easily discovered and just as easily confesses. The evening of the murder gets revisited and all previous doubts vanish. But what's to become of the killer?
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
In the presence of Ginevra who has come to thank both Lara and Manara for saving her reputation, they look once again at the painting of Lorenzo. A detail gives them the key to finding the murderer!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissioner Manara and Inspector Rubino figure out who wrote the love letters and Lara conducts the appropriate interrogation.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
An important new element in the investigation comes into play: some romantic letters found at the victim's house. Lara is comparing the handwriting to that of the note found next to his dead body.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
With the information given by Ginevra, Luca and Lara go to the pharmacy to find out about recent sales of two drugs. When combined, the drugs are fatally poisonous. That same day the funeral takes place and the whole town is there. Manara takes advantage of this to look for new suspects.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara decides to question the medical examiner Ginevra, the last person to have seen the victim alive. Manara had a different idea about how to handle his witness.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Sardi wants to comfort Toscani after he'd been punched in the face by the bass drum player. Manara wonders where people go in the evening, and Lara, after seeing the Commissioner in a car talking to Ginevra, goes home and confides in her Aunt about why she can't stand him.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The rehearsal for Lorenzo's funeral gets interrupted by Manara and Toscani who want to question Scudieri, the bass drum player. Meanwhile, Lara is trying not to explode with anger about Manara's handling of Ginevra Rosmini.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara questions the woman who painted the picture of Lorenzo and gets some further information from the notary's wife, regarding the boat builder.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara's aunt Caterina goes to police headquarters to show Commissioner Manara a painting she found at a flea market, that could help with the investigation.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The murder weapon has been identified by Inspector Rubino, and she has a nifty program to discover the password for the victim's handheld organizer, found at his house.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissioner Manara goes to the victim's house with Inspector Rubino, and meanwhile two police officers summon the band leader for questioning.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The band members are interrogated one by one at police headquarters.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
As soon as Ginevra arrives at the scene of the crime, she seems to feel ill. It also seems that Poggiali had been quite a ladies' man.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissario Manara is back, this time in a hotel room with leaky water pipes. But he's off to solve another murder case which seems to have something to do with music.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
If Manara thinks his boss is going to pat him on the back for having solved the case, he's mistaken. Not all is lost, however, for Malvina and the Count. With Lara, though, things don't quite go the way he'd hoped.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Malvina owns up to her actions regarding Charles Ferrant and his threats.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Cione is allowed to go home after Lapo admits to the shooting. However, some aspects of the investigation, like the mysterious blood stain in the cellar, still don't square.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
While Cioni is questioned by Manara, Count Lapo returns on the scene. Unfortunately, his memory of what happened is very imperfect.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara obtains a warrant and brings Cioni in for questioning. Cioni continues to deny any meeting with the Count. This become untenable when he's asked to consider that his fingerprints are on a glass in the Count's cellar.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara and Lara go over the points of the case. Lara suggests getting a warrant for Cioni, the Count's difficult neighbor.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Charles Ferrant's body has been discovered by a fisherman. The Count is still missing, and Lara's aunt wants a word with Malvina, the Count's housekeeper.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
While they're huddled together in the meat truck, Commissioner Manara tries to wheedle out of Lara the reason she's still angry at him from police academy days.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Ferocious bull terriers force Manara and Rubino into a refrigerated meat truck.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Cioni, the Count's neighbor and rival vintner, is interrogated by Manara and Lara. Without a warrant, there's only so far they can go.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
"We have a missing Count, a cellar full of blood, a mysterious Frenchman..." is how Commissioner Manara sums up the investigation to this point.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara's aunt visits Malvina, bringing along her snooping dog. Together they find a ripped up business card in a wastebasket.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The Commissioner and Lara question Count Lapo's oenologist, one of the last people to have seen the Count.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
While the countess points out where she found the cartridge shell, Manara and his squad find blood spatters on the floor of the cellar.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Manara and his team are still looking for the hit-and-run driver who killed the tramp, and investigating the vineyard owner's disappearance. Lara gives Manara a clue as to why she's still angry with him.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
A man found dead in the middle of the road, the cyclist who found him, and Commissioner Manara who as usual, is the center of attention.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
We begin a new episode of Commissioner Manara. Lara is bedridden with a fever, and there is a missing person reported at the station. And if that weren't enough, someone was found dead by the side of the road.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The Lenni case will be filed as consenting manslaughter, in view of the fact that he was coerced. Commissioner Manara asks again about being transferred but doesn't get very far.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Dr. Masini confesses to having falsified his diploma in order to practice medicine, but reveals some surprises about the death of Lenni.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commisioner Manara and Lara continue their investigation, interviewing Dr. Di Censi, whose answers enable them to make an important connection with a note they'd found of the late Professor Lenni's. They go to Dr. Masini's office and find him just about to leave.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
It turns out Lenni's will contains some surprises. Someone important is excluded completely and another person, quite unexpectedly, is included. Meanwhile, Caterina is puzzled by Doctor Masini's behaviour the day of Lenni's death.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara visits the dead professor's daughter and it becomes ever clearer to Manara that the mother's alibi won't hold.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Lara Rubino visits Lenni's villa and finds that his wife has broken in. Manara uses his considerable charm on a vet.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Tuscan
The autopsy shows that the victim couldn't have pulled the trigger, but Manara's boss insists on suicide. Manara and his team have other ideas.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
From the gardener, Michele, we learn that the dead professor was not well liked. Rubino lets us know about her soured friendship with Manara at the police academy.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara arrives at his hotel, and the clerk is curt with him until she learns he's the new commissioner. Manara and the deceased are the topics discussed by Rubino and her aunt.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Rubino, the new inspector, can't stand being in the same room with Manara. And when he doesn't even remember why, she really gets angry. But then they get some interesting news from the morgue...
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissioner Manara meets up with Lara Rubino, his old classmate from the police academy. She's less than happy to see him and slaps him right across the face.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Manara meets his new boss and from the outset there's tension. We learn that Manara was transferred to his new post because of an affair between Manara and the wife of his former boss.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Commissioner Manara arrives on the scene of the supposed suicide. He questions a witness, and talks to the victim's doctor, and to the medical examiner, who turns out to be an attractive woman who has no problem with shyness.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Il Commissioner Manara is an Italian TV series set in the Maremma (southern Tuscany), which centers on Luca Manara, an unorthodox and highly seductive, newly arrived police commissioner, played by Guido Caprino.
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