A Taste for Murder is as deadly as it is delicious. Who knew we were missing a crime drama served with a side of mouthwatering Italian food?
Don’t get us wrong, we’ve been thoroughly spoiled when it comes to TV lately. We’re still sobbing over BBC’s Mint, gasping at Netflix’s Should I Marry a Murderer?, unpacking The Capture’s finale, and reeling from the twists and turns of Channel 5’s Number One Fan. Truly, it’s a golden age for staying on the sofa.
We’ve already dived into the stunning A Taste for Murder filming locations, and we’re still patiently waiting for those recipes to drop online too — because a deadly cookbook feels like the obvious next step. But for now, let’s talk about the TV show itself.
DCI Joe Mottram (Warren Brown) and his daughter Angelica (Beau Gadsdon) travel to Italy following the death of his wife and Angelica’s mother, Sofia. There, they stay with Sofia’s parents, Gennaro (Urbano Barberini) and Elena (Phyllis Logan).
Across the season, local police Lara (Cristiana Dell'Anna) and Joe find themselves solving a string of crimes across the island. It all kicks off when Joe’s nephew Luca (Alessandro Fella) is framed for murder, with a theatre trip ultimately helping them unmask the real culprit. From there, the cases keep coming: the suspicious death of a British tourist, a killing at a murder mystery weekend, the drowning of a marine archaeologist’s husband, and a dramatic case involving a former actress.
But it’s the A Taste For Murder finale that really raises the stakes. Lara and Joe go head-to-head with the Italian Mafia, while long-buried truths about Joe’s wife’s murder finally begin to surface.
So, what actually happened in that A Taste for Murder ending? Let’s break it down, because we need answers… and, ideally, that cookbook too.
What was revealed about Joe's past?
Like any classic crime drama leading man, Joe comes with a dark, slowly unravelled past. As the series unfolds, it becomes clear his strained relationship with his daughter isn’t just about his job, it’s rooted in a deeply painful upbringing.
In a rare moment of honesty, Joe opens up about his mother, telling his mother-in-law, “My mum, she made a lot of mistakes. The drugs kind.”
He later shares more with his daughter, explaining why he’s always avoided the subject: “She wasn’t really part of my life. Because she abandoned me. She was a normal kid, apparently. Then her dad lost his job in the car factory and everything fell apart. She dropped out, got into drugs, and all the sh*t that comes with that. She was pregnant with me at 19. In and out of prison after that. The last time my nan Nellie saw her, it was my fourth birthday. She turned up in a mortuary in Bradford six years later.”
Hint: the Italian scenery isn't even Italian…
Joe was raised by his grandmother until she passed away, after which he was moved between care homes and foster families. It’s something he had never told his daughter before because he didn’t want her to see him as “damaged.” (Sob.)
Unsurprisingly, that kind of childhood combined with years on the police force left Joe emotionally guarded. By his own admission, he became detached and closed off. It was his wife who eventually broke through those walls, bringing warmth and joy back into his life. But after her tragic death, he shut down once again, using emotional distance as a way to cope.
After finally opening up, Joe promises to be a better father to Angelica, and the two share a genuinely tender moment.
What happened to Angelica?
Things take a deeply personal turn for Joe when his daughter Angelica falls for Daniele (Alessandro Bedetti), a member of the gang working as a street courier for their drugs. One night, while they’re out together, he spikes her drink and appears to be on the verge of sexually assaulting her as she lies unconscious. Thankfully, Joe arrives in time, attacking Daniele before Lara steps in and takes him into custody.
Lara later suggests that Joe hold off on pressing charges and instead use Daniele to help expose Di Biasi’s wider drug-smuggling ring. However, due to sheer negligence by the local police, Daniele manages to escape.
He is eventually caught while attempting to cross the border and is brought back to face his original charges. He is charged with possession with intent to supply, as well as maliciously administering a substance with intent to engage in non-consensual sexual activity.
As for Angelica, in the final episode she tells her father she has decided to stay in Italy. She plans to take a business course while working at her grandparents’ restaurant.
“I want to stay. I’m 17, you can’t stop me,” Angelica tells Joe. “The support I need is here, not there [in the UK]. I need you, but you’re never here.”
Though initially taken aback, Joe ultimately accepts her decision: “You should stay. Get to know your mum’s roots, and her family. Figure out what you want to do, who you want to be.”
What is the Camorra?
Joe first becomes entangled in the local gang drama after he spots some of drug kingpin Rocco Di Biasi’s associates harassing Angelica in the restaurant.
The final episode centres on the Mafia’s presence in Capri, and Joe and Lara’s attempts to bring them down. The Camorra is a branch of the Mafia in Italy; a powerful criminal organisation originating from Naples and the Campania region, dating back to the 19th century.
Fun fact: they are a real criminal organisation, not just created for A Taste for Murder.
Unlike the hierarchical Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra operates through hundreds of independent, often warring clans, focusing on drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering and smuggling.
In A Taste for Murder, the Camorra is led by “boss” Rocco Di Biasi. He poses as an executive at a canning business owned by the family. In reality, the company is a front for trafficking illegal prescription drugs and other illicit goods.
His “lieutenants” include Fabio Pigozzi, a high-level enforcer who extorts money from Gennaro, and Bernardo Ronzi, a key player within Rocco’s clan.
In the final episode, the discovery of a human hand inside a shark ultimately unravels the entire operation.
What did Rocco DiBiasi do?
Rocco Di Biasi was a leading figure in the Camorra and a man not to be trifled with. Among his many crimes, he was also extorting money from Gennaro, Joe’s father-in-law.
The chef had borrowed money from Rocco’s men to open a bar in town, but when he “overextended himself,” he was forced to close it. Even though he had repaid Rocco Di Biasi “every cent,” the gang leader began demanding additional “interest payments.”
It had been going on for two years, leaving Gennaro in severe financial difficulty, with the restaurant close to collapse. Gennaro tells Joe, “You say no to these people, you end up dead.”
As you can imagine, Joe does not take that well.
Did Joe catch the Camorra and Rocco?
Through a sting operation, Joe and Lara uncover the gang’s illegal gold-smuggling operation… via a shark. Yes, really.
While running smuggling routes for Di Biasi’s organisation, a Libyan crime group known as the Kings of Maghreb eliminates one of their own members, Omari Hassan, who had been secretly informing coastal authorities as part of an early parole deal. To send a message about his betrayal, the Maghreb network traffics Omari’s hand — along with several kilos of gold — inside a blue shark, which is sent to Capri. The shipment is intercepted by police before eventually making its way into the hands of the gang.
Joe identifies Omari’s identity and his wider connections with the help of a contact at Interpol. Using the shark as bait, and planting a concealed GPS tracker inside it, Joe and Lara trace its movements to Di Biasi’s hidden base of operations, where they lead a tactical unit in arresting the kingpin’s associates.
Caught with a significant quantity of unlicensed gold, the criminals face up to eight years in prison. Di Biasi loses a key lieutenant, a major enforcer, and an estimated €5 million in assets. But Rocco himself remains at large.
In the aftermath, Commissario Curti (Pasquale Esposito) asks Joe to stay on and help bring Di Biasi down properly. He proposes a transfer to Naples for a year as a specialist advisor, noting Joe has already been consulting on several complex cases.
Did Joe decide to stay in Italy?
Despite his daughter staying in Italy and the job offer on the table, Joe ultimately decides to return to the UK. He explains to Lara, “I don’t know if I’m ready to move yet… leave stuff behind.” Although he adds, “This isn’t goodbye.”
As it turns out, that sentiment proves more accurate than he could have imagined. Lara later catches up with him to share disturbing new information about the suspicious circumstances surrounding his wife’s death.
Then comes a double blow: Angelica calls her father in distress to tell him the restaurant has been firebombed and is now ablaze. To remove any doubt about who is responsible, the attackers leave a clear calling card, confirming Camorra involvement.
In the aftermath, Gennaro’s nephew Luca is pulled from the wreckage and tells Joe, “My fault, Joe. Wrong people. Wrong questions.”
This is so far from over.
What really happened to Joe's wife?
At the start of A Taste for Murder, we learned that Joe’s wife, Sofia, had died in a hit-and-run car accident eleven months earlier. She had been cycling when a car ploughed into her, leaving Joe and their daughter Angelica behind. The police never found her killer, a fact that continued to haunt Joe.
And yes, as many suspected, her death was not an accident. However, this is only confirmed at the end of A Taste For Murder.
Inspector Lara Sarrancino offers to review Sofia’s case file as a favour to Joe, in return for his help as a consultant on her investigations. Re-examining the scene, she notices a detail previously overlooked: a calling card left at the site of the crash; a playing card marked with a religious heart symbol, a known signifier of the Mafia, and more specifically, the Camorra.
The implication is clear: Sofia was targeted.
But why would the Camorra kill her? I suppose it could have been a warning to Gennaro, who they had been extorting in Italy. While it may seem like a long reach, it opens the door to even bigger questions and sets up a potential focus for season two of A Taste for Murder.
Because after that ending, one thing is certain: we need a second season of A Taste For Murder.
Watch A Taste For Murder on ITV.
