Stella has to come to grips with her part in things, and Greene’s family proves to supply the most human education. This is where the racial confrontations make the most impact on the white side of the street. She is under suicide watch, but no one in the family can even look at her. Gigante’s daughter Stella ( Lucy Fry) is traumatized over last season’s execution of her boyfriend, the songwriting guitarist Teddy Greene (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Surprisingly, given such a small range of motives in the series, D’Onofrio still finds eccentric nuances even as he throws off emotional constraints. The actor was more than embarrassed growing up around the more-than-casual racism which all-too-often exploded into violent incidents, and he lets the anger implode. Bonanno won’t allow himself to look past the institutional racism of his most secret organization.ĭ’Onofrio’s Gigante is an unapologetic bigot, and the Brooklyn-born actor infuses every hateful epithet with the power of his neighborhood’s atonement. She also openly appreciates Bumpy’s more cultured side, bonding over opera in their very short introduction scene. Fay appears to be very involved in her husband’s business. She makes for a very different kind of wife than was portrayed in “Honor Thy Father,” Gay Talese’s book on the mafia father. Johnson calls every play in his heroin distribution maneuver a chess move.Īnnabella Sciorra joins this season as Fay Bonanno, the wife of mob boss Joe Bonanno (Chazz Palminteri). Whitaker internalizes the history into Machiavellian method acting. Paul Sorvino’s Frank Costello keeps up the game in the series. The head of the Five Families played chess regularly with Bumpy in front of the YMCA on 135th Street for years. Mob legend Lucky Luciano himself gave the order to get Schultz out of the way and declare Bumpy a family associate. He partnered with Harlem’s crime queen Stephanie St. The real-life Bumpy Johnson made his bones when Harlem was the center of a turf war with Jewish mob boss Dutch Schultz from the Bronx in the 1920s and 1930s. Any hint of his legendary reptilian coldness drops when Johnson speaks French, or relishes a chess match win. He is playing a criminal on the outside, but it is always infused by inner racial pride and guilt. Whitaker exudes humanity from his very pore. The gangster he is based on was described as cold and unemotional while he was alive. Whitaker plays down his emotions, and keeps his motivations as close to his vest as Bumpy keeps his plans. Chin’s ex-boxer training urges him to punch that Spalding, while Bumpy kills the corners. Bumpy and Chin may look like the most bitter of enemies, but Whitaker and D’Onofrio play the scenes like they’re playing a nasty game of handball. Bumpy and Chin may threaten each other with guns, but their most beastly battles are fought with words. This is no mean feat, and makes life especially difficult for Gigante, who controls Harlem for the Genovese family. She is now pulling double duty as a secretary in the church and helping her father while he is on the lam within a 45-block radius. Elise had the most dramatic arc during the first season, kicking the very product her father peddles with the help of the Nation of Islam. Bumpy’s daughter Elise (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy), is the only family member the Harlem kingpin keeps close. The only thing keeping him sane is knowing his wife Mayme (Ilfenesh Hadera) and granddaughter are being kept safe with family in South Carolina until the whole thing blows over. He’s been ducking hitmen for three months, and is starting to bug out. The first season ended with Johnson on the run from the Five Families. Bumpy wants to cut out the middleman and deal directly with mainline supplier Jean Jehan (Ronald Guttman), who Vincent “Chin” Gigante ( Vincent D’Onofrio) calls one of the “frogs from the Corsican countryside.” “The French Connection” is also the name of a classic 1971 film starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, and the season’s opening sequence nods respect with an old school car chase. Most of the action concerns distribution control over the heroin pipeline which runs from Corsica to Marseille to New York. “ Godfather of Harlem” season two is being tied with the “French Connection.” It is the title of this season’s first episode, a new business venture for Forest Whitaker’s Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, and a real piece of mob history. ‘Godfather of Harlem’ Claims New Territory in Season 2
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