Diavoli (internationally known as Devils) is a 2020 financial thriller series starring Alessandro Borghi and Patrick Dempsey and based on the book of the same name by Guido Maria Brera.
London, 2011. Massimo Ruggiero (Borghi) is a successful trader at the New York - London Bank (NYL), who, after a series of perplexing events, gets clued in to shady dealings performed by the bank and by his mentor, Dominic Morgan (Dempsey).
And as he starts to uncover more and more, his life starts to be endangered...
The show was renewed for a second season on April 15, 2020, two days before its premiere on Sky.
The second season started airing on Sky on April 22, 2022.
The series contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Edward Stuart's biggest action before his death was being outright prejudiced towards the Italian Massimo, telling him disdainfully that it's better for the NYL that he gets the coveted promotion instead of Massimo, and outright equates being Italian with being a Mafioso (sadly, a stereotype that's believed in Real Life). Massimo replies to him, in Italian, with a famous saying from Paolo Borsellino, a judge who was killed in a Mafia attack: Chi ha paura muore ogni giorno, chi non ha paura muore una volta sola. (He who fears dies every day, who doesn't only dies once).
- Ate His Gun: Sofia's brother kills himself this way.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The show has a lot of them, with Dominic, Paul, Nina, Duval, etc...
- Broken Pedestal: Dominic spends all of the season being one for Massimo.
- Nina is another one, once Massimo learns that she killed Ed Stuart.
- Sofia has two big ones: The first one is Daniel Duval, who she learns is trying to destroy the dollar and make his own currency while inciting riots across Europe. The second is Massimo himself, when Duval reveals that he was the one responsible for her brother's suicide, not Dominic.
- Chilly Reception: Oliver gets this from Massimo's team. This may be part of the reason for him defecting to Dominic.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Massimo was sent to juvie by his father when he had been a passenger of a boat which hit and killed a man. The actual boat driver struck a deal with Enea, Massimo's father, which involved Massimo going to juvie in the other man's place in exchange for money to keep Enea's business afloat. He also was the one whose manipulation drove Sofia's country to bankrupt and her older brother to suicide].
- Driven to Suicide: Sofia's brother.
- How We Got Here: Season 2 starts with Dominic and Massimo meeting in a bar in Milan in 2020, at the beginning of the Italian lockdown. The story then flashes back four years, to 2016.
- It's Personal: The main reason why Massimo is so persistent in his pursue of the truth is his estranged wife Carrie, who was used as a prostitute to clients and ultimately killed with a drug overdose.
- Sofia is after NYL and Dominic because their actions made her country, Venezuela, go bankrupt and her brother, the only caretaker she had after her parents died, killed himself out of desperation.
- Killed Off for Real: Sofia is run over and killed to protect the new CEO of NYL, Massimo, unbeknownst to him.
- Never Suicide: Edward Stuart throws himself off a balcony in the first episode. It's quickly found out he was actually pushed.
- The Reveal: Dominic is part of an American 'Patriotic' group who wanted to break the Euro to uplift and show the superiority of the American Dollar. They fail.
- Edward's killer was not Dominic, but his wife Nina, who killed him because after their son's death in Iraq, she started seeing NYL as a child of sorts, and Edward was becoming a threat to it.
- Time Skip: The second season starts in 2016, four years after the end of the first (2012).
- Two First Names: Massimo Ruggiero.
