Latest / Replay Reviews / Flash that Cash - MAFIA - Part 2

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Flash that Cash - MAFIA - Part 2 · Replay Reviews

• 0:00
  Should I do the out of context summary?
• 0:02
  Yes. I haven't been doing them when we've been watching them.
• 0:04
  We haven't.
• 0:07
  But here it is. In this episode,
• 0:09
  we go to church,
• 0:11
  Tommy blows it, literally and figuratively, and Frank calls Tommy a bitch.
• 0:19
  Of course it's coming from Frank.
• 0:24
  Thank you for coming back from our replay reviews. My name is Leah. And my name is Kathy.
• 0:28
  We are two friends who are here to replay, review, and analyze your favorite video games.
• 0:32
  And since Kathy has never seen the games before, it helps me view them through her fresh eyes,
• 0:37
  almost like I'm discovering them again for the first time. We hope it'll be a similar experience for you.
• 0:51
  Okay.
• 0:52
  Scene one.
• 0:54
  Yes. This is off to a wonderful start.
• 0:58
  Okay, scene one.
• 1:00
  Luigi asks Tommy to walk Sarah home because some men near her place have been giving her trouble,
• 1:05
  and he's worried that she's gonna piss them off. On the way, Tommy says,
• 1:10
  We were talking about meeting up tonight anyway. So what exactly is up with them? Have they been dating already?
• 1:16
  I think it's getting to know you...stage.
• 1:18
  He needs to earn the right to even just to talk to her because Sarah is a smart girl, and she's not even afraid of violence.
• 1:26
  Yeah, she's nice too. Like on the way home, she's bringing food to people.
• 1:31
  But yes, on to the physical violence that you were talking about.
• 1:35
  As they get closer to her apartment, the guys confront them,
• 1:39
  and one of them hints that Salieri isn't what he used to be and even goes as far as to say that Morello will end him sooner or later.
• 1:45
  Do you think that Salieri is desperate and we just don't see it? Do you think he's sort of slipping and losing some power?
• 1:53
  Salieri probably isn't losing his power at this very moment.
• 1:56
  It's later down the road when Frank starts to insert himself into certain situations that we see more of him
• 2:04
  losing it and panicking and making probably the wrong decisions.
• 2:08
  But do you think any of that's happening like behind the scenes right now? I guess my question is...
• 2:12
  Yes, behind the scenes. Mm-hmm.
• 2:14
  Yeah, because why do other people have this opinion, I guess, that Salieri is not what he used to be?
• 2:21
  I'm wondering how Salieri even when he was around like Tommy's age, what he was like.
• 2:26
  Maybe he was all for violence, cursing, and everything, and the one he is at this point of being a leader, he's
• 2:34
  redoing everything. He's rewriting the rules of how you should be. Very similar to Kiryu for being like a new way of
• 2:41
  being a Yakuza. It's his new way, and I think people don't agree.
• 2:45
  They think it's being soft instead of just being a different way of
• 2:49
  ruling the Mafia.
• 2:52
  But Tommy does defeat them all and during the fight, Sarah knees a guy in the junk, I believe, and then gives Tommy this look.
• 2:59
  She likes violence. I could definitely tell. I mean, if she didn't like violence,
• 3:03
  she wouldn't be hanging out around her dad, and we'll get to know more too. And I think she probably
• 3:09
  just has a thing for violence.
• 3:12
  She was having a good time.
• 3:14
  Tommy is bleeding though, and Sarah insists that he come inside so she can patch him up. And of course, he has to get caught staring at her bed.
• 3:23
  Classic man. But she says, banks closed. But then, before we talk about her parents, just on the same topic,
• 3:31
  she later insists that he stay the night, and the heat is conveniently out, and she has no blankets.
• 3:37
  So I'm getting some mixed signals here.
• 3:39
  Are we sure that the heat is out, or did she just turn down the thermostat and isn't gonna turn it back up?
• 3:45
  Are we sure she has no blankets? Because I know you and I
• 3:51
  have too many blankets. So I think she's pulling one over on him a little bit, but
• 3:57
  yeah, while she's patching Tommy up, she mentions that her mother was a violent drunk.
• 4:02
  It's pretty ironic that in most of this game, we see a lot of male characters, and they're usually the ones who are more violent.
• 4:08
  But the person we don't see is actually the person who's most violent. And it's really rare to
• 4:14
  see that it's a female who is a mean drunk.
• 4:19
  Right. Women can be violent.
• 4:23
  Back at Sally Aries, Tommy is telling the Don what happened, and he can't stand for it.
• 4:27
  So he sends Tommy and Polly to go teach them a lesson. So they do, but during the confrontation, two of them drive away, and Tommy and Polly give chase and catch up to them when they crash.
• 4:37
  Polly instructs Tommy to finish them off, but he hesitates, and Polly uses his last two bullets on them.
• 4:45
  Tommy's shaken up. He's frozen. What did you make of this scene?
• 4:49
  I'm curious. Is this his first ever eye-to-eye kill? Because what about this makes him hesitate? Is this for the purpose of having a plot being developed later within the game?
• 5:03
  Or do you think he really is starting to feel afraid of what he's doing? And it's this moment of realization that he's turning really violent, and he doesn't want to be.
• 5:13
  And he doesn't know if he wants to continue down this path.
• 5:19
  My interpretation is, because we heard him say something along the lines of, in those early days, it was mostly making runs, delivering boxes.
• 5:31
  And so I'm wondering if this is the first incident where it really got to this level. And so that's kind of his first exposure to murder.
• 5:39
  But it doesn't seem that much worse than clocking someone over the head with a baseball bat. Maybe it's because they're helpless in the car.
• 5:47
  I don't know what the difference is, but yeah, this is really his first introduction to murdering a man in cold blood, basically.
• 5:55
  Even though there are some reasons, but it wasn't supposed to end up in murder.
• 6:01
  Yeah.
• 6:03
  Alright, moving on to our next scene. It's been about a week, and it turns out that one of the guys Polly killed was the son of a city councilor.
• 6:12
  And the second guy somehow survived. And this is when we learn that the rule is two in the head to ensure that they're actually dead, but Polly only had one shot left.
• 6:23
  Since the survivor may be able to recognize Tommy and Polly, they need to clean up their tracks and also stick it to Morello at the same time.
• 6:30
  The plan is for Sam to attend the funeral, where he will off the survivor when Tommy gives him a distraction, which is blowing up a brothel.
• 6:39
  And Salieri's quote is, if Morello wants to take business away from us, he'll inherit craters.
• 6:46
  So are we seeing him start to lose it a little bit here?
• 6:49
  I think this is the moment where he is going so much crazier. He even tells Tommy that there is a woman there that's leaking details and he needs to kill her.
• 7:00
  You can see he's starting to hesitate. And there's something the way that Sam looks at Tommy just saying that either Sam knows that he has an issue with killing a woman or there's something else that's going on.
• 7:12
  Yeah, I also noted Sam's acting a little weird and we soon find out that it's because he likes this girl and he's the one that's been talking to her.
• 7:21
  So is it kind of pretty much his fault that she now has a target on her back?
• 7:28
  Yeah, he should have just kept his mouth shut.
• 7:32
  Sam does ask Tommy to scare her out of town instead of killing her and even give some cash for him to hand to her.
• 7:39
  I have a feeling that this is going to backfire because first you have probably not doing the complete killing with the two bullets.
• 7:47
  And then now Sam is asking Tommy to leave Michelle alive, Michelle being that woman, and asking him to spare her life.
• 7:56
  I feel like it's going to circle back around and that because you don't kill her, it's going to leave either it's going to destroy Salieri's crew or it's going to come back and hurt Sam.
• 8:10
  And it really is difficult to tell because Sam seems like a good person in this game.
• 8:15
  He's the one being asked to clean up the mess. He seems reliable and loyal and he is loyal to this woman in some way, even though he's the reason that she has a target on her back.
• 8:26
  But now Sam is also going to be owing Tommy a favor.
• 8:30
  Sam's guilt is sort of overruling Salieri's demands.
• 8:37
  And yeah, what are the risks and disobedience in the mafia?
• 8:43
  Moving on, Tommy drops off Sam at the church and then finds Michelle at the brothel.
• 8:48
  He does as Sam requested and lets her live, but does a great job of scaring the crap out of her.
• 8:54
  But also as Tommy's going around the place looking, we also run into a clown with an afro tattoo chair with the peek of blue spotlight shining on him.
• 9:04
  Is this some kind of new kink or I don't know. I'm not trying to kink shame anyone.
• 9:08
  That's okay. You can shame it. Clowns are horrifying.
• 9:11
  Yeah, I know, right? Are you googling like clown kinks or what?
• 9:15
  Yeah. No.
• 9:20
  I'm trying to see if there's any lore behind this. Apparently it's perhaps a reference to the third game.
• 9:25
  Oh, there's more than one mafia game?
• 9:28
  Yeah, I will say I started playing the second one and I didn't get very far.
• 9:34
  So speaking of Tommy's reaction to a week ago, not wanting to shoot someone in the head, he has no problem with that now.
• 9:44
  He walks straight up to the manager, shakes his hand and says, Don Celery sent his regards and shoots him in the face.
• 9:50
  What is with this turn of, I don't know, ability, personality? Why is he now able to just murder this person face to face?
• 9:58
  I think he also knows that if you don't shoot and kill someone, you're going to have this kind of mess.
• 10:04
  And to finish off the previous mess that was left behind because he didn't kill someone, he has to now make up for it and feel less guilty by shooting someone in the face.
• 10:15
  Well, but this assassination had nothing to do with that. This is just a distraction.
• 10:20
  But he learned this lesson that if you don't do as you're told, you probably will have more trouble that follows.
• 10:27
  Yeah, it's true. It seems like a big change, though, from freezing to just walking up to a guy, even shaking his hand and then blasting him.
• 10:37
  Let's do a plot hole. I'm going to say there's a plot hole or a character development hole.
• 10:41
  I mean, it was cool in a way, but it seemed a little bit out of character from what we just learned about Tommy.
• 10:47
  So it confuses me a little bit.
• 10:49
  And we know Tommy does have a soft spot at some point because between Sarah and then leaving Michelle alive and then also his loyalty with Polly and Sam, which we'll see later, there's at some point, I don't know if it's developed or it was always there, but there always was a goodness about him somewhere.
• 11:14
  He is eventually able to plant the bomb. But unfortunately, the cops have arrived by now and his only escape is to jump to another building.
• 11:22
  He does a Hail Mary and God answers his prayer. The bomb goes off and gives him the boost he needs to get across to the next roof.
• 11:29
  On the run, Tommy eventually ends up in the church and he's kind of a dumb butt.
• 11:35
  Why does he do this, Kathy? He is so obvious in the church listening to this eulogy and he squeaks the door open and is watching.
• 11:46
  I'm confused. Number one, how could you be so dumb? Do you need to watch to listen?
• 11:51
  Number two, why is he doing this? Is he still shaken up from that incident? And if so, that makes me question him assassinating the manager even more.
• 12:00
  I'm wondering if it might be because Tommy feels bad that had he killed this person with two bolts instead of Polly in the first place, none of this would happen.
• 12:13
  He wouldn't have to be blowing up the brothel. He wouldn't have to figure out how to get Michelle away.
• 12:20
  He wouldn't have any of this thing of hurting more people. So maybe he's like, I got to be violent to protect people or to minimize the damage and the spread of everything.
• 12:31
  And that's why he's totally OK with being violent. But at the same time, he's being reckless. He's being reckless with how he handles things.
• 12:40
  There's no finesse with him right now. And I think that's what leads to him opening the door, being such an idiot, getting himself spotted and not checking it.
• 12:49
  Like they said, same is going to take care of this. Why is he butting in?
• 12:54
  I always feel like there was a cut scene somewhere that we missed. Something seems to be missing.
• 13:02
  He gets spotted. And so, of course, the church erupts in a shootout and Tommy ends up cornered, but is saved by Sam.
• 13:11
  And the two of them make a run for it in a hearse and escape to safety.
• 13:16
  So we're back to Tommy and the detective in present day. And he's telling him about a few things that happened.
• 13:23
  Number one, Frank heard that Morello was helping Gelati.
• 13:28
  Gelati? I don't know.
• 13:31
  See, when you write it down, you forget how they say it. I think it's Gelati.
• 13:39
  But they're trying to help him get reelected. He's some sort of politician, maybe the mayor.
• 13:43
  They think that he wants to take Salieri down. So obviously this is bad news, right?
• 13:49
  However, the family is lying low after the funeral incident.
• 13:53
  So Morello started to move in quietly on all their territory.
• 13:57
  And at first they didn't notice. And then Tommy says, until Frank.
• 14:01
  And this is when we go back in time again and we see Frank and Tommy driving in a car.
• 14:05
  And Frank is lecturing Tommy about his behavior the previous night and tells a story as an example.
• 14:35
  There wasn't another dog that could catch her. She never lost. Until the day she did.
• 14:45
  We were only out of pocket knife, but I never saw the don so angry.
• 14:50
  She got old on you?
• 14:52
  No. Pregnant. She went into heat, got out of the yard. And every dog in town had a turn.
• 15:02
  You're like that dog, Tommy. Every time you flash your money around, you're a bitch in heat.
• 15:08
  And everyone in that club is now looking to fuck you.
• 15:13
  And once you get fucked, you're no good to us.
• 15:19
  And this is really harsh and it's laced with a lot of harsh words and tones.
• 15:26
  But honestly, it's kind of a good way to put it.
• 15:29
  It makes sense, but it also makes me really uncomfortable hearing about...
• 15:33
  Especially that's the dog that you love. You're pretty much calling your dog a whore.
• 15:41
  It makes me very uncomfortable, but it's also what Tommy needed to understand everything that Frank is telling him.
• 15:50
  He cares for Tommy in a very unique way. It's like a weird father figure mentor relationship.
• 15:57
  And this leads me to my crazy theory. I think this is probably the first crazy theory I had.
• 16:03
  I think Frank is the one who encouraged Tommy to go talk to the detective.
• 16:08
  It's an interesting theory because Frank does then tell Tommy that he's the only one who could actually run the family someday.
• 16:14
  We know that Tommy is speaking to the detective about Morello.
• 16:18
  So yeah, why is Tommy talking to the detective? They made it sound like there's someone trying to get to Tommy.
• 16:25
  What if he's really just trying to get Morello? Who knows?
• 16:29
  But I also don't know because at the end, Frank says that he still kept the dog despite everything that happens.
• 16:36
  And I don't know if this is a display of loyalty or if this is a display of weakness or if this is a display of, I protect what's mine.
• 16:47
  And if in this case, the dog is Tommy, this is Frank's way of indirectly saying that Tommy will always be under his protection.
• 16:56
  Yeah. And to take that further, Frank says when Tommy asked what happened to the dog, the don tried to drown her.
• 17:03
  I broke his nose. So how far if Tommy is the dog in this metaphor, how far is Frank going to go to protect Tommy?
• 17:14
  But as Frank gets out of the car, he tells Tommy to say hi to Sarah and Tommy seems surprised.
• 17:19
  I don't get it because I think everyone knows. So why is he surprised?
• 17:24
  I think he takes it as a threat that if Tommy steps out of line, he's going to do something to Sarah.
• 17:31
  I don't know if it's that far. But what I wrote is, does this mean Frank is watching all of them and keeping tabs on them?
• 17:39
  Does Tommy not realize until now how many eyes are on him?
• 17:44
  It might be the opposite, actually. It might be Tommy realizing how powerful Frank is.
• 17:50
  He's always just seen Frank standing in the back almost like a butler.
• 17:54
  But this is the first time Tommy might be recognizing the power Frank has. It's even greater than what he expected, especially with Salieri going crazy.
• 18:04
  Frank is holding everything together and he also keeps tabs on everyone.
• 18:10
  And Tommy is experiencing that the first time having this one on one conversation.
• 18:15
  So sorry, what does his power have to do with him mentioning Sarah?
• 18:21
  Because he didn't realize that Frank would go that far and has the authority to pretty much punish Sarah for something Tommy did.
• 18:30
  I don't think there's any threat against Sarah. I interpret it that different.
• 18:34
  I don't think there's any threat against Sarah.
• 18:36
  Okay, I thought it was something about Frank threatening Sarah's liveliness with Tommy stepping out of line, if he steps out of line.
• 18:46
  And it could be. I think it's still a threat, but I don't think it's a threat to Sarah.
• 18:52
  I think it's a threat to Tommy to be like, I'm watching you and I know what's going on with you better than you realize I do.
• 18:59
  I think it's more of a threat to him than to Sarah.
• 19:03
  Yeah, that is one possibility. I guess it depends how mean Frank is.
• 19:09
  Yeah, and how Tommy interprets it and maybe Frank doesn't care how he interprets it.
• 19:14
  It's just whatever it is, it puts Tommy in his place.
• 19:19
  So we hear Tommy say, back then, everything went through Frank.
• 19:24
  And this is when we flashback again. Frank asked Tommy to help Sam and Polly with a shipment.
• 19:29
  Sam is already at the farm outside of town and Tommy will help Polly take the trucks up there to meet him.
• 19:35
  A common thing between all the games we play this season is the rain and the storming, and that's never a good sign.
• 19:43
  Yeah, I mean, this is maybe a good topic for the season wrap up episode.
• 19:49
  When Tommy and Polly arrive, Sam is nowhere to be seen, so they start looking for him and Tommy gets jumped.
• 19:55
  And it turns out that they were cops, but they did not present themselves as such.
• 19:59
  And so now they are all dead, which can't be good.
• 20:03
  Polly says they must have been in Morello's pocket. How deep do Morello's ties go, do you think?
• 20:09
  Pretty good. But why didn't they present themselves as cops? They have the upper hand against anyone there.
• 20:16
  Are they fake cops? Who knows? But how did the Canadian Border Patrol get involved with this?
• 20:23
  My understanding is they're smuggling in whiskey from Canada. Prohibition, right?
• 20:30
  And so Polly is saying that Morello must have these Border Patrol cops in his pocket.
• 20:36
  But that circles back to your question, which is, well, if they're in his pocket,
• 20:41
  what's wrong with presenting themselves as police and scaring Tommy and them out of there?
• 20:48
  And Polly sounds pretty darn scared this entire time. That's so different than what he normally is. Why?
• 20:57
  I think things are just hitting the fan because they were laying low, as Tommy was saying.
• 21:02
  Morello really took advantage. And now this is like a big moment in that happening because we also learn that these cops,
• 21:09
  it looks like they killed the Canadian crew, which was working with, I guess, just the farmers that were working with Salieri.
• 21:16
  So they took over this whole operation and killed people.
• 21:21
  And so I think this is a more intense hit, if you will, than they've experienced from Morello before.
• 21:27
  Polly's starting to realize just how dire the situation is.
• 21:32
  Which is now making me have a crazy theory number two. What if the Canadian police are trying to get out under Morello's thumb
• 21:44
  and are starting their own crew and are actually the ones using Morello, leading him to think that he has authority.
• 21:52
  So he's paying all the money for all the whiskey and they're going to take it and run. Maybe that's why they didn't show it.
• 21:58
  I'm also wondering, that's how the involvement goes. And it all of a sudden goes from Salieri's mafia and Morello's mafia
• 22:06
  into having the behind the scenes, the puppet master.
• 22:10
  Yeah, that made me think of another option, which is maybe they didn't want to look like the cops because they don't want to get outed.
• 22:18
  As working with the mafia, that could be another option. But definitely shady stuff is going on.
• 22:26
  Another burst of shooting breaks out and the guys spot Sam and see him take a bullet.
• 22:32
  Thankfully a break in the shooting allows them to make it up to him and he's losing a lot of blood.
• 22:37
  They need to get him out of there, but end up having to shoot their way out and get chased in a truck.
• 22:43
  So let's talk about this truck chase because I have more questions about the Canadian police force.
• 22:50
  These are like armored cars. You cannot really acquire these as citizens, I'm sure.
• 22:56
  So they're putting a lot of resources if they're working with Morello into helping him.
• 23:02
  Like a shockingly high amount of resources.
• 23:05
  Which is why I'm leaning towards my crazy theory number two is that this group is having and collecting so much money
• 23:13
  that they're able to form their own group and take down Morello by using Salieri's resources.
• 23:21
  They're trying to cause a civil war and at the end whoever is the winner is going to be pretty damaged
• 23:28
  and that's when they're going to swoop in and even destroy them.
• 23:31
  Someone had to let them know ahead of time that Salieri's people were going to go and try to take the money.
• 23:40
  Someone tipped someone off and they don't know who is tipping who off.
• 23:46
  Right. So maybe they're using Morello to take out Salieri and then they'll turn on Morello.
• 23:52
  But to your point, who's telling them about Salieri's plans?
• 23:57
  Is it the Canadian crew? And that's why they're dead. They got their answer out of them.
• 24:02
  They do eventually make it to the doctor's house and Tommy leaves for Sarah's place.
• 24:09
  But before we get there we need to talk about Polly.
• 24:14
  Polly at the door of the doctor's house.
• 24:18
  He's so awkward.
• 24:22
  What does the doctor say like, oh what's going on or what are you doing here?
• 24:25
  Yeah.
• 24:26
  Polly's just like, mm-hmm.
• 24:29
  He's stuttering. It looks like he's about to ask a girl out to prom or something.
• 24:33
  It's so funny. I had to rewind three times to watch it.
• 24:36
  Polly, what the hell are you doing here so late?
• 24:41
  Anyway, he gets to Sarah's and at first she's pissed because he's late and dinner is cold.
• 24:47
  But she quickly realizes that something pretty messed up must have happened.
• 24:51
  And it's clear that they both understand the life.
• 24:54
  And I think Tommy sees that too and this is when he asks her to marry him.
• 24:58
  And you didn't like it.
• 25:00
  No, where's the ring? Get down on a knee? My gosh.
• 25:04
  I thought it was sweet. It's in the moment.
• 25:08
  That is true. I get it. I get it.
• 25:10
  I get it. It's mafia times. It's different.
• 25:12
  Yeah. It's the Great Depression, Kathy. You couldn't afford it.
• 25:16
  Yeah.
• 25:19
  Anything else for this episode?
• 25:21
  No, I think we summarized it all.
• 25:23
  Do you want to guess the pedestrian pancakes and the near misses for this part?
• 25:29
  Let's do eight.
• 25:31
  Let me just remind you of your guess for the total pedestrian pancakes throughout the whole series.
• 25:37
  Uh-huh.
• 25:38
  That guess was eight.
• 25:40
  Oh, okay. Oh, gosh. Is that low?
• 25:44
  Gosh, what was I thinking? Fine, let's do two.
• 25:48
  It was not two. It was zero.
• 25:51
  Really?
• 25:52
  There were no pedestrian pancakes in this episode.
• 25:55
  Now I could have cut them out in editing. We'll never know.
• 25:58
  Well, I could know, but I don't care enough to go back and look.
• 26:01
  Do you want to guess near misses?
• 26:03
  Fine, zero.
• 26:06
  No?
• 26:07
  Two.
• 26:08
  Yeah, let's do two.
• 26:09
  Oh, my gosh.
• 26:12
  There wasn't as much driving.
• 26:14
  Yeah.
• 26:15
  But yeah. When you said eight, I was like, okay.
• 26:19
  Have some faith.
• 26:20
  Okay, I need a reminder.
• 26:23
  Your totals were eight PPs and 35 near misses.
• 26:29
  Okay, total is eight PP and 35 TMs.
• 26:36
  Finally got you to laugh. It's different when you say it than when you hear it.
• 26:40
  Saying the word PP just immediately adds a twinkle to your eye.
• 26:48
  There's just something delightful about it.
• 26:50
  Yeah, speaks to our maturity.
• 26:54
  Hey, if you can't laugh at PP, are you really having fun?
• 27:00
  All right, you want to count us off?
• 27:03
  Yeah, let's do audacity on one, three, two, one.
• 27:07
  Thank you for listening.
• 27:08
  And don't forget to send in any questions, comments or game suggestions.
• 27:11
  You can find all our contact info on our website, replayreviewspod.com, or contact us directly through our site.
• 27:17
  Did we completely miss something? Are we way off the mark?
• 27:20
  Or you just want us to take a deeper look at anything from the game?
• 27:23
  We'll tackle any topics you all want to hear in our season wrap-up episode.
• 27:27
  We also have a Reddit where we discuss anything we're curious about.
• 27:30
  Go take a look and let us know what you're thinking.
• 27:32
  Our theme music is Condemned by Eggy Toast.
• 27:35
  They'll play you out and we'll be back next week.
• 28:05
  Thank you.