The 2025 Italian Netflix thriller drama series, Public Disorder, does not necessarily provide us all the answers regarding the characters’ future in the end, but rather leaves us with certain assumptions. As we follow the characters in both their highly demanding professional and complicated and somewhat tainted personal lives, the show makes us grow a connection with them. Public Disorder’s ending is clearly meant to make us feel for Mazinga and his colleagues to a greater extent. As the date for the investigation regarding the incident of police brutality at Val di Susa comes closer, the unit is given the order to patrol the streets on 31st December to maintain public order and safety, but things soon start to get out of hand.
Spoiler Alert
How does Salvo finally react to getting catfished?
One of the youngest members of the Mobile Unit of the Rome police squad, Salvatore, is also one of the most intense characters in the series, mostly because of how fiercely loyal and yet unpredictable he is. In his personal life, Salvatore, known as Salvo to his friends, spends most of the time texting a woman named Lena, whom he had met online. Although they had never met in person, Salvo and Lena had started dating, and so he is seen texting her after work every day, as part of his routine to wind down after the intense police duty. Then a time came when he wanted her to come down to Rome so that they could finally meet and spend time with each other, and so he sent her money for flight tickets as well. This is when things took an odd turn, for Lena stopped responding to his texts despite reading them and being online.
Salvo had earlier discussed his romantic life with Marta, the colleague he was closest to, and she had already warned him of the possibility that he was being scammed by Lena, or even a man pretending to be her. Salvo seemingly did not take this seriously until the point when she stopped texting on the very day that she was about to land in Rome. To check on his suspicions, he contacted an old friend working somewhere higher up, possibly in Italian intelligence, and found out that nobody named Lena had boarded the particular flight. He then also found the address of the person he had been in contact with for so long, through the help of the same friend, and arrived at the scene to confront them. To his surprise, Salvo came across a different woman, who turned out to have been faking her identity as Lena online.
Salvo confronted her and learned that she had catfished him into starting an online relationship with her, only so that she could get money from him from time to time. She had put up fake photos to appear attractive to men, and Salvo was probably just one of her targets. The police officer was extremely angered by this discovery, to the point that he was almost on the brink of killing her, but he thankfully changed his mind after realizing that she had a baby. It was most definitely to support her baby and herself that she had chosen such a dangerous and unethical source of income, and so Salvo had to accept the fact that he had been cheated and made a fool of. As other professional situations came in the way, he moved on from the matter and almost flushed it out of his mind, until the woman contacted him repeatedly and asked him to meet her.
During Public Disorder’s ending, Salvo is seen meeting the unnamed woman once again, at a café inside a hotel, and she states that she wanted to see him only so that she could apologize. She had started to feel very guilty for her actions, maybe more so because she had cheated a policeman and so wanted to rectify her mistakes. However, it is soon revealed that the woman had also developed an attraction for Salvo and offered to get intimate with him, just like they used to discuss in their texts, in one of the hotel rooms upstairs. They are seen making love through the night, but it is not clear whether they will continue to see each other. Sometime earlier, Salvo had also expressed his romantic feelings for Marta at an office party, and although she too had expressed similar interests, nothing came of it. Perhaps both of them knew that they would not be a good fit in each other’s lives, especially given their respective situations, and so they did not pursue the matter any further. It is most likely that Salvo will continue to date the woman who had catfished him after having forgiven her past actions.
Why does Marta feel the need to confront Giulia?
For quite some time, Marta had been frustrated by the fact that her young daughter, Agata, was spending time with her father, Stefano. Although Marta and Stefano had divorced, and she had gotten full custody of Agata, he still wanted to spend time with their daughter, and there was nothing wrong with such a demand either. However, Marta starts to realize that Stefano has been trying to win over their young daughter’s mind through gifts and material possessions, which is creating a very different image of him in Agata’s mind than how he actually is. This is what she wants to avoid, for the reasons behind the marriage failing were intricately linked to Stefano’s alcoholism and how he was a pathetic man behind closed doors.
During one of her stays at her father’s house, Agata is told by Stefano that the reason why her parents separated was because of a grave mistake he had committed. Once when the family was out shopping, Stefano had left baby Agata locked inside their car, as he was heavily drunk at the time. It was Marta who desperately broke open the car’s window, having to risk injury to both the baby and herself, in order to rescue Agata. However, this was not the only reason for her choosing to divorce Stefano, for he used to often physically assault her while under the influence of alcohol, to the point that she still had some scars or marks from the incidents. Although Marta had possibly told Agata about these incidents, she was not too moved by them or maybe thought that her father was now a changed man.
This is also because Agata is treated very warmly and well by Stefano’s current partner, Giulia, and she enjoys spending time with them and starts to open up to them a lot more than Marta is comfortable with. Thus, when Marta hears from her daughter that Giulia has been nursing a bruise that she has supposedly gotten after falling from a scooter, she realizes that her toxic ex-husband is up to the same antics as before.
Thus, in Public Disorder’s ending, Marta meets Giulia in front of the supermarket where she works and asks her to come into the car for a quick chat. Then, Marta confronts Giulia, all while Agata is in the backseat of the car, and makes the woman admit how she got her bruises. Stefano had indeed kicked and assaulted her only because a male colleague of hers had texted her, and this makes his actual nature clear as daylight.
Marta knows that she really cannot help Giulia much, for only she can take any legal steps against Stefano, but she knows that the revelation will surely make Agata realize that her father is not a respectable man at all. The plan works out, and Agata is truly horrified after finding out that her own father is a shameless wife-beater, and this will surely keep her away from visiting and respecting him anymore. Ultimately, Marta knows that she and her daughter have only each other in life, and so she remains determined to support Agata in every way possible, even if it means making her realize the truth through the harshest possible means.
Is Michele punished for his actions?
The newest member of the Mobile Unit of Rome squad is Michele, who is given the task of leading the team at the beginning of Public Disorder, after the previous leader is injured in the clash with the protestors. Michele is known to be a very morally correct and upstanding police officer, and he is even infamous among his colleagues for having spoken up against officers in his own unit in a court case for police brutality. Therefore, he is always expected to do the right things and make the right choices, but as fate would have it, this changes when his daughter gets sexually assaulted at a party. Although the teenager is clearly confused about the situation, as she feels that nothing too wrong had happened, and she does not want to press any charges, Michele does not agree with the decision. She even keeps in touch with the boy and tries to normalize what had just happened between them, even though she is absolutely devastated by the incident and grows extremely depressed because of it.
Eventually, Michele gets very affected by the situation, quite naturally, and decides to go see the boy for himself after finding out his identity from the police officer who had taken his daughter’s statement. He realizes that the boy is living a very normal life, partying and enjoying himself with friends, with no guilt over what he had done. In utter emotional turmoil, Michele tells Salvo about the entire situation, and the latter kidnaps the boy with a few of his friends and keeps him tied up inside a workshop. As they invite Michele to the place, he too beats up the boy horrifically, out of sheer anger and contempt, despite knowing that doing so is highly illegal and also morally wrong. Although Michele controls himself after a few blows, and he stops Salvo from further torturing the boy, news of this incident reaches his daughter and wife.
As a result, Michele’s wife leaves him and takes their daughter with her, leaving him completely isolated in his personal life. He perhaps realizes that this was definitely not the right way to stand up for his family, but has to live on with its consequences, since it was really the only way he could have done anything about it. Through these subplots, the generally old-school thinking of police officers and other officers of the law is discussed by “Public Disorder.” Ultimately, there is no legal or professional consequence to his actions, but Michael definitely has to pay for his decisions through his personal life. In a phone call with his daughter, he is also heard promising her that he will pay for his mistakes, and this makes it possible that Michael will himself confess his unlawful acts and serve punishment for them.
What happens to Mazinga?
Public Disorder’s ending takes place on the 31st of December, just a day before the Internal Affairs investigation into the incident of police brutality is about to take a more resolute shape. The entire squad is notified that they will all be suspended until the investigation is over and the main perpetrator behind the incident is identified . In reality, it was Marta who had beaten up one of the protestors terribly, which caused the young man to have to be hospitalized. The incident had been caught on Mazinga’s bodycam, but as he always wanted to support his squad members through thick and thin, he had ensured not to let Marta be found responsible. Instead, Mazinga tries to state that the whole unit was responsible for the incident, and not one of them can be held responsible for it. It is clear that Mazinga will take the blame for the incident of police brutality, saving Marta from the trouble, as her daughter genuinely needs her presence in her life. However, on the night of the 31st, news of the death of the protester who had been assaulted by the police spread rapidly on the internet, and this naturally caused a lot of people to grow violent against the police force. As a result, the squad we have been following is also attacked, and although the members manage to ultimately get away, Mazinga seems to suffer a heart attack during the escape. It is not exactly made clear if Mazinga actually dies, but it is most likely that he does lose his life. In that case, his squad members can safely pin the blame on the dead man, saying that it was he who had beaten up the protestor, which ultimately led to his death, and so Marta would be out of any trouble. Mazinga would also not have to serve any punishment for it, and everyone in the squad could rest easy.
The only other possibility is that Mazinga survives the attack, but his physical ailment might actually prevent him from receiving too strict a punishment, and since he had already decided to retire from service, he would not have to face serious consequences either.
