Honestly, I can't stop thinking about the dust. That fine, grey Neapolitan grit that seems to coat everything in the first few episodes of My Brilliant Friend season 1. Most TV shows try to make the past look golden or nostalgic, like a filtered Instagram post. Not this one. Director Saverio Costanzo treats 1950s Naples like a pressure cooker. It’s loud. It’s violent. It’s crowded.
If you’ve ever had a best friend who made you feel like both a genius and a total failure at the same time, you’ll get it.
The show, based on Elena Ferrante’s global bestseller, follows Elena "Lenù" Greco and Raffaella "Lila" Cerullo. They live in a neighborhood where men settle debts with their fists and women scream from balconies. It’s a place where getting an education isn't just a choice—it’s a radical act of rebellion.
The Brutal Reality of My Brilliant Friend Season 1
Most coming-of-age stories are soft. This is a jagged edge.
We start with two little girls, Elisa del Genio and Ludovica Nasti, who give performances so raw they don't even feel like acting. Lila is the "brilliant" one, a feral child who teaches herself to read while her father, a shoemaker, looks on with a mix of pride and simmering resentment. Lenù is the observer. She’s diligent. She’s the "good girl" who uses Lila’s spark to light her own fire.
There’s a specific scene early in My Brilliant Friend season 1 that defines their entire lives. They throw their dolls into a dark cellar belonging to the neighborhood bogeyman, Don Achille. It’s a test of courage. Or maybe it's a sacrifice. By losing those dolls, they lose their childhood. They realize that to survive the neighborhood, they have to be harder than the boys throwing stones at them.
The stakes are higher than they look.
In this world, a bad grade isn't just a disappointment. It's a life sentence. When Lila is denied the chance to go to middle school because her family can’t afford the books (and because she's a girl), it feels like watching a murder. Her intellect is being strangled in real-time. Meanwhile, Lenù is allowed to continue, creating a permanent, painful rift between them.
🔗 Read more: Shamea Morton and the Real Housewives of Atlanta: What Really Happened to Her Peach
Why the Casting Works (And Why You Can’t Look Away)
Halfway through the season, the girls grow up. Margherita Mazzucco (Lenù) and Gaia Girace (Lila) take over.
It was a risky move. Usually, changing actors mid-stream breaks the spell. Here, it deepens it. Girace has these eyes—sharp, suspicious, almost predatory. She looks like someone who is constantly calculating how to get out of a room. Mazzucco, by contrast, plays Lenù with a quiet, simmering anxiety. She’s always looking at Lila to see how she should feel.
It’s a masterclass in "the gaze."
The show isn't about romance, though there’s plenty of teenage pining. It’s about how these two girls see each other. Elena Ferrante’s writing (and the show's adaptation) captures that specific, toxic, beautiful jealousy that exists between young women. You want your friend to succeed, but never more than you. You want to be her, but you also want to destroy the part of her that makes you feel small.
Neapolitan Life Isn't a Postcard
If you’re expecting Under the Tuscan Sun, keep walking.
The production design of the rione (the neighborhood) is a character itself. It’s a grey, concrete labyrinth. There is no sea in sight, even though Naples is a coastal city. For these kids, the sea is a myth. It’s something that exists "out there," beyond the tunnel they’re too afraid to walk through.
The violence is casual.
💡 You might also like: Who is Really in the Enola Holmes 2 Cast? A Look at the Faces Behind the Mystery
A father throws his daughter through a window because she wants to study Latin. A family wedding turns into a battlefield because of a pair of shoes. It sounds operatic, but the show films it with a cold, documentary-like distance. It’s just Tuesday in the rione. Max Richter’s score helps, too. It’s repetitive and haunting, mirroring the way these characters are stuck in cycles of poverty and blood feuds.
The Shoe Plot Is Actually About Class Warfare
It sounds silly on paper. Lila spends the back half of My Brilliant Friend season 1 designing a pair of luxury shoes. But it’s not about fashion. It’s about the Cerullo family trying to claw their way into the middle class.
The shoes represent Lila’s wasted genius. She can’t be a scholar, so she’ll be a designer. She’ll use the Solara brothers—the local Camorra-linked thugs—to fund her dreams. It’s a deal with the devil. Lenù watches from the sidelines, horrified and fascinated, as her friend trades her soul for a chance to be "someone."
What Most People Get Wrong About Lenù
People often call Lenù the "boring" one. They’re wrong.
Lenù is the ultimate survivor. While Lila is a supernova that eventually burns out or explodes, Lenù is a slow-growing vine. She absorbs everything. She learns from her teachers, she learns from the boys, and most importantly, she learns by mimicking Lila.
In My Brilliant Friend season 1, we see the start of her long game. She stays in school. She suppresses her own desires to fit into the world of the "educated." It’s a different kind of bravery. It’s the bravery of endurance.
There’s a moment on the island of Ischia—the only time the show feels "pretty"—where Lenù finally experiences a world outside the rione. She realizes that her neighborhood is small. She realizes that the people she feared are actually pathetic. This realization is her ticket out, but it also makes her an alien in her own home.
📖 Related: Priyanka Chopra Latest Movies: Why Her 2026 Slate Is Riskier Than You Think
The Ending That Broke the Internet (In 1950s Terms)
The finale, "The Promise," is a gut-punch.
Lila’s wedding is supposed to be her triumph. She’s marrying Stefano Carracci, the "good" rich guy. She thinks she’s won. She thinks she’s escaped the Solaras. But then, in the final minutes, Marcello Solara walks into the room wearing the shoes—the very shoes Lila designed with her own hands, the shoes her husband promised no one else would touch.
It’s a betrayal that resets the entire board.
In that one image, Lila realizes that her husband is just another man who sees her as a commodity. She’s not a partner; she’s a trophy. The look on her face as the camera zooms in is pure horror. And Lenù? She’s there, watching, realizing that the "perfect life" Lila built is a cage.
How to Actually Watch This Without Getting Overwhelmed
- Use Subtitles, Not Dubbing. The Neapolitan dialect is vital. It’s rougher and more aggressive than standard Italian. You lose the class distinctions if you watch the English dub.
- Keep a Character Map. Seriously. The families (The Cerullos, The Grecos, The Carraccis, The Solaras) are intertwined. It’s easy to get lost in who killed whose father in 1943.
- Watch the Background. Pay attention to the women in the windows. They are the future versions of Lenù and Lila—exhausted, bitter, and trapped. It explains why the girls are so desperate to escape.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Newcomers
If you’ve finished the first season and feel a void in your soul, you aren't alone. Here is how to deepen the experience:
- Read the books after watching. Usually, it's the other way around. But seeing the faces of the actors makes Ferrante’s dense prose much easier to navigate. The "Neapolitan Novels" are a four-book journey.
- Research the "Years of Lead." While season 1 is set in the 50s, the political unrest of Italy in the following decades is hinted at. Understanding the tension between the Communists and the Fascists in the neighborhood adds a layer of depth to the parents' behavior.
- Listen to the Soundtrack. Max Richter’s "Elena & Lila" theme is a masterpiece of minimalist tension. It’s great for focusing, but it might make you feel a sudden, inexplicable urge to study Greek.
- Look for the "Blue Fairy." It’s the book Lila wrote as a child. It appears throughout the season as a symbol of lost potential. Keep track of where it ends up.
My Brilliant Friend season 1 isn't just "good TV." It’s a heavy, beautiful, and often painful exploration of what it means to grow up female in a world that wasn't built for you. It’s about the power of education and the cost of leaving your roots behind. If you haven't started it yet, prepare to be haunted.
Go watch it on HBO or Max. Then call your best friend and tell them you hate them, but you love them, but you mostly hate how much you love them. They’ll understand.