It’s over. Well, almost. If you’ve been following the sprawling, dusty, and often violent journey of Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo since 2018, you know that My Brilliant Friend Season 4 isn't just another TV premiere. It is a reckoning. Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels always felt like they were vibrating with a kind of dangerous energy, and this final installment, based on The Story of the Lost Child, finally brings that tension to a boiling point. It’s heavy. It’s gorgeous. It’s kind of a lot to process.
Honestly, watching the transition from the younger cast to the adult actors—Alba Rohrwacher and Irene Maiorino—felt risky at first. You get used to faces. You grow with them. But Rohrwacher, who has been the literal voice of the show as the narrator since day one, steps into the role of Lenù with a weary, intellectual grace that just works. She looks like a woman who has spent decades trying to outrun her own shadow, only to find it’s still tethered to the neighborhood in Naples she tried so hard to leave behind.
The Brutal Reality of Returning to Naples
Most stories about "going home" are draped in nostalgia. This isn't that. My Brilliant Friend Season 4 deals with the messy, often catastrophic reality of Elena’s return to Naples to be with Nino Sarratore. If you’re still rooting for Nino at this point, we need to have a serious talk. He’s the worst. Truly. But his presence is the catalyst for Elena’s proximity to Lila again, and that’s where the real sparks fly.
Naples in the 1980s is a character itself here. It’s a city transitioning through political upheaval, the lingering stench of the Solara family’s corruption, and the literal shaking of the earth. The 1980 Irpinia earthquake is a massive turning point in the season. It’s filmed with this claustrophobic, terrifying realism that reminds you how fragile the lives of these characters actually are. When the walls shake, the social hierarchies shake too.
Lila, played by Maiorino, is fascinating this season. She hasn't left. She’s stayed in the dirt and the noise, becoming a local power player in her own right through her computing business. She’s sharper than ever. When she looks at Elena, she sees someone who escaped but didn't actually get free. It’s a subtle distinction that the show handles with incredible nuance. You can see the resentment and the love tangled together like a knot that neither woman knows how to untie.
Why the Time Jump Actually Matters
Aging characters on screen is a nightmare for most productions. Usually, it's bad wigs and "old person" makeup that looks like melting wax. Here, the change is internal. The shift to My Brilliant Friend Season 4 captures the exhaustion of middle age. Elena is a successful author, a mother, and a lover, but she’s also deeply insecure. She’s still the girl from the neighborhood who thinks she’s a fraud.
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The season covers a massive stretch of time, moving through the 80s, 90s, and into the early 2000s. You see the fashion change, sure, but the core conflict remains: can you ever truly be an individual when your identity is so wrapped up in another person? Lila and Elena aren't just friends. They are two halves of a whole, constantly competing, constantly validating one another, and occasionally destroying one another.
Dealing With the "Lost Child" Arc
We have to talk about the title of the final book. The Story of the Lost Child. If you haven't read the novels, the plot points in the latter half of the season are going to hit you like a freight train. It’s devastating. The show doesn't shy away from the tragedy that defines the final years of their relationship.
The brilliance of the writing—handled by Saverio Costanzo and his team—is that it avoids being a soap opera. Even when the most dramatic, heartbreaking things happen, the camera stays focused on the psychological fallout. How do you survive a loss that you can't explain? How does a friendship endure when one person blames the other for the world falling apart?
- The Solara family's influence begins to crumble, but the vacuum they leave behind is just as dangerous.
- Elena’s daughters grow up and start to mirror her own rebellions, which is a bitter pill for her to swallow.
- The mystery of the dolls from the very first episode of season one finally comes full circle in a way that will make you want to rewatch the entire series immediately.
The Technical Mastery of HBO and RAI
The production value has peaked. The cinematography in My Brilliant Friend Season 4 moves away from the brighter, saturated tones of the 1950s and 60s and into a grittier, grainier aesthetic. It feels like the air is heavier. The direction captures the chaos of a Naples that is modernizing but still ruled by old-world blood feuds.
There’s a specific scene in a later episode where Elena and Lila are walking through the old neighborhood, and the way the shadows fall across the crumbling buildings makes it look like a ghost story. In many ways, it is. They are haunted by the versions of themselves that they used to be. They are haunted by the people who didn't survive the neighborhood.
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Irene Maiorino’s performance as Lila is a revelation. She captures that "smoldering" quality that Gaia Girace had, but adds a layer of cynicism that only comes with age. She’s terrifying and magnetic. You understand why Elena can’t stay away, even when Lila is being cruel. It’s the most authentic depiction of a "frenemy" ever put to film, though that word feels too small for what they have.
The Problem With Nino
Let’s be real: watching Elena ruin her life for Nino Sarratore is painful. In this season, we see Nino in his full, bloated "intellectual" glory. He’s a man who uses words to hide his complete lack of character. The show does an excellent job of showing how Elena, a brilliant woman, can be so blind to the obvious flaws of a man who represents the "sophistication" she craves. It’s a warning about how we let our desires override our intellect.
What This Season Says About Motherhood
A huge chunk of the narrative explores the friction between being an artist and being a mother. Elena is constantly torn. She feels guilty when she’s writing and resentful when she’s parenting. It’s an honest, ugly look at the sacrifices women are expected to make. Lila, on the other hand, approaches motherhood with a fierce, almost obsessive protection that reflects her own lack of safety growing up.
The contrast between their parenting styles is another battlefield. They judge each other. They compare their children. It’s deeply human and occasionally hard to watch because it feels so private. You’re not just watching a plot; you’re eavesdropping on a life.
The final episodes of My Brilliant Friend Season 4 are a masterclass in slow-burn storytelling. It doesn't rush to the finish line. It lingers in the quiet moments of disappointment and the sudden flashes of joy. By the time the credits roll on the final episode, you feel like you’ve lived an entire lifetime alongside these women.
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If you are looking for a happy ending where everything is tied up with a bow, you’re in the wrong place. This is a story about the endurance of the human spirit in the face of time, which eventually takes everything from everyone. It’s about the fact that even if we lose the people we love, the impact they had on us remains etched into our DNA.
Next Steps for the Viewer:
To get the most out of this final season, you should actually go back and watch the final two episodes of Season 3. The shift in actors is much easier to digest if the previous events are fresh in your mind. Specifically, pay attention to the scene on the airplane—it sets the emotional stakes for everything Elena loses in Season 4.
Once you finish the series, read the final twenty pages of the fourth book. There are internal monologues regarding Elena's aging process that the show hints at visually but couldn't quite fit into the dialogue. It provides a layer of closure that makes the final shot of the series even more poignant.
Finally, look into the history of the 1980 Naples earthquake. Understanding the scale of that disaster helps contextualize why the characters react with such existential dread during the mid-season episodes. It wasn't just a plot point; it was the day the world changed for an entire generation of Italians.