My Brilliant Friend

"My Brilliant Friend" has returned for a second season more affecting, in an alarming way, than the first, though in every way just as impressive in its penetrating portraiture of Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila (Gaia Girace), the friends at the center of this tale set in 1950s Naples, based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.

A gorgeously wrought second season that vividly recreates 1950s postwar Naples, and the complex relationships among its denizens, all of whom are looking for something more among the ruins.

The three episodes I've seen of the eight-part season evoke Lenù's expanding political conscience and Lila's boiling rage. This is still sumptuous getaway TV.

The dramas that play out range from the brutal to the more purely psychological, and all of them are compelling, not least of all thanks to the lead actresses’ stunning performances.

My Brilliant Friend's marvelous, harrowing sophomore season begins with a fairy-tale air.

[My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name] still expertly portrays the bewilderingly contradictory dynamics of female friendships. But it also offers savagely dramatic, heartstrings-pulling, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cliffhangers. ... Season two reconciles that heaviness [of season one] with a pleasurable mix of plot, visual oompf and pacing: It is shot after shot of arrestingly pure swoon, even when it’s damply dreary. What’s more, it moves, giving viewers more twists and turns, more suspense, and more emotionally resonant brushstrokes that bring the largely emotional experience of reading Ferrante’s books into vivid Technicolor.