My Brilliant Friend Recap: All About My Mother

Motherhood is a central theme in the Neapolitan Quartet — I’d even venture that it’s one of its main “problems.” For Ferrante’s women, motherhood is never totally straightforward, loving, or hostile; as a problem, it remains mostly unresolved, as it does for many women who dare have a life outside the constraints of motherhood. Lenù loves her children, but she is capable of questioning their role in her life, something that society judges inadmissible for mothers. As readers have pointed out in the comments section, Lenù is no monster for having feelings other than a totalizing love for her children. Lenù herself might remind us that though the world encourages us to forget it, mothers are people, too — and as such, they are liable to make mistakes.

Still, it’s one thing to be honest with yourself about your limitations and another entirely to face them in your own mother. Lenù’s relationship with Immacolata was never easy; and since Immacolata declared in no uncertain terms that Lenù wasn’t her daughter anymore, there was no relationship at all. When Lenù makes it back to the neighborhood with Dede and Elsa at the beginning of “Compromises,” she hasn’t seen or spoken to her mother since their fight in Florence, and to Lila in more than a year. If the prospect of mending her relationship with her mother is one of the draws of the neighborhood, being near Lila is the other.

Lenù’s childhood home is shadowy and dark when she returns; maybe because Dede and Elsa are there, it takes on the old, dangerous grayness of Lenù’s childhood with Lila. Lenù notices a couple of girls playing where she and Lila once fatefully lost a doll, and she’s scared of her own daughters’ wandering. Immacolata, meanwhile, looks much older. Ill, unreachable, and unmoved, she’s pretty sure her illness is Lenù’s fault for destroying her perfectly good marriage. Begrudgingly, she fills Lenù in on what happened in her absence: With Enzo’s help, Lila all but dethroned the Solaras as the neighborhood’s ruling force, and though she remains unmarried to Marcello, Elisa is now pregnant. Lenù wonders if this is acceptable and her divorce isn’t, but she’s missing the obvious difference: From childhood, Lenù tried to separate herself from the fate of becoming her mother without realizing that’s what Immacolata wanted for her, too.

Worried about Immacolata’s worsening health, Lenù starts seeing her frequently. During one visit, she runs into Lila coming out of the apartment. At first, it seems like it’ll actually be nice between them, but soon Lila starts pulling out Lilaisms from her new chic bag: The ocean might look beautiful from Lenù’s apartment on Via Petrarca, but it’s nothing more than “mud, filth, piss, polluted water.” Without being fully privy to the details of Lenù’s current life, Lila can call it for what it is: a theater. “Get a house here,” she orders, before walking down the stairs. This commanding tone is the register of Lenù’s childhood; Lila had no doubt been trying to use the same forcefulness to convince Immacolata to see a doctor, but the old woman won’t budge. Instead, Immacolata praises Lila’s intelligence and savvy, the strength she demonstrated in wrestling the powerful Solaras under her control. It’s a twist of the knife: Immacolata feels prouder of Lila than she does of Lenù.

It’s a relief to be reminded that, despite everything, Lenù does have her own life, which can be wholesome and full — after dinner, she dances with her daughters in front of the TV to a pop tune. Because he is intent on ruining every nice thing, Nino comes home late and is not hungry even though Lenù waits to eat with him. He tries to regain some favor by announcing to the whole household that he has some “great news”: His work is taking him to New York City! It’s kind of cruel that he gathers the girls to say this because when they inevitably ask if they’re all going, he has to disappoint them; only Lenù can tag along. In front of her daughters, Lenù puts her foot down: She can’t go. There’s no one to stay with the girls.

Nino puts the girls to bed and takes their gift requests from America while Lenù, in her most real moment yet this season, sits in the kitchen eating pasta straight from the pot and stewing. Maybe her initial resistance to Nino was 70 percent frustration at his flightiness and 30 percent hunger because when he reemerges, she tells him a small house in Boston published her book, and actually, it would be great to go see them and participate in the launch events. But the question of who to leave the girls with is a real problem: Pietro is “too busy” at work to take them (notice how he’s allowed), Immacolata is too sick, there’s no way Lenù will ask Adele for a favor, and she hasn’t heard from Mariarosa in a while. Nino suggests Lila. It would mean being dependent on Lila again, but at the same time, Lenù knows that she would take great care of the girls — the idea feels impossible before it’s spoken, but once it’s out there, it feels inevitable.

When Lenù calls Lila at home, her friend has just arrived from work. In the background, Enzo is setting the table and preparing dinner. This would be a throwaway moment if it didn’t perfectly symbolize the mirrored state of gender relations in each of the women’s houses, their public positions as feminists notwithstanding: Enzo is a real helping hand, while Nino has dinner with his wife and leaves his Other Woman waiting. Lenù beats around the bush a little, but ultimately asks Lila if she can watch over the girls while she visits the United States. Lila replies with characteristic intensity: “Your daughters mean more to me than my own kid.” Between this statement and the dissolve that merges the two women together “Summer Nights” style, it’s all a little much, but okay — it sets the dynamic up as a counter to Lenù’s once infamous summer with Gennarino, a brief period of peace in her married life before Nino came along.

Lenù gets bangs for the trip, the telltale sign that a woman is going through a seismic moment, but I still love the way they frame her face with playfulness rather than austerity. In voice-over, we learn that she is pregnant — another sign, coupled with the trip, that her world is expanding. She prefers to keep the pregnancy to herself while in America, relishing the secrecy. When Lenù and Nino return to Naples with their adolescent buoyancy restored, Lila watches them from the window of her apartment. She makes brief, scary eye contact with Nino, who doesn’t come up.

For the first time in ages, Lila and Lenù seem happy to see each other. They fawn over their new hairstyles and clothes, and Lenù has brought back presents for everyone, including rock records for Dede, earrings for Lila, and a sick leather jacket for Gennaroino. The kids go play with their new stuff and Enzo makes lunch, giving Lila and Lenù time to catch up. Enzo casts a knowing look toward Lila, who can’t wait to share her big news: She is pregnant. Without hesitation, Lenù tells Lila that she is pregnant, too, and the two friends hold each other, dumbstruck at the happy coincidence.

It doesn’t take Lila long to get real. She posits that Lenù’s pregnancy will function as a test: If Nino doesn’t want to assume responsibility for the child, it’ll prove that he doesn’t care about Lenù as much as he does about his “real” family. Also, Lenù needs to tell her daughters. Before she can think about how she’s going to do it, Lila has already called them over and announced that she herself is pregnant. “Would you like a little brother, or a little sister?” Lila asks Elsa who would be happy to have someone younger than her in the family. She then turns to Dede, who catches on immediately. “You’re expecting a baby?” she asks her mother. Lenù says yes, and Elsa gasps with happiness, hugging her mother’s stomach; Dede is characteristically resigned and cryptic. It’s hard to tell what reaction she is having to the news until she announces that if the kid is a girl, she wants to name her. Lenù chuckles with relief.

Later that night, as Lenù helps her daughters get ready for bed, Dede tells her mother all she’s learned from spending time at her cool Aunt Lila’s. First of all, their names should be Dede and Elsa Greco, rather than Airota, seeing as it was Greco who carried them in her stomach — the antithesis to Guido Airota’s messed up spiel on tradition. Lenù gently teases Dede about her love for Lila, and though with Lenù, that kind of joke is never just that, she still marvels at her friend’s cleverness: In a matter of a few days, Lila had “convinced Dede and Elsa that it was not only acceptable but even interesting, the life I had thrown them into.” Interesting is the adjective Lenù had always strived to append to her own self — the traces of this same desire seem to already be emerging in Dede.

Nino gets home late, as usual, lying, as usual, about where he was, to Lenù reading in bed. She is working through Pietro’s latest book, on whose first page he has inscribed: “To Elena, who taught me love with suffering.” Nino is jealous of the relatively healthy relationship that Lenù has maintained with the father of her children. Lenù blurts out that she’s pregnant. From his ecstatic reaction, it’s impossible to know this man’s plan. To continue to just lie to everyone with no remorse? More than that, to be happy about his lies? Bring one more kid into the world and pretend that he doesn’t have a full second family? However hesitantly, Lenù is asking herself the same questions. She wants to know if Nino will tell Eleonora about her pregnancy; Nino counters that it’s none of her business. Forgetting the meaning of what she has just discussed with Dede, she doesn’t fully believe him when he promises that he will give the child his name. She wonders at the terms of their arrangement, which Nino argues is necessary. Necessary for whom?

Out walking some time later, Lenù sees Nino with Eleonora and his two kids. They don’t see Lenù at first, but she doesn’t let it slide. With a trembling voice, she calls out to Nino and, vaguely gesturing at a shop window, mentions that soon she will need new clothes. Eleonora barks for them to go before she “kills the slut,” and Nino shakes his head at Lenù. I don’t know how a person is supposed to put up with this, and neither does Lenù. Later, Nino pleads with her: Eleonora asked him to go to the pediatrician, what was he supposed to do? I’ll spare you the details of his argument since, by now, we’re all well acquainted with the litany of excuses he spins for himself. As if he were wielding a magic wand, he wishes it all away by indulging Lenù’s fantasy of family life: Will she go to lunch at his parents’ house with him?

They go. Nino’s family buys into the fiction, pretending that Lenù is Nino’s wife and fussing over the child she is bearing. Nino’s father Donato — who sexually abused Lenù at a young age while on vacation on Ischia — is as doting as anyone else, praising Lenù’s intelligence and touching her waist. Not content with violating her body when she was barely just a teenager and looking down her blouse in adulthood while she carries his own grandchild, Donato also over-emphasizes the role he played in her intellectual development: If it weren’t for him and his encouragement, Lenù wouldn’t be the writer she is today. Though Lenù maintains an implacable expression, she thinks about how far she’s come from being the impressionable girl under his spell on Ischia. Nino asks Lenù to go home, claiming he is “fed up with all these people.” Before they go, Nino sits with his father on the couch, and Lenù considers them side by side. What, truly, is the difference?

Lenù goes over to Elisa’s house to help with the baby. Elisa looks exhausted and scared, and Lenù does her best to advise her little sister on how to cope with new motherhood. When he surfaces, Marcello is the epitome of unhelpfulness: “Elisa needs to learn to do everything herself,” he barks. Since lunch at the Sarratores’, Lenù has been exercising supernatural strength in stopping herself from roundhouse kicking one of these men, and for her part, Elisa looks embarrassed. As they change the baby, reports of an explosion in Bologna come on the television, entrancing Lenù. She’s taken out of it when the phone rings. It’s PeppePepe, their brother: Immacolata needs an ambulance.

When Lenù gets back to the apartment, Immacolata is collapsed on the floor, the family huddled around her. She cries that she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, but Lenù takes her anyway. In the waiting room, Immacolata tells Lenù that she is her “only true daughter,” the only one she’s ever worried about. Lenù promises to make her happy and proud, but Immacolata is upset with herself: She feels she’s abandoned her other children by giving them away freely to the crooked Marcello Solara. Only Lila can save them now: Immacolata wants Lenù to ask her to rescue Peppe and Gianni from the Solaras’ grip. When the nurse calls them, Lenù helps her mother put on her slippers, and mother and daughter share a rare embrace.

The doctor tells them that Immacolata has cancer. The clinical picture is unclear as of yet, but it looks pretty bad. Lenù and her mother ride home in silence, the setting sun orange and bright in their eyes. Immacolata says the angel of death has already tried to take her when she was a child, striking her leg. But she “screwed him” then, and she’ll do it again: “When you can endure [suffering], the angel of death respects you. And after a while, he goes away.” Lenù cries quietly. Immacolata’s obstinacy, so often antagonistic, is suddenly moving — indeed, it’s the only way out.