MY BRILLIANT FRIEND HBO Max Show

It's on my list, but there's a bazillion things ahead of it.

Is anyone watching? I loved the first two seasons but felt like season 3 took a dip in quality. Season 4 seems to be an even bigger dip for me. Barely any Lila in the first two episodes and Elena has become an insufferable idiot. If this wasn’t the last season I’m not even sure I’d keep watching.

Much like r1, it's eternally on my to-watch list.

I watched a couple of episodes in season one, but the poverty of it all brought up too many painful memories for me, also a poor person from roughly that region, and so I had to stop.

It’s a fantastic series, and follows the novels closely.

Stick with season three, there are some hair-raisingly good scenes and some surprising plot turns.

My problem with season four so far is that I had gotten very attached to the actress playing Elena in the first three seaons. She has exactly the kind of looks that would cause old ladies to pinch her cheek and tell her how beautiful she is. She suggests intelligence but also sweetness, warmth and femininity, with her round face and curves.

But the actress playing Elena in season four is all hard angles, cold where the other actress was warm, witchy-looking where there was a surface niceness. I get that Elena has gone through some big, traumatic changes in her self-actualization, but this seems like a different character, as do many of the others. I find myself clinging to the actresses playing mothers, as they are the same who have played them throughout.

But I assume I’ll get used to the new actors in time. It is a really singular and remarkable TV series in it’s sense of detail mixed with the panorama of cultural and political life over decades.

I totally agree about the actress playing Elena in season 4 R4. She just isn’t working in this role. And so far not enough Lila this season.

I have a quick question about the episode "The Earthquake." Did Lila really say that Marcello, because he couldn't have her, was sleeping with Alfonso who was made up to look pretty much like her?

I always had trouble with all of the names anyway, and now that there are new actors playing these characters, it is all more confusing.

It’s a great show. I’m almost done season three.

Book was dull.

Too much Lenu (and, ugh, Nino) in S4 and not enough Lila (and Enzo, pretty much the only decent man on the show). I think the series has largely been very good, especially the first two seasons, but agree with R6 in that having to recast the actors and the year-long gap between seasons has made it difficult to remember who the secondary and tertiary characters are. (I only read the first book.)

I hate Nino, and always have. Like father, like son. Seasons 1 and 2 were mesmerizing—brilliant casting. Season 3 dipped a bit—agreed. Season 4 has been fantastic. Admit it, even if you think the actress playing Lenu is not satisfying, the same actress has been our narrator (it’s her voice) from the very beginning; I love that part of it.

What I love even more, now, is the actress playing Lila. Every look, every nuance, even her speaking voice, are so in synch with the younger Lila. Her breakdown in the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake was incredible. You come to realize the nature and scope of her mental health issues—I couldn’t not watch. When she told Lena she was bad, just like La maestra said all those years ago—just wow.

And the actress still playing Lenu’s mother after all these years!

Why this series never hit any Emmy love?! I guess because it was done, mostly, in dialect. Too much work for Emmy voters.

I tried to like it but I couldn't. I loved Gomorrah, also set in Naples.

Can some please answer my question! Did Lila say Marcello was fucking Alfonso because he couldn’t have her? Marcello was always hot to me. Will this be a part of an AIDS storyline with its breakout in ‘83? I never read the books.

No.

No.

Maybe.

I’m going to miss this when it’s done. It’s been so good.

I watched the opening of the first episode of the first season again. It’s set “now”. I am curious to see what’s going to happen to make those scenes make sense.

R13 - I believe Marcello is fucking Alfonso. Alfonso suggested that I think in last week's episode. That's why he's copied Lila's look.

The actor playing the younger Marcello was sexy, but the Season 4 guy is really unattractive and looks nothing like the younger version.

In fact it's the miscasting that's really a distraction for me with Season 4. With the exception of the actress playing Lila - who's perfectly Lula - I don't care don't care for any of the replacement actors. For example, Nino now seems more like a younger version of his father than an older version of Nino. And everything R4 says about Lenu is accurate.

But I do want to say this: the actress who's been playing Lenu's mother Immaculata for 4 seasons is nothing less than phenomenal. What a complicated character she's been, and what a heartbreaking storyline she's had this season. (I haven't seen tonight's episode yet.)

Oops - meant to say "who's perfectly Lila" @ R16.