My Brilliant Friend (Sky Atlantic) is the most beautiful drama on television, and, considering how consistently excellent it has been, it remains sorely underrated. This third season adapts the third of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and, for those who luxuriated in its first two seasons, it remains as gorgeous and seductive as ever.
Lifelong friends and rivals Lila and Elena, or Lenù, are now in their 20s, and their lives have moved away from the poor Naples neighbourhood where they grew up together. The first episode is about Lenù, the one who left, and her rise to fame as a successful writer of what is rumoured to be a racy novel. Success brings her a new life among professors and student activists, where opinions are discussed over expensive dinners and there is no obligation for her to marry her fiance, Pietro, a non-believer, in a church. She has been educated out of her class and traditions, but family ties remain, and much of the first episode concerns how difficult this is for her.
