My Brilliant Friend Season 2 builds masterfully on its weaker first season

The Hollywood Reporter

In Season 2 of the HBO Elena Ferrante adaptation, which is subtitled The Story of a New Name, the series "transitions fully from anthropology to fiction," says Inkoo Kang. While Season 1 "felt like something of an ethnography," My Brilliant Friend's "marvelous, harrowing sophomore season begins with a fairy-tale air," says Kang. "Hollywood as a whole has hesitated to make complicated stories about domestic violence — a phenomenon that comes with significant benefits, as well as some drawbacks," Kang adds. "The Manicheistic demonization of batterers helps reinforce the absolute unacceptability of physical abuse, but the overall lack of messily human stories about partner violence can also render the decision to endure that violence — which many, many survivors do — more difficult to understand. Lila's experience makes for an exceptional tale, rather than a typical one, particularly because it takes place in a social context in which a violence-free household is presented as the exception, rather than the norm. But there's something still urgent about the way The Story of a New Name embraces the humanity of its characters by empathizing with Stefano's feelings of helplessness around his scathing wife, as well as by declining to portray Lila as a 'perfect,' unimpeachable victim."

ALSO:

• My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name explores further how traditionally ascribed social roles for men and women damage everyone involved
• Explaining My Brilliant Friend's tonal transition in Season 2