When I was watching “The Return†this week, my partner, who has never read the Neapolitan Quartet and has only intermittently caught bits and pieces of the show as I watch it, walked by just as Nino was begging Lenù to take him back. He looked in for a moment and scoffed, even with limited knowledge of the full range of Nino’s delinquency: “Why would you want someone who screwed over your best friend so badly?â€
It’s a question we’ve all been asking ourselves. Last week, I tried puzzling it out by suggesting that, in Ferrante’s world, a formative desire may die down, but it never fully goes away: It resists time and change like an ember that needs only a little oxygen to spark up again. These embers exist outside of space and time, as if desire occupied its own dimension in a person’s emotional universe. When Lenù returns home from Lila’s to an empty apartment after catching Nino having sex with Silvana, humiliated and determined to free herself from him for good, Antonio stops by. Antonio was Lenù’s first real flame, the first boy with whom she became intimate in the ruins of an old factory in the neighborhood. Antonio was always kind and troubled, and though they never had sex in adolescence, Lenù maintains that the lust she felt for him, unconsummated, was more powerful than even her want for Nino.
At least, that’s what she tells him to get in his pants. Managing somehow to split himself between obedience to the Solaras and Lila, Antonio is something of the neighborhood’s watchman: He finds things out, investigates people, keeps an eye on Lenù, and is confidently able to tell her that not only was Nino trying to get Lila back but he had numerous affairs — “You can’t imagine how many†— over the course of his relationship with Lenù. He fucked around so widely and indiscriminately that even the gynecologist, whose impropriety suddenly makes a lot of sense, was part of his roster. Crucially, Antonio tells Lenù that Nino’s strategy is to never break things off with anyone. He keeps emotional tabs on women, leaving them when it’s convenient but never committing to a definitive break. If Lenù wants him to regret the day he was born, Antonio will make sure he does. He has always loved Lenù, even if she has always loved Nino.
Lenù is so embarrassed all she can do is try to keep herself from fainting. She cuddles up against Antonio, asking him to hold her, and one thing leads to the next — or rather, Lenù insists it does. Antonio is reluctant at first. He may be in love with her, but he’s no fool; he knows she is using him to prove to herself that she is capable of life after Nino. But ultimately, he gives in for his own reasons, too. When lying in bed, Lenù teases him that he’s no different than other men who cheat on their wives. Antonio justifies himself by placing the event in desire’s alternate reality: “Right now, my wife doesn’t exist yet.â€
It’s some Olympics-level mental gymnastics, I know, but all this talk about the past and old desires would be sort of beautiful if Lenù could find a way to defend herself against Nino’s endless explanations without being cruel. “I just screwed Antonio. It wasn’t like with anyone before,†she says to Nino when he calls before slamming the phone on him. It’s enough to ward him off, at least for a time. Lenù lets herself get swept up in the rhythms of motherhood. She hires a new housekeeper, Anna, to help with the girls. Anna seems to be doing a great job — when Lenù gets home with the groceries, the house is quiet, and only at the sight of their mother do the girls start asking for things, crying, and fussing. Adding to the domestic chaos, Lila calls to tell Lenù that an apartment right below her, with a view of the stradone, has just opened up in her building. They could help each other with the girls, she says, at the very moment it seems as though help is all Lenù could use. But she hesitates. For an already fragile psyche, would a return to the neighborhood make things better or worse?
It’s not only her personal life that needs to be reordered. Enrico, her editor, is asking for the manuscript she promised at dinner six months ago, which was supposed to be ready for fall publication. Seeing no other option, Lenù lies: She will mail the book, which she just finished yesterday, tomorrow morning. Though I’m usually skeptical about the use of voice-over narration, this show employs it well, grounding us in Lenù’s perspective and bringing Ferrante’s prose to the fore, since much of it is lifted directly from the books. I thought there was an opportunity to use it here when Lenù decides to unearth the novel she wrote about the neighborhood years before, which neither Adele nor Lila had liked. This moment is framed in the book as a stroke of sudden inspiration. It’s implied that the same current that can take Lenù to the past with Antonio can reconnect her with herself — but not without risk. “When I came out of the post office,†Ferrante writes, “and the package had been sent and there was no way to stop it, I jumped, I remembered my mother-in-law. Good Lord, what had I done … To plug one leak I had created another. I was no longer able to keep under control, even within the limits of the possible, the chain of my actions.â€
This trepidation is lacking in the show’s version of Lenù, who, instead of wondering about her course, chooses to step on the gas and barrel forward. When she gets home from the post office, Nino is there, looking scruffy. She reminds him about the rent he hasn’t paid, and while Imma alternates between watching TV and watching her parents fight, Nino tries out some half-baked justifications. Lila is trying to destroy their relationship; his inability to resist women is something out of his control, a chronic compulsion, a disorder. Thank God our Lenuccia has finally come to her senses. He fails to move her even in the slightest; she doesn’t feel bad for him, she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t feel faint. She doesn’t even look stirred when he tries to make a perverse sex game out of it all. Quite simply, she kicks him out and calls Lila to say she will take the apartment below her.
Earlier in the episode, Antonio explains that he didn’t tell Lenù about Nino’s infidelities sooner because this kind of knowledge requires the right conditions of temperature and pressure to be meaningful. It would’ve been useless to tell her about what Nino was up to at a time when she would’ve been incapable of leaving him. Now that the break between the boy whom she loved in childhood and the adult he is has cemented, she won’t fall for it anymore. It’s about time Lenù moves on with her life, so she does: She revises her book, which is well regarded by the critical Establishment and read widely in Italy as a fresh perspective on crime-filled Naples. Back in the neighborhood, she resumes her position as observer and listener, attuning herself to every dialect-heavy insult, every step the Solaras take, and every change in Lila’s inflection. Now we know time has passed because Lila has bangs and Lenù has grown hers out. Dede, Elsa, and Imma have all grown too. A new cast places Dede in early adolescence, Elsa in her tweens, and Imma and Tina, Lila’s daughter, as toddlers.
There is a new ease between Lenù and Lila, too. They talk about normal things for once, like what Lenù is getting for Elisa and Marcello’s wedding gift or what they are wearing to the ceremony (an event that everyone had abandoned hope would ever come to pass). Imma and Tina get along like a house on fire too, and Lenù praises Tina heartily; she is an impressive illustrator, especially compared with little Imma, who looks sad to be left out. Enzo and Lila make a deliberate effort to include Imma, making Tina share a seat with her in front of Enzo’s new computer, with which Tina seems to have an innate ability. While the women are all huddled around the computer, a man comes by the Basic Sight office asking for more time for a payment, but Lila berates him. Lenù muses that though Lila has long billed herself as a paragon of change for the neighborhood, the vocabulary of violence is what she’s fluent in, and she uses many of the same methods mastered by the Solaras to wrest people under her control.
The neighborhood’s power imbalance comes to a head at Elisa and Marcello’s wedding. Making a speech, Lenù’s dad looks fragile yet grateful. He talks sweetly about how happy Immacolata must be that the day has finally come. It’s when Michele takes the microphone that things spin out of control. Dressed in a red dress not unlike Lila’s, Alfonso walks in crying, his eyes puffy. Seeing him, Marcello nods to two henchmen, who kick Alfonso out while everyone watches. Lila activates her own acolyte by locking eyes with Antonio. Michele continues his speech, but sensing an opportunity to escape the boredom of the proceedings, Tina and Imma begin playing loudly and running around. Michele snaps at Lila to control the girls, but she won’t cede to his command — she places a hand on Enzo’s arm as if to signal they’re lying low. Lenù gets the girls instead. After Michele toasts, Lila storms off and Elisa tells Lenù, “See? My brother-in-law has changed. He’s no longer under Lila’s spell.â€
Lenù follows Lila outside to speak to Alfonso, who is out of his mind. He wants to know the reason for Michele’s sudden change of heart. Is there something wrong with him? Does he not look like Lila anymore? Is he fat? He tries to get Lenù to look at his ass, which “hurts all over.†Lila looks scared and guilty, as if she’s just now understanding the risk she took with Alfonso’s life when she encouraged him to try living his truth with Michele, of all people. For better or worse, she used Alfonso’s vulnerability as a chess piece in order to checkmate the Solaras. Her lower lip trembles almost imperceptibly, and she can’t find anything to say; we can only wonder what is going through her mind. Lenù convinces Alfonso to go home, but the next day, he walks over to the Solaras’ bar in a daze, determined to get some answers. Michele stops him before he can come in and, in front of everyone, beats him relentlessly, even using a stick. It’s brutal to watch, yet that’s what everyone does. Enzo wants to defend Alfonso, but Lila physically restrains him. He gives up on interfering only when Tina asks him not to go. Lenù tries to speak to Alfonso, but he drives off, face bloodied, before she can get a word in.
Right after this chaos, a photographer from a magazine arrives looking for Lenù. The publication hadn’t confirmed she was coming, which is insane behavior on their part, so Lenù is caught unawares. The photographer starts snapping away: Lenù in the living room, in her room, in the kitchen, and with Imma and Tina, who play together. At first, Lenù is self-conscious, even hiding her face from the camera, but slowly she begins to relish the lens. She has always coveted the public eye. Seeing her aunt holding a book for a picture, Tina mimics her, and the photographer snaps them reading together.
They get one with Imma, too, but it doesn’t come out as good as the one with Tina, and ultimately that’s the one that illustrates the magazine article, which mistakenly identifies Tina as Lenù’s daughter. She finds this out when Michele shoves the magazine in her face, demanding to know why she is writing hateful things about his family, the neighborhood, and their “beautiful city†in her books. When she gets home with the magazine, Tina looks pleased that the editors took her for Imma, and Imma, of course, looks sad; it’s all she has done since developing the ability to show emotion through facial expressions. Lenù is incensed about the magazine’s use of her novel as a way to condemn Naples, but Lila finds it all amusing. Of course, Lenù is being delusional. What does she expect from a wide readership? That everyone will read her exactly as she intended? In so many words, Lila encourages her to own up to her shit. Though Lenù is the public intellectual, it’s Lila who whole-heartedly believes what Lenù has only intermittently considered: Literature can be, is, life. “There could be another, stronger earthquake,†Lila says. “The universe could fall in. And then, who the fuck is Michele Solara?â€
Besides, the Solaras are really angry at Lila, not Lenù; and since, not unlike the women themselves, the neighborhood has always regarded the two of them as a pair, provoking Lenù is a way of getting at Lila. Imma and Tina want to know which one of them is Lenù’s real daughter. Lila and Lenù don’t find this disturbing; they find it sweet. “We’re mammas to both of you,†Lila explains. “We love you both.†And they leave it at that. It’s no wonder Imma is confused about her parental structure when, on the television, they see Nino speaking. That’s her father, Lenù and Lila point out, but she doesn’t remember. And she doesn’t look all too happy to see him, either — even if, for now, he lives only on television.
In Più
• Some readers have expressed dissatisfaction that we’re not getting as much of Lila this season as in the past, so I’m happy to see a lot of Irene Maiorino’s tremendous intensity in this episode. I was mesmerized by her in the scene with Alfonso, by the full range of emotion simmering under the surface of her frightened look and culminating in the particular pain of recognizing her responsibility in a disaster. Another actor whose intensity really comes alive in this episode is Massimiliano Rossi, who plays Antonio. What a striking face!