Quick summary:
This episode zips through an entire year, beginning with Elena's return home from Ischia (1959) and ending the following summer (1960). Back in the neighborhood, she's surprised to learn that Lila has been cozying up to Stefano, the grocer who threatened to rip out her tongue when they were children. By the end of the episode, they're engaged, Marcello has been kicked to the curb, and, thanks to Stefano's investment, the Cerullo family has the funds to expand the shoe business. With newfound wealth, Lila enters her Jackie Kennedy phase, pissing off all the other women in the neighborhood with her glamorous clothes and attitude. Once again, Elena feels awkward and unwanted compared to her friend. Although the school year has gone well, her new glasses make her feel ugly and she can't shake the trauma of Donato's violation. When Antonio expresses interest in her, she yields to his advances, eventually using him to intimidate Donato, who creeps back into the neighborhood with fuckery on the brain.
Corresponding book chapters:
"The Fiancés" goes from Chapters 36-50, which is probably why it feels strangely paced. There's too much to cover over 60 minutes and the writers condense several details (like Elena's relationship with Alfonso) out of necessity.
Notable choice (complimentary):
An unexpected scene that completely sickened me is the one where Lila kneels to help Stefano into the Cerullo loafers. I didn't think much of it when I first read Ferrante's short description:
Lila, surprising us again, knelt in front of Stefano and using the shoehorn helped him slip his foot into the new shoe. Then she took off the other shoe and did the same. Stefano, who until that moment had been playing the part of the practical, businesslike man, was obviously disturbed. He waited for Lila to get up, and remained seated for some seconds as if to catch his breath.
Under Costanzo's direction, Lila's subservient actions are tinged with eroticism. When she bends down in front of Stefano, the back of her head is barely visible in the frame and it looks like she's fellating him. As Stefano gazes down at her and then up at everyone else in the room, he's looking for confirmation that this isn't a dream. Elena meets his eyes, disturbed, and Fernando and Rino turn toward each other, perplexed. The following shot is a close up of Stefano's socked foot sliding into the shoe with Lila's hand for guidance. This whole sequence, while technically chaste, feels sexually intimate. Lila is not one to exhibit vulnerability by bowing at the feet of a man (literally or metaphorically) and watching her do so publicly feels out of character.
Stefano is essentially proposing, yet Lila's the one on her knees...
It's also interesting that later in the episode, Gigliola spreads the rumor that Lila gave Marcello blowjobs during their (pathetic forced) courtship. The fact that everyone is so shocked by her willingness to help a man into a pair of shoes tells you how unlikely it is for her to casually blow a sworn enemy.
Notable choice (derogatory):
One of the biggest downsides of the show is the lack of Elena's perspective. For the most part, the writers do a good job balancing voiceover with visual language, but there are times where nuance is lost because her thoughts stay hidden. In the scene where the girls go for a ride in Stefano's Fiat 1200 Cabriolet, the social dynamics aren't as pronounced as they are in the book. Based on Elena's confusion and Lila's comments to Stefano ("Remember that you invited her, not me") we know this ride has been planned for some time and that Elena is being unwittingly thrust into a chaperone role. By the end of the drive, Stefano's ready to pursue a relationship with Lila, Marcello Solara be damned. Based on this chain of events, it appears that Lila has flawlessly orchestrated her engagement's demise by using Elena as a pawn to facilitate the swap of one undesirable man with a more palatable version.
In the book, Elena understands Lila's actions are probably not this deliberate:
She had to know that she was setting in motion an earthquake worse than when she threw the ink-soaked bits of paper. And yet it might be that she wasn't aiming at anything precise. She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other ways.
Based on how Lila is depicted in the show, it's easy to see her as a mastermind making calculated moves to improve her life but in reality, she's a scared fifteen-year-old fueled by frantic desperation. This rare instance where Elena accurately observes her friend should have been included to add necessary dimension to both characters.
Thoughts:
In the first episode of S1, Lila throws Elena's doll into Don Achille's basement. Without missing a beat, Elena does the same with Lila's doll, declaring, "What you do, I do." "The Fiancés" features a subtler, more grown up version of the same behavior. By the end of the episode, both women have found ways to use men to shield themselves from other, worse men. It's an imperfect system, but no other recourse exists, especially for Lila, whose family won't let her rest until she's married to a wealthy asshat who can pull them out of poverty. The best she can hope for is to have some say over which asshat she's tethered to until death. If this involves hasty manipulation of a BFF who will never know such desperation, so be it.
When Elena returns from Ischia, she's surprised to find Lila in a much better position than her letter indicated. Amidst the summer madness, Lila managed to draw the attention of Stefano, a second suitor with the social cachet to compete against the Solaras. Unbeknownst to Elena, Lila has been waiting for her return to take a drive with Stefano aka grill him on his intentions without the risk of providing grist for the rumor mill. She should have given Elena a heads up to make it feel like less of an ambush, but I imagine it's difficult to think clearly while trying to escape a doomed future.
In order to convince Lila of his seriousness, Stefano concludes the drive by throwing money around at the shoe shop. Thousands of lire later, Lila tears him a new asshole, fearful he's trying to buy her love just like Marcello. Even when her life depends on it, Lila never fully kowtows to anyone and as much as she tries to convince herself of Stefano's merits, her suspicions aren't easily quelled. Watching this drama unfold distracts Elena from her own trauma and probably prevents her from processing it. As she walks back to her house after everything transpires, her voiceover reveals,
I thought I'd cry night and day over what happened to me in Ischia. Instead, my perspective changed within just a few hours. The island faded to make way for what was happening to Lila. I had the feeling something terrible was going to happen.
Elena knows she's in a privileged position where, because of her education, she has more control over her trajectory. Her own issues seem minor compared to Lila's, so she diminishes them. Even in her own writing, in a story that's supposed to be about friendship, Lila receives significantly more emphasis. Had Elena taken time to get to know herself apart from Lila, perhaps some of her bigger missteps would have never happened. She gets so subsumed into Lila's story that her own is often relegated to a footnote.
Elena's glasses prescription and half-hearted fling with Antonio can hardly compete with the excitement of Lila's rapid ascension. With Stefano's interest cemented, she's finally free to kick Marcello's ass to the curb. Nunzia and Fernando are nervous about this and require quite a bit of convincing to believe Stefano's investment is legitimate. Fernando especially can't compute why a man would see enough value in a girl's shoe designs to put money behind their production. It sucks that Lila is constantly denigrated even when her actions are solely responsible for keeping the family afloat. They all see her as a pawn in their game for financial mobility, stupidly failing to realize that her autonomous decisions are what bring success.
Once work begins on the space next to the shoe shop, Fernando relents, Stefano and Lila get engaged, and Marcello is brutally rejected under the guise of pre-dinner gelato. As satisfying as it is to watch Lila verbally castrate her former suitor, Elena is correct that "Lila had been brave, but not prudent." Marcello isn't going to stand by, watching Lila and Stefano drive around the neighborhood like royalty sans challenges. In this episode, he starts the blowjob rumor and sends his dad to intimidate Fernando, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, especially after someone (Elena suspects Pasquale) lights his car on fire. Lila has this fantasy that she and Stefano are going to rise above the Solaras, which proves that even though she's smart, she's still naive. Per Pasquale, she knows where the Carraccis' money comes from and if she thinks they're somehow better than the Solaras, well... just wait.
By the time all this shit has transpired, an entire year has passed and it's now summer again. Maestra Oliviero hooks Elena up with yet another cushy summer job, this time taking the stationer's daughters to the beach. While there, she runs into Antonio, whose introduction wordlessly communicates Elena's feelings. As she lays on the beach, ogling a hot guy emerging from the ocean, he crosses paths with derpy Antonio. I don't want to be too mean about Droopy Drawers, who is a (mostly) nice person that Elena treats poorly, but I will say that he has about as much sex appeal as a bowl of oatmeal. Elena ends up fooling around with him in a beach changing stall less out of desire for him specifically and more because she's curious about sex and wants to keep up with Lila. If not for Donato's harassment and Antonio's usefulness in convincing him to fuck off, he and Lenù would have never lasted past the summer.
At this point in the narrative, Elena flies under the radar, receiving minimal judgment from the neighborhood because she's quiet and demure. No one gossips about her relationship with Antonio or tries to shame her for studying so that she can live a better life. Instead of a "You think you're better than us?" mentality, most people seem proud to know someone so accomplished. Lila, on the other hand, is raked over the coals for everything from her appearance to her DGAF attitude. Everyone seethes with resentment over her rise to the top and desperately wishes for her downfall. In the novel, Elena tells Antonio, "It's always been like that, since we were little: everyone thinks she's bad and I'm good." What I find ironic is the readers/watchers who buy into this false dichotomy, viewing Lila as a villain and entirely missing Ferrante's critique. This isn't a frenemy story about the ugly studious girl vs. the beautiful brilliant mean girl; it's a story of inequality under a patriarchal, capitalist society and the way that certain types of women are barred from getting ahead.
Random observations:
- Lenù is so shaken by Donato's abuse that she ignores Nino when he tries talking to her at school. It's a bummer this attitude is short-lived.
- Imagine: Michael Kors has just seen the poor fit of Elena's bathing suit and in waltzes Antonio. How long before Heidi Klum has to run off for the defibrillator?
- Stefano buys Lila's shoes for 15,000 lire, which is roughly equivalent to $258 dollars today. Considering they belong in the same old folks' home as Antonio's briefs, I'd say that price is generous.
- Does anyone know what they're watching on tv at the Cerullo house? Early in the episode, it looks like a drama or maybe an adapted play and later, some kind of variety show with a large dance number.
- Michele Solara's cardigan looks like it came straight from Toast's SS25 collection and I am living for it:
- Did you scream when the stray cat appeared or are you normal?
- Power move pro-tip from Silvio Solara: ask someone for a light, then blow the smoke from your cigar directly into their face while calmly threatening to light their store on fire.
- Throughout the series, Pasquale is the only one who has an ideological compass that never wavers. It expands to allegedly include murder 🤷🏼♀️ but sometimes you need to kill a bitch to make a point (I'm "joking." Don't put me on a list).
