Entertainment
Spoilers through My Brilliant Friend Episode 6. It can be difficult enough for English-speaking viewers to keep up with the My Brilliant Friend plot (hello, subtitles) without taking into account that the characters are played by a series of different actors. The HBO show centers around Elena Greco (Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila Cerullo (Gaia Girace), yes, but the boys on My Brilliant Friend are arguably just as integral to the complicated, decades-spanning plot.
A lot has changed in their Naples neighborhood over the past six episodes, and Elena (Lenu) and Lila's trajectories have become more pronounced the longer the show has aired. While the young Greco has been fortunate enough to attend high school, Lila's family can't afford higher education. In Episode 6, audiences see Lenu go to Ischia for the first time, spending a summer in relative luxury. Lila, meanwhile, is forced to ward off Marcello Solara's dogged advances. To make things worse, he's got the entire Cerullo family eating from the palm of his hand, bribing them with progressively larger gifts in exchange for Lila's hand in marriage.
Michele Solara, on the other hand, is the neighborhood bully and does his older brother's bidding. And then there's Nino Sarratore, who declared his love for Elena when they were kids and now won't give her the time of day at school. But not all of the boys serve as romantic interests: Rino, for example, is Lila's older brother and arguably her closest friend. But if the show's cast of characters still has audiences perplexed and furiously consulting the novels' family trees, this guide should dispel any further confusion.
Nino Sarratore (Alessandro Nardi & Francesco Serpico)
Nino is the eldest child of Donato and Lidia Sarratore. His father is a womanizing poet, and their family is forced to leave the neighborhood after he has a torrid affair with Melina Cappuccio. Nino goes to Elena's high school, but he doesn't say a word to her until they spend time together in Ischia. The teenagers bond over books and eventually share a romantic kiss on the beach.
Stefano Carracci (Kristijan Di Giacomo & Giovanni Amura)
Stefano is Don Achille's oldest son. He runs their family grocery store and has the hots for Lila (get in line, bud!). And although Pasquale's father killed Don Achille, Stefano decides to bury the hatchet between the two families during an explosive New Year's Eve party in Episode 5.
Alfonso Carracci (Valerio Laviano Saggese & Fabrizio Cottone)
The younger Carracci is a sensitive boy and sometimes cries in school. In fact, when they were younger, Alfonso, Nino, and Enzo were all humiliated by Lila (and Lenu, to a lesser extent) in a school competition. As a result, Stefano retaliates by beating up the young Cerullo. However, it doesn't seem like Lila remembers how terribly Stefano treated her way back when.
What's so interesting about watching all of these characters grow up is seeing what they remember (Nino's proposal to Lenu on the staircase) and what they've conveniently forgotten (how mean Stefano was to Lila). And since there are still two episodes of My Brilliant Friend left, it's anyone's guess as to what happens between Elena, Lenu, and the neighborhood boys in the following weeks (unless audiences have already read the book, that is).