Addiction to the HBO series My Brilliant Friend is second only to a passion for the source, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. That’s why, writing about the eight episodes of season 3, I do not fear spoilers. Faithful to the literature—in fact Ferrante is listed among the script writers—the series follows friends Lenu (Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila (Gaia Girace) from childhood on, with season 3 the period of young adulthood: each has been married; Lila has a son, Lenu, 2 girls. Proud to a fault, and difficult to comprehend, Lila works in Bruno’s meatpacking plant, a harrowing flesh factory on every level. Lenu, now a famous novelist living in Florence seems to have it all. Something, however, is seriously missing. Their domestic lives play out against blistering violence in Naples, with friends beaten and raped. Yet all the while, their relationship endures, at times through enormous bouts of envy, irritation, ambivalence. Who among us can’t relate?

Heartthrob Nino returns. If women have loved the same man, does that make their connection deeper? As we know, he is the vehicle out for each, Lila and Lenu, but in this season, Lenu’s flowering comes to the fore. In fact, having it all is a sideshow for coming into one’s own, and Lenu tries to get beyond her stifling old-world marriage—with husband Pietro privileging his work, his time, and the yoke of motherhood. As a character, she’s kin to the professor played by Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter, based on another Ferrante story, and receiving much acclaim this movie season. Though flawed, Lenu is more appealing than Coleman’s Leda. Women coming into their own, testing the limits of their powers is Ferrante’s special sauce, inspiring projects that see girls working toward uncharted futures, making stupid choices at times to grow. The final season of My Brilliant Friend can’t come soon enough.