The previous season of My Brilliant Friend (L’amica geniale) ended with a moment of fairytale-like transformation, with the protagonist Elena (Lenù) Greco staring at herself in the mirror of an aeroplane bathroom. She has torpedoed her marriage to run away with the man she always loved. Looking at the glass, she ages decades in the space of a heartbeat: the cherubic, adolescent features of Margherita Mazzucco replaced with the face of Alba Rohrwacher. Her eyes glimmer with a wry intelligence.

The recasting is necessary: Lenù is now in her mid-thirties, and it would be nonsensical for her to continue to be portrayed by a teenager. But it speaks to a common childish fantasy of self-actualisation: the desire to be reborn as an older person, a more glamorous, successful, and fulfilled version of oneself. In the world of Elena Ferrante, fantasies have destructive consequences.