In the first season of the Italian family drama My Family on Netflix, we see how a dying man brings friends and family together to take care of his two sons, and the history behind that. Now, in the show’s second season, it’s been a year since his death, and this unusual family unit is having some issues.
MY FAMILY SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We hear the beeping of hospital equipment. Then, as the opening of “Walk On The Wild Side” plays, a man opens his eyes.
The Gist: The man opening his eyes is Fausto (Eduardo Scarpetta), who made sure his family and friends took care of his two sons Libero (Jua Leo Migliore) and Ercole (Tommaso Guidi) before he died the previous year. He seems healthy as a horse and he sees his younger brother Valerio (Massimiliano Caiazzo) sitting outside. Fausto tells Valerio that one of things he didn’t want to see after he died is his older son Libero miserable, living in a foster home.
Valerio wakes up from the dream he had about Fausto, coming up on the first anniversary of his death. The boys were supposed to be in his care, along with Fausto and Valerio’s mother Lucia (Vanessa Scalera), Fausto’s besties Maria (Cristiana Dell’Anna) and Demetrio (Antonio Gargiulo). But Libero decided that he didn’t want to live with his grandmother and uncle anymore, and did not want to go with Sarah (Gaia Weiss), his and Ercole’s mother. So he’s temporarily living in foster care, much to the annoyance of Lucia, Valerio, and Demetrio. When they go to visit him at his group home, he refuses to come down to see them.
While cleaning up Fausto’s room, Valerio finds a hard drive that contains a video diary Fausto recorded when he first was diagnosed with the illness that killed him. He talks about how his and Valerio’s father, Gaetano (Sergio Castellitto), was “our curse.”
Shortly after, Gaetano shows up, looking for Fausto. Apparently, no one told him about Fausto’s death, and he’s understandably devestated by both the news and the fact that he’s only hearing about it a year later. Over Valerio’s objections, Gaetano stays over after landing in the hospital, lending his opinions to everyone, including Lucia’s fiancé, Sergio (Filippo Gili), whom she can’t officially marry because she and Gaetano never officially divorced.
In the meantime, Maria is coming back from Spain after her relationship with Demetrio fizzled; he is disappointed to see her come back home with a new boyfriend named Pau (Fernando Guallar). Valerio is also dealing with an old flame, Valeria (Aurora Giovinazzo), a fiery sort who dances professionally at hotel lounges. He crashes with her after he gets tired of having Gaetano under his roof.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? My Family (Original title: Storia della mia famiglia), created by
Filippo Gravino, has a similar feel to shows like This Is Us and A Million Little Things.
Our Take: The second season of My Family stays more in the present day than the first one did, though Fausto continues to be a signficant presence in the story. He’s not just present through people’s memories, as we see with the video diary that Valerio found. There seems to be a lot of entries, which means various family members will be going to it to hear Fausto’s perspective on his family history, beginning with how Gaetano was a detriment to both him and his brother.
By now, though, the unusual family unit that Fausto wanted to bring together in order to give his sons a stable and loving environment is well-established, and we see the chemistry among the group in the second season, even as circumstances change.
We’re still not quite sure why Libero doesn’t want to live with Valerio and Lucia, and we’re also not sure why Sarah is so out of the picture that she wasn’t even considered when he made his decision. But the changes in everyone’s circumstances, including Gaetano’s return shaking everything up, is good for a show when it seems that a tight-knit group is getting along and things are operating smoothly.
There is ample evidence, thanks to the writing of Gravino and his team, that despite their difficulties, this group has love and affection for each other. Even Gaetano, who is enemy #1 as far as Valerio is concerned, can still count on Lucia in many respects, despite their history. We’re looking forward to seeing this group’s lives change and evolve while they all still keep Fausto’s words and memories in their minds.
Performance Worth Watching: Vanessa Scalera’s Lucia is a character who can still be forthright and feisty through the grief she feels for her son, and those layers of emotion can be seen in her performance.
Sex And Skin: Besides Valeria’s skimpy dance costume, there isn’t much of either in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Valerio smiles, then cries, after getting a phone call from Libero telling him, “It’s not your fault. I love you.”
Sleeper Star: Aurora Giovinazzo adds an intense but funny presence as Valeria. And it’s also pretty funny that Valerio and Valeria could become a similarly-named couple.
Most Pilot-y Line: Gaetano is so unrelentingly arrogant that he insults Sergio by wondering how “a woman like Lucia would get herself into a situation like this,” even though he hasn’t been in Lucia or her sons’ lives for years.
Our Call: STREAM IT. My Family gets away from the time-jumping that defined its first season and settles into telling a warm tale of the family that Fausto put together before he died, as they try to get through some inevitable issues.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
