HBO Show Canceled, Upcoming Season Will Be Its Last

It is a bittersweet time for fans of My Brilliant Friend, which has been renewed and canceled all at once. HBO announced that My Brilliant Friend Season 4 has been greenlit, but it will be the last, according to a report by Deadline. The show will have time to finish adapting the story from its source material, Elena Ferrante’s The Story of the Lost Child.

My Brilliant Friend is a coming-of-age story co-produced by HBO and Italian broadcaster Rai. Ferrante wrote four books, and accordingly, the studios produced four seasons for TV. While fans may take some solace in the fact that this show will not extend beyond its source material, it’s still bittersweet to see a beloved show come to an end.

My Brilliant Friend was adapted to TV by Saverio Costanzo with scripts from him, Francesco Piccolo and Laura Paolucci. It stars Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco and Elena and Raffaella, respectively – girls who grew up together in a poor neighborhood in Naples, Italy in the 1950s and then remained close in adulthood. The show uses multiple timelines, so Elisa Del Genio and Ludovica Nasti played Elena and Raffaella in earlier scenes and flashback sequences, while Alba Rohrwacher will take over the role of Elena in Season 4.

HBO executive Francesca Orsi said of the renewal: “When we decided to bring Elena Ferrante’s masterpiece Neapolitan Novels to the screen, we knew Elena and Lila’s story had to be told in its entirety. It’s both thrilling and bittersweet to embark on this fourth and final season. We’re deeply grateful to the entire creative team led by Saverio Costanzo and Lorenzo Mieli, and to our season three director Daniele Luchetti. We look forward to completing the quartet and know The Story of the Lost Child will bring the series to a close with the same heart, intimacy, and epic storytelling that has defined Elena and Lila’s journey from the beginning.”

Meanwhile, Rai Fiction executive Maria Pia Ammirati said: “What lies behind this success is the precious opportunity offered by Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels and the realistic, exciting and originally Italian imagery that has brought to life the audio-visual transposition of the friendship between Lila and Lenù. This mix between a strongly characterized environment, marked first of all by the dialect, then by its humanity and by the emotions heightened through the power of a female friendship, has proved to be a driving force for seriality, as well as a showcase for the creativity and expertise of Italy’s audio-visual industry.”

The first three seasons of My Brilliant Friend are streaming now on HBO Max in the U.S. There is no word on when Season 4 might premiere.