Period Drama 'The Law According to Lidia Poët' Sets a Return Date to Italy

As anyone who has watched British television in the past two decades can tell you, mystery series are a dime a dozen, with lead characters ranging from regular detectives and beat cops to more outlandish crime solvers like vicars and booksellers. But while these shows are popular, far too few of these stories are led by women. Fewer still — outside of shows like Miss Scarlet or Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries or maybe D.I. Ray, for a more contemporary example — are about the specific female experience of working in such a field. For those craving such a series, it's time to check out the delightful Italian period drama The Law According to Lidia Poët. 

Granted, it's a legal drama rather than a straight mystery series, but the titular Lidia certainly solves her fair share of cases on behalf of her clients, and her story is stridently and unapologetically feminist throughout. Moreover, this is the perfect time to start, as the series' highly anticipated second season is officially set to arrive at the end of October 2024.

Based loosely on the life of Italy's first female lawyer, who fought a successful legal battle to be allowed to practice law after she was forbidden to do so by court order. The drama stars Matilda De Angelis (The Undoing) as Lidia, who takes a job at her brother's law firm following her public disbarment, where she assists with cases even as she's writing an appeal to try and regain her license. 

Though we will doubtless see more romantic tension between Lidia and the journalist Jacopo Baberis (Eduardo Scarpetta) in the series' second season, the show will also introduce a new potential love interest for Lidia in the form of a progressive prosecutor who may not be as shocked by Lidia's professional ambitions as many of those around her.

Here's the Season 2 synopsis.

Lidia is not allowed to be a lawyer because of a law written by men. So this time she aims even higher, she wants to change the law. While she continues to collaborate with her brother Enrico, tackling new cases and fighting for women’s rights, she wants to convince him to run for Parliament so that her law can finally find a voice. Lidia is completely done with love, especially with Jacopo, responsible for having sold the family villa and on a collision course with all the Poëts. 

But Jacopo and Lidia are forced to meet again to share, reluctantly, a secret investigation that concerns them closely, rediscovering the complicity and fun that has always bound them. Giving a hard time to the protagonists, the new King’s Attorney, Fourneau, a man of the institutions who unexpectedly treats Lidia as his equal, prompting her to question the complex and contradictory relationship she has with feelings, and the cost of personal renunciation that she is sustaining in the name of her ideals. In the six new episodes, Lidia will continue to break down the pieces of this world built by men for men, with absolute genius, surprising the opponent with intelligence, irony and without mincing her words, but also questioning herself.

Alongside De Angelis, the series also stars Pier Luigi Pasino (Lovely Boy) as Lidia's brother Enrico Poët; Sara Lazzaro (The Young Pope) as Enrico's wife, Teresa Barberis; and Sinéad Thornhill (Pale Mountains) as their daughter Marianna Poët. Gianmarco Saurino (Leonardo) has joined the Season 2 cast as new King's Attorney Foruneau, a prosecutor with surprisingly progressive ideas about the role of women in public life.

Guido Iuculano and Davide Orsini created the series; both are writers on Season 2, alongside Flaminia Gressi. Directors Matteo Rovere, Letizia Lamartire, and Pippo Mezzapesa split helming duties across the second season's six installments. Rovere also serves as a series producer.

All episodes of The Law According to Lidia Poët Season 2 will premiere on Wednesday, October 30, 2024, on Netflix.