Netflix subscribers and fans of foreign films may recall the hit crime drama The Law According to Lidia Poët which initially premiered on the streamer back in February of 2023. The series, which tells the true story of Italy’s first female lawyer, rapidly caught steam after release with viewers all over the world due to its inspirational message, intriguing plot and captivating characters. Now that season two has finally arrived on Netflix after over a year and a half of waiting, however, you may find yourself scratching your head wondering what exactly happened in The Law According to Lidia Poët‘s first installment. Luckily, we’ve got you enthusiastic binge-watchers covered, with a comprehensive guide and breakdown to the entire first season.
Needless to say, there will be heavy spoilers ahead for the entirety of The Law According to Lidia Poët season one, so please feel free to bookmark this page and return later if you’re not caught up yet. We’ll also talk a bit about the real life Lidia Poët, which could present possible spoilers for the future of the show. Still, there’s no way of knowing at this time how the series might deviate from the true tale of the historic feminist, so it’s worth discussing her impact in a real and tangible way. With no further preamble, let’s dive right in, and analyze the first season of The Law According to Lidia Poët.
Lidia Poët’s Brief Tenure as an Attorney
Unlike many Netflix original shows, The Law According to Lidia Poët is mostly episodic in nature, meaning each episode offers a contained story with a new case for the eponymous lawyer to parse through. Despite this structure, the show also offers some insight into Lidia’s character around each corner, slowly revealing many personal details of the celebrated feminist. The premiere episode sees Poët graduating from law school, taking the bar exam and launching her career with her first ever client. The client in question, Pietro Baiochhi, stood accused of murdering a prima ballerina named Adele whom he had been infatuated with for years. According to Pietro, the pair shared a mutual love, though there is some evidence which seems to contradict this claim, painting the man as a deranged stalker.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Lidia Poët takes the case, and quickly makes waves in establishing Pietro’s innocence. Despite her early success, the courts descend upon the young lawyer, labelling her as unfit to serve becuase of her gender. Lidia is furious as her right to practice law is stripped from her, rendering her hard work in the case of the murdered ballerina null and void. Luckily, she finds a workaround, as she outsources the case to her brother Enrico, who is also a lawyer. As the first episode of the series closes out, Lidia compiles the information necessary to prove Pietro’s innocence, and her brother represents the man in court. Along the way, the siblings come to learn that they make an exceptional team, and agree to continue sharing a practice with Lidia posing as a copy editor.
Lidia and Enrico’s Greatest Cases Yet
As the series carries on, Lidia and Enrico Poët work together to protect a number of underrepresented clients in the court of law. The duo come to establish themselves as protectors of the underserved, given Lidia’s commitment to equal rights. In the second episode of the series, the Poët siblings defend an anarchist factory worker accused of murdering the wife of her powerful boss. The factory worker, a woman, admits that the evidence stacked against her is quite damning, though Lidia ultimately comes to prove her innocence using a series of Sherlock Holmes style detective work. Other episodes highlight Poët’s commitment to the truth, which sometimes places her directly in the path of physical danger. She and Enrico later defend sex workers, childhood friends and educated women maligned for their disobedience to the patriarchy.
One particularly fascinating case crops up in episode three of The Law According to Lidia Poët, which ultimately sheds light on the Poët family’s interior dynamics. In the episode, a man named Vittorio Muraros stands accused of murdering his own father, a crime for which he has already confessed. Despite his confession, Lidia sees several immediate inconsistencies in the case, and agrees to investigate further due to her prior relationship with Vittorio’s brother, Alberto. Lidia was previously arranged to marry Alberto, though she ultimately called off the arrangement to pursue her passion for law. Ultimately, it seems like she made the right choice, since she comes to discover that Alberto was the one who killed his own father, and framed his brother Vittorio, who was easy to bully into a corner due to his opium addiction.
While investigating the case, Lidia also discovered that her father initially attempted to force her into a marriage with Antonio to square a massive debt that he owed to Antonio’s father. Learning of this infuriated Lidia, as it opened her eyes to the fact that her father never truly saw her as being equal to a man. Though such arrangements were a standard for the time, Lidia was sickened by the notion that she could be seen as a commodity, bought and sold to settle matters of personal finance.
How Does Season 1 of ‘The Law According to Lidia Poët’ End?
The first season of The Law According to Lidia Poët concludes with episode six, wherein Lidia and her brother defend a local journalist named Jacopo Barberes, who stands accused of murdering a sex worker. Unlike some of the other characters in the series, Jacopo isn’t a one-off case-of-the-week trial, as the Poët siblings had been closely working with him throughout the series. As Lidia begins her investigation into Jacopo’s connection to the sex worker, she comes to find that he once frequented her for her services. Despite the evidence against him, Lidia builds a case to prove that Jacopo was targeted by the government due to his involvement with a group of French anarchists. Maya, the murdered sex worker, was actually hired by a military General to spy on Jacopo, though her belongings seemed to indicate that she was a former member of the anarchist group herself.
Ultimately, the Poët siblings managed to build a compelling enough argument to free Jacopo from prison, which means we’ll likely be seeing a lot more of him in season two of The Law According to Lidia Poët. Though the season closed out with Lidia failing to have her license to practice law reinstated, she doesn’t let the frustrating roadblock bring her down. Lidia commits to spending her life supporting women and other marginalized groups, in the hopes that one day she and others like her will not be treated as second class citizens.
What Can Viewers Expect in Season 2?
The first season of The Law According to Lidia Poët managed to accomplish a great deal while also accomplishing very little. On one hand, Lidia and her brother helped to save countless individuals from serving unjust prison sentences, while also putting true murderers behind bars. On the other hand, Lidia fails throughout the season to establish her right to formally practice law. As the trailer for season two would suggest, this is not a fight that she is willing to give up on, no matter who scoffs in her face when she raises her argument. If the real Lidia Poët’s life is any indication of the show’s future, we can surmise that season two and beyond may showcase her continued work within her brother’s law practice.
Poët continued to serve as a vocal advocate for women’s empowerment including and especially the right to vote, all the way until her death in 1949. This may be a spoiler for the series, but the real Lidia Poët’s judiciary privileges were eventually reinstated at the age of 65, in a major win for women everywhere. Obviously, the patriarchy still exists in some form to this very day, especially in competitive fields such as law where women are made to work twice as hard as their male counterparts. Still, Lidia Poët, and many women like her, have continued fighting against all odds for centuries to uplift women to the position of prominence they currently hold today. There’s still a long way to go before we reach true equality, though Poët would certainly be proud of modern women if she could see how far society has come.
