Season 1 of Everything Calls for Salvation premiered on Netflix back in 2022, and now the Italian drama based on the autobiographical novel by Daniele Mencarelli is back with five new episodes exploring the lives of conflicted young people Daniele (Federico Cesari) and Nina (Fotinì Peluso). It’s been two years since they met in a psychiatric ward, and now they have a little girl, Maria, who is named for Mario (Andrea Pennacchi), their kindly fellow patient who died in an accident. But now, as Daniele works to achieve stability with his mental health, Nina is asking a court for sole custody of the baby. Will Daniele’s nursing program internship at the facility where they first met help him find balance? Or is it where he belonged all along? “I’m trying to grow up, to change. But I just can’t. I feel like a child. But I have a daughter now…”
Opening Shot: The camera follows Daniele Cenni (Cesari) as he explores the empty wards and halls of Villa San Francesco, the psychiatric facility where he was once involuntarily committed. This is the quiet reverie of a dream, until it shatters when Daniele imagines being strapped to a gurney again.
The Gist: Daniele calls his existence on any given day “good and bad.” He’s in a graduate nursing program, and a regimen of antidepressants and therapy helps to regulate his mental state. But the psychotic episodes of the kind that originally led his parents to commit him to treatment are still with him. It’s a fact Daniele struggles with for his own well-being, but also because Nina Marinelli (Peluso) and her family are using his mental health against him in the battle over custody of Maria. He hopes an internship with doctors Mancino (Filippo Nigro) and Cimaroli (Raffaella Lebboroni), who first treated him, will be a step in the right direction.
At Villa San Francesco, Daniele reunites with the nurses, too – Pino (Ricky Memphis), Alessia (Flaure BB Kabore), and Rosanna (Bianca Nappi). And he meets instigator Rachid (Samuel Di Napoli) and math genius Paolo (Marco Todisco), patients who reside in the ward where he once did. But for as much as he wants to make the most of this opportunity, Daniele’s decision-making is clouded by his fragile mental health. Another patient, Matilde (Drusilla Foer), seems to see right through him. “You try to appear normal. But it’s inside you. The Beast. You have a black soul…”
In flashbacks to Maria’s birth, we see Daniele and Nina happy together. And there are moments of that emotion still. But Nina’s case for custody has legs, and whether these two can sort out their respective mental challenges and feelings for each other will be key. For Daniele and Nina to be happy is what their friend and fellow patient Mario (Pennacchi) would have wanted. The question now is whether they can get there. And at Mario’s grave, a chance meeting with his estranged daughter Angelica (Valentina Romani) feels like another challenge being added to Daniele’s stack.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? If you saw any of the blackhearted Italian crime drama Suburra: Blood on Rome or its sequel Suburræterna, it’ll be an interesting turn to see Filippo Negro playing a kind, sensitive doctor in Everything Calls for Salvation. And as we check in on Daniele and Nina and their lives and struggles through a period of years, Normal People comes to mind, Hulu’s adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal.
Our Take: “Maybe Matilde’s right – I can only be on the other side in here.” In season 2 of Everything Calls for Salvation, every positive in Daniele’s life and recovery is counteracted by nightmares, episodes of anger, and the dread he can’t seem to outrun. Which makes it a bold move for him to return to the scene of the crime, as it were, doing his graduate work in the very psych ward that saw him committed. Salvation is sensitive about these issues. It’s careful to portray Daniele’s struggles with mental health as not only treatable, but de-stigmatized, and Federico Cesari does a good job of expressing fragile balance that Daniele longs to maintain.
But this series can be a heartbreaker, too. Cesari and Fotinì Peluso are great together as Daniele and Nina, and it’s tough to see them fighting and trading barbs across a mediator’s table, because these characters know that once, not that long ago, they were great together, too. We’re looking forward to how it shakes out for them, or whether it does at all.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, anyway.
Parting Shot: In a dream state addled by prescription drugs, Daniele encounters Mario, who comforts his young friend.
Sleeper Star: Drusilla Foer steals season 2 of Everything Calls for Salvation. The Italian drag performer plays the hell out of a patient named Matilde, whose personal demons threaten to set Daniele off before they both realize they’re more alike than different.
Most Pilot-y Line: When his sister argues with Nina, it causes Daniele to have a panic attack, and he lashes out. “This is my life, OK? Not yours. I’m 23, I don’t know if I’m sick or not. I have a daughter, and they want to take her away!”
Our Call: Stream It. In season 2, Everything Calls for Salvation continues to deal honestly with issues of mental health, but also raises the stakes with the addition of a baby, a will-they-or-won’t-they between Nina and Daniele, and new challenges neither of them saw coming.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
