Before Us

Episode 2

1919. Nadia is reunited with Maurizio, and after forgiving him, she marries him. Maurizio starts working at the factory, where he befriends Leone, but a clash with the fascists leads to both of their arrests. Sartori avoids arrest by denying that he is a deserter, but he sinks into alcoholism. Meanwhile, the family grows with the arrival of Gabriele, Domenico, and Renzo.

Episode 3

1930. Maurizio is blackmailed by the fascists, the Becchiarutti family, who have discovered his past desertion: he tries to resist, but faced with the threat to his children, he is forced to betray Leone and the other communists, who are sent into exile. Meanwhile, Nadia loses her job as Edda’s nanny after Edda is struck and killed by a car.

Episode 4

1938. The children are now grown, and Nadia senses that war is coming, while Maurizio—tormented by guilt over his past betrayal—runs into Leone, who has just returned from exile. One evening, while his wife and children are at the movie theater’s opening night, Maurizio helps a woman on the street and shortly afterward collapses to the ground, overcome by the bitter cold.

Episode 5

1943. Maurizio has been dead for some time, and his sons Renzo and Gabriele have doubts about him because they’re beginning to realize that he was a deserter, despite their mother’s reassurances. Renzo wants to join the Resistance and Leone’s group, but his mother is against it because he is still a minor. Gabriele begins a relationship with a girl named Margherita, and just as he is about to go to war, he is stopped because the armistice is signed on September 8. Domenico, on the other hand, dies in Africa after having a vision of his father.

Episode 6

May 1945. Gabriele can no longer bear to stay in hiding; he emerges from his hiding place, is reunited with his Margherita, and—to be forgiven for desertion—enlists in the German army. Renzo, on the other hand, is hiding in the mountains with Leone’s group, even though his mother urges him to return home because he has gotten a girl, Federica Drigo, pregnant. The group heads down into the valley to free some female partisans but runs into enemy soldiers; Leone, after saving Renzo, is fatally wounded. Meanwhile, during a house search, Gabriele rebels and kills a German soldier, freeing a group of Italians who were hiding there. Shortly afterward, Gabriele, Margherita, Flaviut, and Renzo return home because the war is over.