Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Law According To Lidia Poët’ On Netflix, Where Italy’s First Female Lawyer Solves Mysteries And Tries To Keep Her License

Lidia Poët is generally acknowledged as Italy’s first female lawyer, whose ambition to practice law sparked a nationwide debate other whether women sully the profession by practicing it. A new Netflix series takes that very real historical figure and builds episodic mysteries around her as she fights in the background to be taken seriously in her chosen profession.

THE LAW ACCORDING TO LIDIA POËT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “TURIN. November 3, 1883.” A street scene switches to a crowd finding their seats in a theater, waiting for a ballet to start.

The Gist: When the prima ballerina of the theater’s dance company is found strangled and stuffed in a trunk, the mother of the man who is accused of killing her goes to Lidia Poët (Matilda De Angelis), mainly because she is cheaper than a male lawyer. Lidia is the first female attorney in Italy, and she has managed to finally get her law license, despite pushback from members of the bar association who think that women should not practice law.

Lidia has to get dressed — she was having a good time when the suspect’s mother came by — and goes to question him. He was in love with the ballerina, but his interactions with her were more stalkerish than anything. She was set to get married to an aristocrat, and it seemed that she rebuffed his advances. Still, Lidia feels that something is off about the case.

She asks the judge to order a newfangled evidence-gathering method, dusting for fingerprints. The judge scoffs and dismisses the request. But that’s not the only scorn being heaped on Lidia; she soon has her license revoked, essentially because she’s a woman.

Kicked out of the room she was renting and still needing to defend her client, she asks her older brother Enrico (Pier Luigi Pasino), himself a very successful attorney who hated the idea that Lidia wanted to practice law, to take her in and help her out. She’ll do all of the legwork, but he’ll argue the case in court. He reluctantly agrees, but warns that she’ll have to share space with Jacopo Barberis (Eduardo Scarpetta), the brother of his wife Teresa (Sara Lazzaro).

Lidia’s first encounter with Jacopo is a strange one, as she encounters him drunkenly lying on the floor of the study. It turns out that he’s a journalist, and he’s dying to get some insight on the suspect in the ballerina’s murder. Lidia won’t say anything, so Jacopo writes an article about Lidia, profiling her quest to practice law as well as find out who killed the ballerina. It doesn’t necessarily help her cause, but she does realize that Jacopo can help her in other ways.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Law According to Lidia Poët is very Sherlockian in its format, with Lidia enlisting the help of Enrico and Jacopo to solve new mysteries in each episode.

Our Take: Created by Guido Iuculano and Davide Orsini, The Law According To Lidia Poët is more or less a standard mystery series, with the twist that the main character is constantly fighting for her professional life.

Lidia Poët is a real historical figure, and the debates that ensued in Turin and Italy in general about the worthiness of women practicing law are a good way to tie the episodes together and make the series go beyond just the case-of-the-episode. But this version of Lidia, who is a liberated woman in late 19th-century Turin, is more or less a blank slate.

Matilda De Angelis, whom American audiences saw in The Undoing, fills that blank slate really well. Like many shows of this type, the mysteries that Lidia will be handed in each episode will vary in complexity; some will be written better than others. But if the character solving those mysteries — and to a lesser degree, the characters around that person — are fun to watch, the uneven mysteries won’t matter as much.

De Angelis shows us not only how strong and smart Lidia is, but also has the confidence to show how Lidia will try to bust through the sickening misogyny in the legal system, despite the fact that she’s basically going it alone. Will Lidia get her license back by the end of the season? We don’t know. But it will sure be fun seeing her go behind Enrico’s back — she promised to not try to appeal the bar’s decision in exchange for his help — and doing everything she needs to do to prove that she’ll be an asset to clients and the legal system.

Sex and Skin: There’s the sex scene between Lidia and the man she has exit through the window, and there’s also the obligatory “naked on the slab” scene in the morgue. The show may be traditional in format, but it’s definitely “continental” in its content.

Parting Shot: Despite her promises to her brother, Lidia starts writing her appeal to regain her license. She pauses and looks in the camera’s direction as she writes.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Sinead Thornhill as Lidia’s niece Marianna, who we think is more inclined to follow in her aunt’s footsteps.

Most Pilot-y Line: The soundtrack of the show is full of modern rock riffs and dance beats. It’s generally not intrusive but when it gets loud, the dichotomy becomes really jarring.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Law According To Lidia Poët is not meant to be a heavy lifting kind of a show. It’s more or less a classic mystery, set in the late 19th century to satisfy fans of sexy costume dramas. But it’s buoyed by the radiant presence of De Angelis as Lidia.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.