Synopsis
New developments provide the key concept for the Season Eight of Sister Angela’s Girls!
Sister Azzurra, whom we saw finally take her vows at the end of the previous season, had envisioned a life of quiet devotion in her beloved Convent of the Guardian Angels… However, she now faces an unexpected turn of events: she is being asked to abandon her mission in Assisi and instead take care of the girls in a foster home… in Rome!
It will be far from easy for Azzurra to change cities, upend her life and above all leave everything she knows to now go “outside”, into the world. But she will realize that the time has indeed come to leave her comfort zone: she has learned to get by on her own, without Sister Angela, and it’s time to take her faith outside the convent walls.
It’s a real test, a virtual paradigm shift. She was a young girl among nuns, now she is a nun among young girls. Difficult, modern, challenging girls.
This season too, and perhaps even more than before, Sister Azzurra faces problems that at first seem insurmountable – although the conflicts this time come from her confrontation with the world at large. A world that, now more than ever, needs to hear her reassuring words: “Don’t be afraid, you are always in someone’s heart, you are always on someone’s mind”.
This is the theme of the new season. We all need to know that someone cares about us, that they are waiting for us at home, to have dinner together, to share their thoughts of the day. We all need to know that there is someone who loves us, always, and no matter exactly how. We all need… God to Help Us.
We last saw Azzurra happy in her new habit as a nun, ready to live her new life. Now we find her in a foster home in the heart of a Rome neighborhood, struggling to be accepted as the newcomer in the House of Smiles.
Sister Angela entrusted her with this task, asking her to help the punctilious director of the foster home, Lorenzo Riva, to save the facility from closing. Lorenzo, a respected psychiatrist in his forties and father of two, has been trying to manage both his family and the girls in the House of Smiles since his wife Serena died in an accident the year before.
Lorenzo juggles between the residents of the foster home, girls with difficult pasts, and his two children, Pietro (19), who puts the foster home first just like his mother did, and the lively Giulia (6), nicknamed GiuliaBOOM because of how awkward she is, always stumbling and going boom!
Lorenzo, stalwart and rational, initially struggles a bit to find harmony with our nun and her unconventional methods: after all, he is all about rules, while she is all about heart.
But the biggest challenge our Azzurra will face is certainly not regarding the director – on the contrary, given her enthusiasm, over time she will win his love and admiration.
Her biggest job will be to gain the respect and friendship of the girls in the foster home, starting with Cristina – a sixteen-year-old pregnant by a drug dealer – who has been taught by life never to trust anyone. Gradually, the girl will learn that instead there are people around her who truly love and care about her, even the most unexpected ones – like Pietro, with whom there will develop something more than a simple friendship. And then Olly (17), an intelligent girl with the gift of gab, who lost her father at the age of six and has lived in a foster home ever since. And finally, Melody (26), a somewhat “special” guest – welcomed into the foster home to escape a violent partner – she’s a candid and sunny soul who chases away difficulties and sadness by singing. And the one who will be struck by her candor is Corrado, a young and classy lawyer who will offer our friends his legal help on a pro-bono basis. Azzurra, with tenacity and patience, will succeed in winning the girls’ love, and they will come to see her not only as a source of invaluable support, but also as a friend (if a little eccentric). They will realize that especially when, at the end, Azzurra risks personal danger to help Cristina and make her understand that, in the House of Smiles, she has found a true family, both for her and for little Maria, her newborn.
