Yet another foreign hidden gem got a season renewal by Netflix, and this time it is the Italian teen drama web series Baby, and the third season is said to be the final of the order, which is going to reach the audience on 16 September 2020. The first season debuted on 30 November 2018 and the second on 18 October 2019. The storyline of Baby is partly based on the story of two high school girls in Rome involved in an underage prostitution ring (the “Baby Squillo” scandal) in 2014. The show is a part of the growing number of Italian Netflix Originals and the most recent release from the country.
The official description of Baby on Netflix goes like this, “Fed up with their families and classmates, two teen girls from a wealthy part of Rome are drawn to the city’s underworld and start leading double lives.” Chiara, bored with her privileged life meets Ludovica one day, and both their lives change when they get involved in the dark world of underage prostitution. Both the girls meet two different boys, Fiore and Damiano, with distinct backgrounds, and starts living a double life. Baby over the time received mixed critical reviews. The show highlights the fact each one of us needs a secret second life in order to survive the other life and use the second life as a coping mechanism. Each character faces their own personal struggles of friendship, family, social media, love, sex, drugs, and heartache. It also deeply reflects on the interpersonal relations among teens and elders. It mainly shows the conflicts arising inside the teenagers which leads them to deviate from the general rules of society by living secret lives. On the other hand, some critics say that the show glorifies and romanticizes child prostitution and student-teacher relationship, normalizes sex trafficking, and glamorizes the bad choices the teenagers make.
Baby casts Benedetta Porcaroli as Chiara, Alice Pagani as Ludovica, Riccardo Mandolini as Damiano, Giuseppe Maggio as Fiore, along with Chiara Pompei, Brando Pacitto, Lorenzo Zurzolo, Galatea Ranzi, Tommaso Ragno, Massimo Poggio, Claudia Pandolfi, Isabella Ferrari, and the list goes on.