Sandro kisses Elisabetta unexpectedly by the Tiber River while the two discuss the rise of Fascism in Rome.

Marco impresses Fascist officials at a job interview and is hired to work at Palazzo Braschi, the party headquarters.

Elisabetta's father Ludovico dies of cirrhosis at home, apologizing to Elisabetta for his failings as a father.

Italy's new race laws bar Jewish students and teachers from Fascist schools, abruptly ending Sandro's formal education.

Secret police follow Aldo to Orvieto and shoot him in a field while he collects weapons for the anti-Fascist group.

The Simone family's application for exemption from the race laws is denied, and they are forced to surrender their home.

Marco reattaches a fallen sash at a Fascist party event, and Mussolini personally steps onstage to thank him.

Elisabetta breaks up with Marco after discovering he did not give her the birthday journal she thought was from him.

Nonna dies before Elisabetta can share her finished novel, so Elisabetta reads A Talkative Girl aloud to Nonna's body.

Marco joins his father Beppe and partisan fighters to defend Rome from the Nazis, but the Nazis take control of the city.

Nazi SS commander Kappler demands Rome's Jewish community deliver fifty kilograms of gold or two hundred residents will be deported.

Nazis arrive in the Ghetto and begin rounding up Jewish residents at gunpoint, capturing Sandro and Massimo for deportation.

Secret police hold Gemma and Marco's wife Maria hostage; they kill Gemma, and Beppe dies fighting them alongside Marco.

Sandro is shot and killed at the Modena train station after stepping in front of Nazis to shield Marco.

Marco and Elisabetta reveal to their teenage son Sandro the truth about his birth father, Sandro Simone.

Eternal follows three childhood friends—Elisabetta, Sandro, and Marco—through the rise of Fascism and the horrors of World War II in Rome. Marco rises within the Fascist Party as Sandro is systematically stripped of his education, home, and rights by Mussolini's race laws. Their rivalry for Elisabetta's love is complicated by family betrayal and political violence, including the murder of Marco's anti-Fascist brother Aldo. As the Nazis seize Rome, the Jewish community pays an impossible gold ransom, only for the Nazis to round up the Ghetto's residents anyway. A desperate rescue attempt ends with Sandro sacrificing his life to shield Marco from Nazis at a train station. Marco then marries Elisabetta, raises Sandro's child as his own, and years later joins her in telling their son the truth about his heroic father.

The headline events of war, love, and sacrifice in Fascist Rome.

Elisabetta's mother Serafina packs her belongings and abandons Elisabetta and Ludovico after a humiliating scene at Casa Servano.

Sandro attends a lecture by real-life mathematician Professor Levi-Civita at La Sapienza and writes him an admiring note afterward.

Marco rides to Vatican City and asks his priest brother Emedio about their father's alleged affair; Emedio confirms it.

Sandro announces his love for Elisabetta at a Passover dinner, shocking his parents, who insist he must marry a Jewish woman.

Marco threatens the school principal with Fascist intervention after being offered a test for learning difficulties, then quits school permanently.

Marco retrieves a photograph of the anti-Fascist leader's wife from a photographer's darkroom and hands it to his boss to save his job.

Nonna tells Elisabetta about Beppe and Serafina's affair and forbids her from pursuing a romance with Marco.

Rosa returns from England horrified by her family's aged appearance and the poverty caused by Italy's race laws.

Secret police beat Marco in retaliation for delivering groceries to the Simone family in the Ghetto.

Nonna's distant relatives arrive after her death and push Elisabetta aside; she retreats to the roof to grow vegetables in soup tureens.

Rome's Jewish community gathers at the synagogue to collect gold, with Marco and his family donating jewelry and money to meet the ransom.

Elisabetta deliberately spills food on SS commander Kappler while serving him dinner at Casa Servano.

Gemma dresses as a nun and doctors falsely claim patients have a deadly contagious illness to turn Nazi inspectors away from the hospital.

Massimo chooses to stay behind at the transit camp during the rescue attempt, knowing he cannot run fast enough to escape.

Marco refurbishes Elisabetta's neglected Olivetti typewriter and encourages her to write a novel about their families and love.

This pool focuses on the personal and domestic events running beneath the novel's main drama, revealing each character's inner life and acts of quiet resistance. Serafina's abandonment and Nonna's growing role as a surrogate mother shape Elisabetta's resilience, while Sandro finds intellectual community with Professor Levi-Civita before the race laws silence him. Marco's undiagnosed dyslexia and moral compromises—including betraying the anti-Fascist movement to preserve his career—reveal how Fascism exploits personal vulnerability. During the Nazi occupation, characters find hidden reserves of courage, as Gemma saves hospital patients by inventing a fake disease and the Jewish community collectively raises gold to meet the Nazis' ransom. The pool ends with a moment of quiet hope, as Marco refurbishes Elisabetta's abandoned typewriter and encourages her to write the novel that will become Eternal.

The moments behind the main story: betrayals, sacrifices, and quiet resilience.

Ludovico answers Marco's door, reveals Beppe's affair with Serafina, and crushes Marco's flowers as Marco tries to court Elisabetta.

Marco spots the anti-Fascist leader's wife at Bar GiroSport, mistakenly believing her to be Aldo's secret lover.

Marco confronts his father at Aldo's funeral, striking him and admitting aloud that he knows about the affair with Serafina.

Mussolini's government strips Massimo of his Fascist Party membership, erasing his status as a loyal Italian citizen.

Sandro coldly turns Elisabetta away at the Ghetto, telling her that the laws and his parents' wishes forbid their love.

One of Ludovico's friends reveals to Elisabetta that Fascist men crushed her father's hands as punishment for painting over a party emblem.

Marco sees Elisabetta and Sandro talking alone together and hurls an antisemitic slur at Sandro before storming away.

Beppe and Nonna are the only Trastevere merchants who refuse to take signs barring Jewish customers at a wartime community meeting.

Allied bombs fall on Rome; Elisabetta is knocked unconscious and later holds a gravely wounded baby who dies in her arms.

Marco recognizes the cost of the Fascist war effort and rides to his father's bar to confess he was wrong.

Nazis arrive at the synagogue and loot rare books and treasures, throwing some to the ground, despite the gold ransom having been paid.

Sandro arrives at Elisabetta's door the night before the Nazi roundup, and the two confess their love and spend the night together.

Elisabetta lures a camp guard away by promising sex, and Marco kills him so the group can infiltrate the transit camp.

Marco deduces that Elisabetta is pregnant with Sandro's child and proposes to marry her and raise the baby as his own.

An older Elisabetta finishes her memoir about Marco, Sandro, and herself, and titles the completed work Eternal.

This pool traces the pivotal revelations and choices that permanently alter every character's life, beginning with the affair that fractures friendships and ending with an act of authorship that transforms grief into story. The discovery of Beppe and Serafina's affair sets Marco and Elisabetta's relationship on a doomed path, while Sandro's growing legal isolation forces him to lie about his love and sacrifice his own happiness for hers. Each turning point—from Massimo losing his Party membership to Marco hurling a slur at Sandro—shows how Fascism corrodes even the deepest bonds. The Allied bombing of Rome jolts Marco into recognizing his own complicity, while Sandro and Elisabetta seize a single night together before the Nazi roundup tears them apart forever. The pool ends with Elisabetta's final act of authorship: titling her completed memoir Eternal and transforming personal loss into enduring legacy.