🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

Watch From Scratch Now on Netflix.

From Scratch is definitely a love story, but more than that, it’s a life story — it encompasses all the emotions we have. The show centers on Amy Wheeler (Zoe Saldaña) and her amore, Sicilian chef Lino Ortolano (Eugenio Mastrandrea), who meet while she’s studying abroad in Florence. Their story is one of extreme highs — think wedded bliss and rearing a beloved child — but also the devastating low of losing a loved one to cancer. The limited series is inspired by the bestselling memoir by Tembi Locke, who served as an executive producer alongside her sister and From Scratch showrunner, Attica Locke.

Re-creating all the bitter and sweet moments of one’s life was no easy process. As Tembi tells Tudum, “There wasn’t a dry eye on set sometimes, and I knew they were all there for my story — for all of our stories.”

The Locke sisters hope that, with those tears, will come a sense of catharsis as viewers grapple with their swirling feelings of love, grief, loss and resilience. “Often when we speak of loss or we speak of death,” Tembi says, “it’s really a disguised conversation about how we want to live. And if we think about it that way, then it’s an invitation to say, ‘What kind of life do I want to have?’ ”

Don’t be surprised if you ask yourself that question, as you take the following emotional journey with Amy and Lino as they build a life for themselves... from scratch. 

When Lino “waits” for Amy

Amy and Lino’s love story begins with that “first taste” of romance in Episode 1. After weeks of pining and denying the inevitable, Amy pleads with Lino to meet her at her apartment after her art show. She doesn’t know if he’ll come — and she even falls asleep amidst all the anticipation! But the tears of joy start flowing once she awakens to see him outside her window in the pouring rain, and runs to him for a long-awaited kiss. Tembi tells Tudum that the “standing in the rain scene” was a real event lifted from her life and her book, and was a must-include moment in the series. It’s easy to see why (in between wiping away the happy tears).

Jessica Brooks/Netflix

When Amy and Lino “Try a Little Tenderness”

By Episode 2, Amy and Lino’s relationship takes them from Italy to Los Angeles, where Lino feels adrift in the sprawl after those happy early days in Florence. And, hey, we hear him, especially since none of Amy’s relatives eat any of the glorious Thanksgiving dinner he prepares. But inspiration strikes for Amy after a late-night soccer match, as the two slow-dance to “Try a Little Tenderness” outside her car. As dawn breaks, she chokes up, telling Lino, “In a city with no center, I’m your center.” You can’t help but well up, too, as Amy gets down on one knee to propose to her amore. 

Tembi says that she too proposed in real life, though the proposal we see is intentionally different from her story. “I didn’t do it in the parking lot in that way with Otis Redding in the background. I get to preserve my memory of my own proposal and [have] it be its own thing that I never have to share with the world, while also letting Amy stand in the truth of proposing to Lino.”  

Amy Receives An Unexpected Gift | From Scratch S1E3

When Amy’s stepmom gives her something old, new, borrowed and blue 

Amy comes from an admittedly “crazy family,” but one with so much love to give. As she readies herself to walk down the aisle, her stepmother, Maxine (Judith Scott), arranges for each of the women in Amy’s family to give the blushing bride a poignant gift. None rouses the heart — or tear ducts — more than Maxine’s gift on behalf of Amy’s mother, Lynn (Kellita Smith). Surprisingly, it’s a touching photo of mother and daughter that Amy’s dad had kept all these years. While the pain caused by Amy’s parents’ split never quite healed, moments like these help to mend things.

When father turns away from his son 

The brutal rift between Lino and his proud father, Giacomo (Paride Benassai), is a source of immense pain for Lino, especially since Giacomo forbids any of his family from attending Lino and Amy’s wedding in Florence. You can’t help but feel for — and cry with — Lino over the way his family scorns him for finding love and for pursuing his culinary dreams. That anguish only compounds when a shocked Lino sees his father at a farmer’s market in Sicily, and Giacomo turns away from his son yet again. Lino later tells Amy, “If he had taken one step in my direction, I would’ve run to him.” 

Thankfully, that pain does not extend off-screen. Mastrandrea insists,  “The universe made me meet Paride Benassai.” And he considers him family now. Benassai often comes to Rome, where Mastrandrea lives, and Mastrandrea vacations with Benassai in Sicily. 

When Amy can’t keep Lino’s health a secret anymore

When Lino is diagnosed with a rare soft-tissue cancer, it’s a difficult burden for him and Amy, especially since Lino wants to wait until he’s finished chemotherapy before telling their loved ones. But that secret weighs heavily on Amy, and the truth comes out when Lino faints right in front of Amy’s sister, Zora (Danielle Deadwyler). As Zora attends to her little sister’s needs without question, the catharsis Amy experiences is a feeling many siblings will recognize. Amy feels that same familial support as her mother rushes to be with her at the hospital, and Lynn and Zora hug their sweet Amy so she knows she’s not alone. Saldaña tells Tudum that she was grateful for the way the cast gave each other grace and space through heavy emotional territory. “If it wasn’t for the cast,” she says, “I just don’t know how I would’ve done it.”

When Amy stands up for Lino to his parents

Tembi says she wanted From Scratch to make viewers ask, “What kind of love do I want to have?” It’s impossible not to point at the screen and yell, “That kind!” when watching Amy defend Lino’s decision to enter a medical trial — even if it means he might get the placebo. She’s “on his side, in everything.” And we’re crying, everywhere.   

When Amy has a heart-to-heart with Idalia’s birth mother

Amy and Lino’s road to parenthood is paved with tears, but Amy’s meeting with her daughter’s birth mom, Toni (Christina Higa), is uniquely moving. It’s a rare interaction to see on-screen, despite its ubiquity IRL, and shows that there are so many ways to be a mom. We see an echo of this theme later in the same episode, when Amy’s own two mothers, biological mom Lynn and stepmom Maxine, finally discuss their decades of tension. 

When an ailing Lino leaves the hospital 

Episode 7, “Between the Fire and the Pan,” is a heartwringer of an episode following Lino’s worsening health. (Waterworks are inevitable when the whole family sneaks Idalia (Isla Colbert) into Lino’s hospital room.) But Attica’s perspective on the moment Lino enters an ambulance after choosing palliative care will forever change how you see it. 

“It visually just triggered the actual, literal memories,” she says. “And it was just like, ‘This is a lot.’ But I took lots of deep breaths. I tried to remind myself that we were... say[ing] to an American culture that isn’t always so comfortable with death that it’s a privilege to walk up to your death in choice.” 

When Lino “waits” for Amy again 

This episode requires a full box of tissues. Following the ambulance scene, Lino has poignant interactions with his entire family. A particular standout is his heartstring-tugging conversation with Idalia, invoking her favorite bedtime stories about a goat named Tonio. But the episode crescendos when Amy must say her final goodbye to her dying husband. Lino waits for his wife to wake from a dream before letting go. Saldaña is still emotional about the scene a year after production. 

When Amy brings Lino home

Lino’s dying wish is to return “home,” a wish Amy fulfills by scattering some of his ashes on his family’s land in Sicily. Attica recalls that day on set well. “Nobody — nobody — was not crying. Everybody was crying.” And now, so are the rest of us. Because, really, there’s hardly a scene in From Scratch that won’t bring a tear to your eye — a tear of joy, sadness or both.