Netflix’s Minerva Academy begins with one big mystery: what happened to Francesco Russo? Salvo enters the military school looking for answers about the friend he considered an older brother, but it takes until Episode 8 for the truth to finally come out. And Francesco’s disappearance is much more closely connected to Diego and Commander Giordano than Salvo could have imagined.
Across the eight episodes, Salvo’s search runs alongside everything else happening at the Minerva. The students deal with military training, strict rules, relationships they aren’t supposed to have, and the hierarchy between younger and older cadets. But Francesco is always somewhere in the background. He disappeared while attending the school, and Salvo never believed he had been told the whole story.
The finale finally brings Francesco back and explains why he disappeared. It also reveals what really happened between him and Diego, how much Commander Giordano knew and why Diego eventually turns a gun on his own father.
Major spoilers for the entire first season of Minerva Academy follow.
Why Is Diego Expelled From Minerva?
Episode 8 begins with Commander Giordano dealing with the consequences of everything that has come out about Francesco.
After Vice Commander Bonaiuto files a formal complaint, Giordano goes to the ministry and supports her decision. He wants the students responsible for bullying Francesco and making the video to be punished, but he is also prepared to step back from his position at Minerva. For Giordano, taking responsibility himself would send a clear message that what happened cannot simply be ignored.
The response he gets says a lot about the institution Bonaiuto has been trying to change. Giordano isn’t allowed to resign. Punishing individual students is acceptable, but involving officers would make Francesco’s case look like a wider system problem rather than an isolated incident.
Back at Minerva, everyone is preparing for the school ball while the fallout continues. Diego is furious with Rachele after discovering that she gave Salvo the video showing what Francesco went through.
Rachele has her own problem to deal with. Marshal Recchi wants her to begin treatment, but doing so could prevent her from pursuing the Air Force career she has built her future around. Rachele still refuses to accept what that could mean for her.
For Diego, there is no avoiding the consequences anymore. The video exists, and Max has testified against him. Giordano tells his son that he is being expelled from Minerva.
He doesn’t make an exception because Diego is his son. Instead, Giordano tells him to take responsibility for what he did, pack his things and leave.
Bonaiuto is far from satisfied. Expelling Diego addresses one person, but it doesn’t lead to the wider investigation she wanted into what happened to Francesco and the environment that allowed it. Salvo is even angrier. After spending the entire year looking for answers, he still doesn’t have the most important one.
What Really Happened Between Diego and Francesco?
After his expulsion, Diego finally tells Paola the truth about Francesco. Francesco wrote Diego a letter telling him he was in love with him. Diego kept it, but one of the older students eventually found the letter. Once the others discovered it, the mocking began.
Diego had another part he couldn’t admit: he had feelings for Francesco too.
Diego tells his sister that he was happy with Francesco, but he was scared. He worried about what the other students thought of him and, even more importantly, what his father would think.
That fear helps explain why Diego reacted to Francesco the way he did, although it doesn’t excuse the bullying that followed. Diego had spent his life trying to become exactly the kind of son he believed Commander Giordano wanted. The possibility that his feelings for Francesco didn’t fit that image sent him into a panic.
Paola understands the pressure better than most. She tells Diego that their father has a way of making people feel wrong about themselves and connects it to what happened with their mother. The version they grew up with was that their mother simply abandoned them. Paola now sees things differently, considering what it must have been like for her to be alone with two small children while Giordano was away at war.
Then Diego gets the biggest shock of all, Esposito takes him to see Francesco, who is alive.
Did Commander Giordano Know Francesco Was Alive?
Yes. When Diego sees Francesco, he realizes his father and Esposito knew that Francesco had survived and knew where he was. Diego had been allowed to believe something very different.
Francesco doesn’t want to talk to him and initially tells Diego to leave him alone. Diego does at least tell him that Salvo came to Minerva and has spent the year trying to discover what happened to him. For Diego, however, learning that Francesco is alive doesn’t immediately bring relief.
He has been carrying the guilt of what happened between them and believing that Francesco may have died because of it. Now he discovers that his father knew the truth and kept it from him. That becomes the final breaking point in a relationship that has been getting worse throughout the season.
Why Did Francesco Disappear?
Salvo eventually gets the answer he has wanted since arriving at Minerva, but Francesco gives it to him himself.
During the ball, Francesco secretly returns to the school and finds Salvo. He apologizes for never contacting him and for allowing his closest friend to believe he might be dead. Francesco wanted to disappear.
Minerva had never accepted him, and after everything that happened, he wanted everyone there to forget him. That included Salvo. Staying in contact with him would have meant explaining the truth, and Francesco wasn’t ready to do that.
It hurt Salvo because Francesco wasn’t just another missing student to him. They lived together in a group home, and Francesco was essentially his older brother. Before disappearing, Francesco had dreamed of Minerva and a better future. Salvo eventually entered the same school because he refused to stop looking for him.
Francesco is nevertheless happy when he sees what Salvo has managed to do there. Salvo came to Minerva because of him, but over the year, the school has become part of Salvo’s life.
Their reunion answers the season’s biggest question. Francesco wasn’t killed at Minerva, and he didn’t simply vanish without a reason. He chose to leave and cut himself off from the people he loved after what happened there.
Why Does Diego Point a Gun at His Father?
Francesco’s return gives Salvo the answer he needed. For Diego, it creates an entirely new confrontation.
An officer notices that a gun is missing from the armory during the ball. Diego took it and returned it to Minerva.
He confronts his father, furious that Giordano knew Francesco was alive and never told him. Diego had been left believing that Francesco had died because of what he did to him. Giordano apologizes, but Diego wants to know why his father hid the truth in the first place. Was he afraid that his son might be gay? Was he afraid Diego would no longer become a soldier?
Giordano tells him he was afraid of his weakness. It’s a devastating answer considering how Giordano has treated his son throughout the season. He has always believed that being hard on Diego was a way of preparing and protecting him. Instead, Diego has spent much of his life afraid of disappointing him.
Diego points the gun at his father. Francesco is still at Minerva, and he is the one who reaches him. He tells Diego that he forgives him.
A shot goes off, but it’s a blank, and Giordano isn’t injured. Diego eventually leaves the school, while his father is left in tears over everything that has happened.
For all the mystery surrounding Francesco, this is where the finale really lands. Giordano spent the season believing that strength, discipline and control were ways of protecting Diego. By the end, his decisions have helped push his son to the point where he is standing in front of him with a gun.
What Happens to Camilla, Vincenzo, Paola and Rachele?
The finale has several other relationships to resolve before the school year ends.
Camilla gets an important moment with her father at the ball. He tells her that if she continues doing well until the end of the year, she can return home and finally go to London. Earlier in the season, that would have sounded like exactly what she wanted. Now Camilla tells him that she will decide whether she stays at Minerva or leaves for London.
It’s a small but important change for a character who entered the school because her father wanted someone else to straighten her out. By the finale, Camilla wants to decide what comes next.
Vincenzo and Paola don’t get the same kind of happy ending. Paola plans to spend as little time around Minerva and her father as possible, and the two eventually argue. Paola is particularly harsh when talking about Vincenzo and his father, who has recently died, and the relationship ends.
Rachele and Camilla reconcile, but Rachele’s bigger problems remain. She still has to face the possibility that receiving treatment could cost her the Air Force future she desperately wants. Her relationship with Recchi also remains deeply problematic. Rachele threatens him that if he tells anyone about her situation, she will reveal that they slept together and destroy his career. The finale doesn’t resolve the relationship, and the June time jump later shows that they are still involved.
Do Giordano and Canali Stay Together?
No, at least not by the end of Season 1.
Canali and Giordano have spent the season growing closer despite having very different ideas about Minerva. Canali questions the institution and many of the traditions Giordano has spent his career defending.
At the ball, they finally talk about what has happened between them. Giordano feels that Canali never really gave him a chance. She disagrees. From her perspective, she did let herself get close to him. She opened her mind and reconsidered some of her ideas, but Giordano hasn’t done the same.
For now, that ends their relationship. Canali isn’t leaving Minerva, though. She and Bonaiuto both decide to stay at the school and continue pushing for change. it’s not clear if at the end of the school year Giordano is still the principal.
How Does Minerva Academy Season 1 End?
The finale eventually jumps forward to June and the final day of school.
Some relationships haven’t recovered. Vincenzo and Paola haven’t spoken for some time, while Rachele is still involved with Recchi. The more interesting updates come from Francesco and Diego.
Francesco is at the bar when he receives a Minerva uniform. The episode doesn’t explicitly confirm what he will do with it, so it would be too much to say that he is definitely returning to school. But placing the uniform in his hands after everything that happened gives Francesco a very different connection to Minerva than the one he had when he disappeared.
Diego, meanwhile, is away from the school and riding his motorcycle. More importantly, he looks happier than he has for much of the season. Leaving Minerva may have cost him the future he had spent years working toward, but the final glimpse of him suggests that losing that path doesn’t mean losing himself.
Back at Minerva, Salvo and Camilla share a moment that hints that their friendship could eventually become something more. Vincenzo joins them, and the three friends celebrate reaching the end of their first year.
They still have another two years at Minerva ahead of them.