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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Find a Way

The Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere based on the best-selling novel by Celeste Ng came to end with its eighth episode that has the characters realizing and acting on their fates.

The premise revolves around two mothers fighting each other over who is a good mother in Ohioan suburbia. Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, embodies the rich white mother stereotype with raising four children in a mansion with her successful lawyer husband. She rents her family cottage to Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, a single black mother who’s a traveling artist constantly moving around the country with her teen daughter.

As their children grow closer, the mothers find themselves in conflict when Elena’s best friend Linda McCullough, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is in the process of adopting a Chinese baby who had been abandoned by Mia’s work friend Bebe Chow, played by Lu Huang, during a postpartum breakdown. The battle for the baby, whom Bebe named May Ling but Linda renamed Mirabelle, goes to court where Elena’s husband Bill, played by Joshua Jackson, defends Linda and Mia pays for Bebe’s legal defense with the sale of a pricey photo.

IZZY’S FIRE

Elena’s daughter Izzy, played by Megan Stott, is the fourth and youngest child that we learn Elena blames for stunting her journalism career. They come to a screaming match at the end when Izzy, upset when she sees Mia and Pearl driving away with their belongings strapped on the hood of their car, pours gasoline on a pile of clothes and her curtains. The other Richardson children—Trip, played by Jordan Elsass; Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn; and Moody, played by Gavin Lewis—try to stop Izzy from setting the fire. The commotion brings in a tipsy Elena. She yells at Izzy that she never wanted her. This makes Izzy run out the front door. We later see her riding the Greyhound out of town.

LEXIE’S FIRE

While snooping for more incriminating evidence against Mia, Elena heads to the clinic to ask her friend there for any files connected to Bebe. Of course, her friend denies her request over health privacy concerns, but once she steps out of the office, Elena looks on the computer then sees a paper file with Pearl’s name on it. Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, is Mia’s daughter who accompanied Lexie during her abortion. But Elena thinks Pearl is the one who had the abortion. She thinks she’s surprising Mia with the news at her door, but Mia reveals that it is Lexie who had the abortion and shames Elena for not being the mother Lexie could run to in such a situation.

After Izzy leaves the house during the gasoline fight, Lexie tells her mother that she is the one who had the abortion. She screams she’s not perfect while Elena screams back that she is. Distraught, Lexie tells her brothers they would end up like their mother desperate to live a perfect life. Then she sets the first fire in her bedroom.

TRIP’S FIRE

When pouring the gasoline, Izzy tells her siblings that their mother drove Mia and Pearl away. Trip is in shock since he developed a romantic relationship with Pearl and hid it from Moody. Earlier in the day, they physically fight over Pearl in a junkyard that Moody had introduced to Pearl as a secret space. Pearl eventually starts meeting Trip there to create their secret relationship. Losing Pearl forces him to set his fire in his bedroom.

MOODY’S FIRE

Coming home after the fight with his brother, Moody is icing his bruised face with a bag of frozen peas in the kitchen. Elena comes in and blames him for Pearl’s alleged abortion. He tells her to look at Trip.

Later, he’s on the sofa still icing his face when he and Izzy are looking at the news when the verdict over who won custody over baby Mirabelle/May Ling appears. The McCulloughs win. Visibly upset, Izzy shakes tears away when Moody tells her she should’ve expected that outcome because the rich and beautiful people always win.

Izzy accuses him of being in that category and that’s why he expected Pearl to be with him instead of Trip. She tells him he didn’t own Pearl as the first Richardson kid to become friends with Pearl and falling for her. While his siblings are setting fires in their own bedrooms, he’s doing the same, watching the flames grow.

WHY EVERYONE IS SETTING FIRES

Mia plants the idea of the fires unintentionally when she tells Izzy a story about seeing a prairie wildfire in California while she was pregnant with Pearl. She says sometimes the land has to be scorched to start over.

Instead of starting an actual fire, Mia soon talks to Pearl about calling the Ryans, the family she originally had acted as a surrogate before losing her brother and being disowned by her family. Now with Pearl knowing who her biological father is, she confides in her mother that she knows their time in Shaker Heights, Ohio is finished. They go into Mia’s art studio as she starts completing a massive art project emphasizing the current and past racial landscape of the town. Then they pack and leave town.

Bebe chooses another route. In the McCullough residence, Mirabelle cries in her room over the baby monitor. But Linda wants to check on the baby when her husband stops her to train Mirabelle to cry it out; they won the baby and nobody is taking her away. Uneasy, Linda falls back in the bed until the early morning when she finds Mirabelle is gone. We see baby May Ling in Bebe’s arms at a rest stop in New York. She kidnaps her own baby.

Bill isn’t home when his children are having breakdowns that turn into acts of arson. He admits to Elena that he knows that she had dinner with her ex-boyfriend, a superstar The New York Times reporter, while she headed to New York to investigate Mia’s background. Though he wins the custody case, he’s sour to the point he leaves the house smoking a cigarette. On his drive back, he returns to his house completely engulfed in flames.

When asked by investigators who started the fires, Elena takes the blame for her children.

WHO REALLY STARTS THE FIRE

In the book, Izzy is the sole arsonist who starts the fires alone in each of her siblings’ bedrooms at the end of Chapter 19.

“On her shoulder she had her bookbag stuffed with a change of clothes, all the money she owned. They couldn’t be far ahead, she thought. There was still time to find them. The sandpaper grated under the match head like nails on a chalkboard and there was a whiff of sulfur and the tip flared bright, and Izzy dropped it onto her sister’s flowered comforter and ran out the door.”

Watching the fractured mother-daughter relationship between Izzy and Elena onscreen may have swayed the writers’ room to take the blame off of Izzy. The girl has been through a lot. The premiere episode shows the house on fire with the investigators asking about Izzy’s whereabouts, which follows the book, of letting us know Izzy commits the fire but the story will reveal the why.

But the TV series went the surprise route with forcing the other Richardson kids to start their own fires. It humanizes the siblings more because in the book Izzy remains the outcast until the end. At least, on TV the Richardsons, except Elena, seem tired of the perfectionism constantly bestowed upon them.

The next chapter reveals Pearl wanting to include Izzy on the car trip out of Shaker Heights. The TV series doesn’t show that aspect; Pearl and Mia just want to flee and avoid goodbyes.

“An idea began to form in Pearl’s mind in wild golden loops. “We could go back and get her. I could climb up the back porch and knock on her window and—”

 

“My darling,” Mia said, “Izzy is only fifteen. There are rules about that kind of thing.”

Izzy fantasizes about running off with Mia and Pearl after actually seeing them pull away from the curb, so that hope remains with Izzy that she can experience the freedom the Warren women have. The freedom theme continues when Elena sees the art project Mia leaves behind. It’s a wheat flour mold of Shaker Heights with a birdcage in the center of the town holding a cardinal feather. We see the feather in the beginning of the episode when a younger Izzy lets an injured bird into the house and Elena becomes upset by the disruption to her perfect home. Inside the cottage, Elena caresses the feather and hopes for her daughter’s return. In the book, the character has the same sentiment, knowing the authorities could find Izzy but if they can’t, she will look for Izzy herself.

The TV series did an excellent job with bringing the book to life even when artistic license created more depth to the characters and their behaviors. The largest difference is making Mia and Pearl black to reinforce the racial tensions in this real utopian community and pitting white mothers with means against nonwhite mothers without means. Since the final episode ends with the book, let’s hope there won’t be a meaningless continuation like HBO’s Big Little Lies based on Liane Moriarty’s book that Reese is also involved in.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Picture Perfect

The latest episode of Little Fires Everywhere continues to pit two mothers and their children against each other during a child custody trial that’s rocking their quaint Ohio suburb.

Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, is a wealthy homemaker and journalist who rented a cottage to Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, without checking her background. But as they become more acquainted with each other and their teen kids become friends, they notice they have different perceptions of motherhood.

Elena’s best friend Linda McCullough, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is about to adopt a Chinese baby who had been abandoned at a local fire station. It turns out Mia’s work friend Bebe, played by Lu Huang, left her baby at the fire station in the throes of a postpartum depression breakdown. Once Mia realizes that Bebe’s  daughter May Ling is really the baby Linda plans to adopt whom she named Mirabelle, she helps Bebe fight for the baby. But Elena gets behind her friend, too, and now she and Mia are fighting each other over a baby that belongs to neither of them.

LOVING WHO YOU LOVE

The episode starts with Elena’s youngest daughter Izzy, played by Megan Stott, going to a house party months before with her best friend. They run into a spin-the-bottle game which in turns leads to 7 Minutes In Heaven. Izzy spins the bottle and lands on her friend. They go into the closet after being forced by the other teens. Inside, they touch each other romantically; they already had done this before. They start kissing until a boy opens the door in shock of them kissing with the other kids staring. The friend shouts at Izzy and accuses her of molestation.

Throughout the miniseries so far, Izzy has had a difficult time fitting into high school because of her relationship with the friend, who is now popular, while Izzy has sunken into a depression for being misunderstood. Their fracture is finally explained. Until the friend makes it worse again.

Later, Izzy and her friend are going through boxes of old dolls. Izzy asks her friend why she put the blame on her, and her friend says the peer pressure made her freak out and she rolled with it. At school, the next day Izzy brings the Cabbage Patch dolls and places magazine cutouts of faces and places them on the dolls. She’s selling the dolls based on race—Asian for the $10,000 the Elena offered to Bebe on behalf of the McCulloughs, white for $100,000, and black for free—to make a statement about the May Ling/Mirabelle case that has gripped the community. When students come up her outraged about the stunt, her friend throws Izzy under the bus again. In disbelief, Izzy is staring at her ex-friend when the principal comes to shut the social experiment down.

RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL

Mia’s daughter Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, has led a vagabond lifestyle since she could ever remember with her artist mom, but now after settling in Shaker Heights, Ohio, she’s done. In last week’s episode, we learn Elena has crossed state lines to do a deep-dive investigation into Mia’s past where she learns Mia was supposed to be a surrogate mother but instead skipped town with Pearl and raised Pearl as her own child. Two episodes ago, Mia sells an old photograph by her former lover for thousands of dollars to help Bebe with her legal defense.

Pearl doesn’t know any of this. When her pseudo-boyfriend and eldest Richardson son Trip, played by Jordan Elsass, tells her he overheard his mother saying that her mother is paying for Bebe’s lawyer and had a lot money, half a million stashed somewhere, Pearl grows suspicious.

At home, Mia comes into Pearl’s bedroom wanting to talk. Pearl asks laughingly if it’s about the half a million and if she’s paying Bebe’s legal bills. Mia admits she sold a piece of art reserved for a rainy day. Pearl becomes angry that her mother received a large sum of money and didn’t spend it on their family. Instead, Mia spent the money on Bebe, whom she only known for three months. Pearl screams for her mother to leave.

The next day, Pearl tells Trip that she never had what she wanted. She shares a story of living on the property of a family with a girl who had horses. Pearl wanted everything the girl had. It upset her that the girl can have anything, and Pearl rarely had a bed. This is a revelation that though the Warrens lived as if they were in poverty but also lived in ritzy areas where Pearl has grown accustomed to seeing what other kids like her have and feeling deprived of such luxuries.

TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH

The name of the episode comes from Elena’s obsession to get the Christmas family portrait just right. In the beginning, she rejects the photos they had already taken, rendering them useless. After her oldest daughter Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn, gets into Yale University, she throws a nice dinner and invites the photographer back to the house for a redo.

During the photo session, the Richardsons are patiently waiting for Izzy. When Izzy shows up without the plaid Keds her mother requested to match other family members’ accessories, Elena throws a fit. We see later Izzy had gone back and put on the Keds, but she is sticking her middle finger in the photo Elena is already stuffing into cards. The Richardson patriarch Bill, played by Joshua Jackson, notices the faux pas. Soon, Elena begins chopping Izzy out of the dozens of copies.

When Mia returns home, she finds a distraught Izzy in her family room. Izzy had ran out of her mother’s car after she had to get picked up over the doll-selling debacle. They talk about the dolls, but Mia eventually admits about loving her art professor—a woman—which surprises and soothes Izzy to let her know nothing was wrong with her trying to find romance with her best girl friend.

When Izzy returns home, she finds the cutup photos of her in the trash. She collects them and tries to piece them together on her bedroom carpet.

RACE EQUATION

As Izzy tries to figure out her slashed photos, Lexie comes in and tells her she broke up with boyfriend Brian, played by Stevonte Hart.

Earlier they had another race-based argument. Brian is still upset with Lexie when she used Pearl’s essay to get into a higher math class that she was first rejected for because she was black. Lexie reworks the essay and submits it with college applications, and now she’s headed to Yale. This doesn’t sit right again with Brian, who plans to attend Princeton University.

They’re in the fast food drive-thru when Lexie sends her hamburger back; she didn’t want the meat, just a grilled cheese sandwich. The attendant, who’s black, explains that wasn’t in the order but takes the burger back when Lexie insists it was. Brian in the driver seat tells Lexie he feels like she sent it back because the attendant is black. Lexie is upset that he thinks that’s the reason. When Lexie gets the burger sans the burger, Brian still seems unsure about Lexie’s unnecessary action.

Later on Lexie’s bed, Brian brings up the race issue again. He asks Lexie if she sees his blackness because everyone else does. He won’t be seen as a smart kid who got into Princeton because everyone will assume he’s an affirmative action case. Lexie tearfully explains herself, that’s she not racist, and though she turned Pearl’s story into hers, she didn’t mean for it to happen that way. Her whitesplaining doesn’t agree with Brian. When Lexie sees she’s not getting her way, she wants to tell him about the abortion but instead she tells him to leave.

Their heartbreaking breakup shows how deciding to ignore how race plays a major factor in society like Lexie can make a partner feel like they’re not being seen at all because their race is a part of their identity. Lexie uses the she-doesn’t-see-color excuse, and Brian asks what does she see. It’s hard for her to say to him as a person when he sees his blackness as a part of the equation.

SECRETS REVEALED

The entire episode Elena and Mia are taunting each other as the trial for custody of May Ling/Mirabelle starts. In the court bathroom, Elena tells Mia that she knows her secret that Pearl wasn’t meant to be her child but a child for the Ryans, a couple she was a surrogate for while in art school. Elena even admits she visited Mia’s parents. Mia is taken aback by the revelation.

Meanwhile, Elena is pushing Bill to use the evidence in court as her husband defends Linda’s family, the McCulloughs. He tells Elena she doesn’t need to worry about Linda losing Mirabelle because people like Bebe don’t win these cases. Linda has the financial means to give Mirabelle whatever she needs while Bebe doesn’t. But as the episode progresses, Bill is seeing Elena in a different lens, a vindictive lens. With Mia on the stand, he doesn’t bring up her questionable maternity issues. Elena catches his arm, and he shoos her down.

While Mia is comforting Izzy, Pearl ends up at the Richardson home with Trip. Pearl wants Trip to tell his brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, that they’re dating. She had met Moody first, and Moody is in love with her and trying to figure out why they’re spending less time together. As Trip searches for Moody, Pearl sits down with Elena. We see them talking through the Christmas lights in the living room, but we don’t hear the conversation. It’s not until Elena drives Pearl home is where we get the gist of the conversation: Elena told Pearl about her paternity. Pearl in tears rushes past her mother, who’s in the driveway in shock that Elena came near her child.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Duo

Kerry Washington as Mia Warren and Jesse Williams.

The fifth episode of Little Fires Everywhere ventured into the backgrounds of two mothers in suburban Ohio at odds about who is considered a mother.

Reese Witherspoon is Elena Richardson, a white housewife/journalist raising four teens in a mansion with her husband, who finds herself investigating the woman she rented her family cottage property to. Kerry Washington is Mia Warren, a single black mother who recently moved to Shaker Heights with her teen daughter, has become an enigma for Elena. Mia is fighting for her friend, Bebe Chow played by Lu Huang, to regain custody of the baby girl she had left at a fire station due to the hardships of having no support as recent Chinese immigrant. But Elena’s friend, Linda McCullough played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is planning to adopt the baby. This causes a rift between Elena and Mia who were developing a relationship as so was their combined five kids.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

The episode opens in 1976 in Paris with Elena, the younger version played by AnnaSophia Robb, dancing in a disco with her boyfriend at the time, Jamie, played by Luke Bracey. They’re studying abroad as Denison University students until Elena starts packing her suitcase to head back to Shaker Heights. Jamie is hesitant to join in the packing and admits he doesn’t want to go back home. He wants a global life and tries to convince Elena she wants to do the same. They break up.

Fast forward to 1997 where Elena is using her journalistic skills to research Mia. Her leads end up in New York City where Mia had attended art school. After Linda comes to the newspaper office blaming Elena for the fiasco of her possibly losing baby Mirabelle aka May Ling for Bebe and her supporters, Elena heads off to NYC in a frenzy.

In NYC, Elena bribes the art school’s receptionist with cupcakes to get Mia’s files. On her way back to the hotel, she decides to take a detour to The New York Times, where Jamie works. She asks Jamie to hunt down additional information since the newspaper recently printed a story on Mia selling a photograph of herself pregnant and naked in a bathtub called “Duo.” Jamie says he’ll help and asks Elena to dinner afterward.

Their fancy dinner is going well with Jamie discussing his life as a foreign correspondent and living all over the world compared to Elena raising her four kids and only talking about those kids. When they depart, Elena confesses, when pressed, she wanted to see what Jamie’s life was like after pursuing the dream she thought she would pursue herself. She then asks Jamie to run off with her. In disbelief, Jamie calls Elena selfish and leaves.

THE ROAD TAKEN

Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn, is the eldest Richardson daughter who’s also a popular cheerleader dating the popular football player Brian, played by Stevonte Hart. In the last episode, Lexie brags about having sex with Brian. Now, she’s pregnant.

She only confides in Pearl, Mia’s daughter played by Lexi Underwood, who has become more of a pet than a friend. But Pearl is desperate to fit in.

In her car, Lexie wants to tell Brian she’s pregnant until she asks about  the Mirabelle/May Ling situation. Who should have the baby has become a dividing topic in the picture-perfect Ohio suburb. Trying to find an ounce about his interest in children, Brian mentions he’s leaning to Bebe’s side since she’s the biological mother. He also adds he’s not ready for kids at all and doesn’t even want to hear about it. They’re only seniors in high school. With a pained look, Lexie stares straight ahead.

Later, Lexie is at the abortion clinic. When asking for an appointment, she notices one of her mother’s doctor friends in the background. It spooks her. For support, she calls Pearl, who is the shiny example of sincere support. Lexie tells Pearl she’s the only one she’s confided in about the pregnancy, with Pearl earlier holding the pregnancy test and breaking the news to Lexie. Pearl smiles a bit. Until the nurse calls her name. Lexie gets up and quickly apologizes for registering under her friend’s name.

Pearl waits for Lexie, who refuses to go home. She asks why her name was used. Lexie explains it matters if people knew she had an abortion. So Pearl drives Lexie to her home where Mia senses what happened and comforts Lexie. After Lexie relaxes into a nap, Pearl shows her mother Lexie’s discharge papers with her name on them. Mia tells Pearl she doesn’t like how Lexie treats her. Pearl admits she had sex with the eldest Richardson son Trip, played by Jordan Elsass, and it wasn’t what she hoped for. Then Trip calls Pearl.

When Lexie wakes up, she asks Mia what decision she would have made. Perturbed by the question, Mia tells Lexie she needs to trust her decision and adds how she didn’t like the way Lexie used Pearl’s name at the clinic. Lexie complains that she had no one else to turn to. Mia counteracts that Lexie had a million places to turn to.

I think my daughter skipped school to help you and you thanked her by using her name and then demanding she take care of you. I spent two months cooking your diners, working in your house and you never so much as uttered a thank you and now you want more. Pearl may have love to give and give to you, but I do not.

Meanwhile, Pearl meets Trip at a swing set. Trip apologizes to her for being mean during her first time after his youngest sister Izzy, played by Megan Stott, pointed out his tendency to sleep with girls and not care about their feelings. Trip tells Pearl she’s different. “You read The Bell Jar for fun. I don’t even know what the fuck The Bell Jar is still,” he says. “And you’re really really pretty.”

Pearl accepts his apology, and they hold hands.

TOO MANY ROADS

After Elena can’t sleep with Jamie’s words and Joshua Jackson as her husband Bill’s voice messages in her head, she drives into Pennsylvania to meet with Mia’s parents.

They hadn’t seen Mia in fifteen years. Shocked, Elena asks if they ever met their grandchild, Pearl. They say no. They also add Pearl is not their granddaughter.

This confuses Elena. Then it’s hinted Mia was a surrogate who kidnapped the child, which is the reason why she jumps from town to town.

Additional secrets that come up around Mia includes:

  • Mia Warren is Mia Wright. She changed her last name to Warren, the name of her younger brother she lost in a car accident when he was 17.
  • When Pearl asked for the umpteenth time about her father, Mia returns to the nightmare on the subway she’s had in previous episodes where Jesse Williams is coming toward her. Who is he?
  • Mia digs into a memory box after the paternity question. She finds a roll of photos to develop. Once developed, we see Anika Noni Rose appear in the photo. Who is she?

Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: The Spider Web

Gavin Lewis as Moody Richardson and Lexie Underwood as Pearl Warren in Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere.

The fourth episode of Little Fires Everywhere details the aftermath of a birthday party and the rupture of a budding relationship between two mothers and their children.

Mystery novelist Attica Locke, a producer on the Hulu series, wrote the episode based on the novel by Celeste Ng. Attica was also a TV writer on Fox’s Empire and Netflix’s When They See Us and a part of a growing cohort of women authors bringing their bookish career to the small screen.

This episode highlights the intersection between two mothers with another mother being added into the mix of drama in the real rule-abiding community of Shaker Heights. Ohio, Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, a well-to-do white woman who’s helping her friend keep the baby she’s trying to adopt; Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, a single black mother with an artist daughter who spends time with Elena’s kids; and Bebe Chow, played by Lu Huang, is a Chinese immigrant who works with Mia at a Chinese restaurant and recently learned that the baby she’s been looking for is the same baby being adopting by Elena’s friend.

The motherhood angle is emphasized in a turning point scene in Bebe’s apartment where Elena, who used her investigative journalism skills from her part-time job to find the address, shows up to offer Bebe money. Not knowing Elena’s intentions, Bebe invites Elena inside and gives her a hot cup of tea. Elena explains that she represents the McCulloughs, the family who will adopt a baby they named Mirabelle. But with Mia’s assistance, Bebe discovers Mirabelle is May Ling, the baby she abandoned at a Cleveland fire station due to financial hardship.

With the check in her face, Bebe asks Elena how much she would sell her kids. Upset that her offer wasn’t taken even with the threat of turning Bebe into the authorities for illegal immigration, Elena leaves the apartment with the check on the table.

THE DINNER TABLE

At the end of the episode, after Elena and Mia blow up in the Richardson kitchen over Mia lying about her role in Bebe finding out about Mirabelle/May Ling’s whereabouts, both mothers told their children at their separate dinner tables that they cannot speak to each other anymore.

Pearl is upset at her mother, whom she believes never trusted the Richardsons or took the chance to get to know them. She heads to her bedroom but doesn’t stay there. Within minutes, she’s being welcomed by Elena at the door as Elena finds Pearl clothes to sleep in.

Meanwhile, Mia is gloomily peering at a photo of herself very pregnant in a bathtub. She puts the photo back and goes to check in on Pearl. Finding an empty room, she drives to the Richardson home. The headlights in the window wake up Pearl.

SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO

The strong connection between Izzy, played by Megan Stott, and Mia brightened in this episode with them collaborating on Mia’s art project at her home. Izzy confides in Mia that her mother Elena believes she’s at a boy’s house for a study session. Because Elena is worried about Izzy’s sexuality with lesbian rumors flying around school, Izzy knows it’s a secret that she would rather do art at Mia’s house. They’re interrupted by a frantic phone call from Bebe. Mia cuts the session short to meet with Bebe and convince her to fight for her daughter.

Izzy later finds an article on Lilith Fair on her pillow. She asks Bill, her father played by Joshua Jackson, about it. He tries to explain how her mother meant well when thinking Izzy would be interested in Lilith Fair, the all-female concert tour that started in 1997 by Sarah Maclachlan. Teary-eyed, Izzy tells her father she didn’t like the gesture.

The connection is undeniable between Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, and Elena. Pearl sees Elena and her eldest children, Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn, and Trip, played by Jordan Elsass., as the model of perfection she wants to be. Elena symbolizes stability, and since Pearl has been begging her mother for that lifestyle, she feels she can absorb it at the Richardson home.

When Mia and Elena have their spat about what it takes to be a good mother and taking the sides of their friends in the fight for Mirabelle/May Ling, Elena brings up how well-behaved Pearl is even though Mia is not a good mother because she keeps moving Pearl around from town to town, school to school.

VIRGINAL

Pearl is officially a part of the popular girl gang when she’s sitting upon Lexie’s bed with Serena Wong, played by Lisa Yamada. Plus, Lexie is bragging about her lack of breakouts due to her having sex with her boyfriend, Brian, played by Stevonte Hart.

Later, in the algebra two class Pearl fought so hard to get into, the teacher is passing out tests. Pearl did well while Trip got a D. This presents the opportunity for Trip to come over to the Warren home and study with Pearl.

On the floor. With music playing. Of course, this leads to a make-out session that Pearl suggests should move to the bedroom. Now, her virginity may be the talk of the town.

But it doesn’t happen. Even Trip has the nerve to blame Pearl for seducing him into her bed while playing with Moody’s feelings! Pearl did neglect the other Richardson brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, but she’s taken by surprise hearing this from Trip as he jumps into his pants.

Pearl has an awkward run-in with Moody at a Halloween party. Dressed as Scary Spice from the Spice Girls with Lexie and Serena dressed as Posh Spice, Moody comes up to Pearl and asks about the racism aspect of Pearl being the black Spice Girl. He assumes the other girls are using her as a pet project due to her race. She clarifies that she chose to dress as Scary Spice. When the other girls call her name, she excuses herself, but it shows how her friendship with Moody depreciated amid Pearl’s ascent to popularity.

LAWYER UP

As the kids are trying to figure out their social circles, the adults are trying to figure out the custody arrangements for Mirabelle/May Ling.

With Mia’s persuasion and monetary contribution, Bebe hires a lawyer to fight for May Ling. The fight quickly moves to the TV news as reporters run up to Linda McCullough, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, with Mirabelle in the baby carriage. Linda running into her home along with interviews with Bebe and the lawyer swearing they will fight for custody lights up the TVs in all of the families’ living rooms.

When Bebe says in the report she was offered $10,000, Izzy asks in shock why the McCulloughs would offer that sum. But Bill looks at Elena, sensing she is responsible for the offer.

BURN HER UP

At the very end, Mia is cutting up strips of a photo she blew up. She hangs up the shreds on a rope. Mia puts a lighter to each shred and watches them burn. As she stands back, it turns out to be an image of Elena.

Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Seventy Cents

Reese Witherspoon as Elena Richardson

Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu has already set the groundwork for showing the relationships between three mothers—all of different races—and how their circumstances in 1990s suburbia will impact their lives forever.

The show stars Reese Witherspoon as Elena Richardson, a white housewife/journalist raising four teen kids—Lexie, Tripp, Moody and Izzy; and Kerry Washington, a black single mother raising her teen daughter Pearl. The third mother who was just brought into the mix is Bebe Chow, played by Lu Huang, a recent Chinese immigrant who works with Mia as a waitress and is looking for the daughter she gave up. They all live in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a real community outside Cleveland that historically created its own rules for a utopian suburbia vibe.

While the kids are preparing for the homecoming dance, the same night the adults are preparing for a one-year-old birthday party hosted by Elena. These two events will define the storyline with both ending in disaster.

The Mixed Question

After the kids decide to go to homecoming, Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, jumps at a chance to go shopping with Lexie, the eldest Richardson daughter played by Jade Pettyjohn. Lexie just plagiarized Pearl’s essay to get placement in a math class for her Yale college application. Pearl comes out of a dressing room in a dress she loves. That’s when Lexie tells her about seeing the essay, but she conveniently leaves out the plagiarism part and calls the essay more of an inspiration when for her essay.

Lexie further distracts Pearl from the truth after asking about her lineage: “Are you mixed?” Going on about how pretty Pearl is, Lexie continues with asking who Pearl’s father is because he must have some non-black blood. This loaded question can be seen as offensive with emphasizing Pearl’s racial identity and asking her paternity, but mostly it’s about race and what society calls beauty. Lexie purports herself as an expert in race with having a black boyfriend, Brian, played by Stevonte Hart. How black her boyfriend is already came up in the first episode.

The biggest distraction of all: Lexie buys Pearl her homecoming dress.

“You’re letting some rich spoiled white girl turn you into her dress-up doll!” Mia screams at Pearl after discovering the new dress. “She doesn’t own you. You don’t belong to Lexie Richardson.”

Pearl then verbally hits her mother back by asking about her father and his whereabouts. Mia can’t give a clear answer. Again, Pearl is frustrated by her vagabond life, now realizing other kids didn’t live like her.

In the book, Lexie is talking to her best friend Serena Wong, who hasn’t been introduced formally on the show yet, and calling the new friend of her brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, “Little Orphan Pearl.”

You’re letting some rich spoiled white girl turn you into her dress-up doll! She doesn’t own you. You don’t belong to Lexie Richardson.

“She’s so quiet,” Lexie tells Serena at the top of chapter five. “Like she’s afraid to speak. And when you look at her, she turns bright red—red-red, like a tomato. A literal tomato.”

The book goes on about Lexie’s new fascination on Pearl, who is showing her desire to hang out with the older Richardson siblings, Lexie and Tripp, played by Jordan Elsass, who have ascended into high school popularity. The quote also emphasizes how Mia and Pearl are not black in the book with Lexie’s reddening description of Pearl.

The Black Boyfriend

Brian, Lexie’s boyfriend, comes to dinner at the Richardson house where he’s pushed to meet Pearl. Elena bluntly talks about what Pearl and Brian have in common, which is code for both being black. Pearl doesn’t seem interested in getting to know Brian due to that remark, but Brian tries to be friendly.

When Brian discovers Lexie adapted most of Pearl’s essay to her own for college, he doesn’t know how to feel about his longtime girlfriend even when they’re crowned homecoming king and queen. Brian dislikes how Lexie took a story from a black girl’s perspective and badly adapted it to her own perspective, which raises ethical questions for him.

At the dance, Brian tells Pearl about the essay. In the distance, Lexie knows they’re talking about her.

COMMON GROUND

After much despise that Izzy, played by Megan Stott, is not her clone, Elena softens in episode two. The turning point is finding out from Tripp that kids at school have been calling Izzy “Ellen” as in Ellen DeGeneres assuming she’s gay.

The next morning Elena tells Izzy of an embarrassing high school moment. This inspires Izzy to ask her siblings and friends to go to homecoming. Scenes later, while modeling in her emerald dress in the driveway, Mia exclaims that Izzy’s leg is bleeding. A shaving mishap. Elena takes Izzy and shaves Izzy’s legs with care over the bathtub.

The pendulum swings back to normal when Elena discovers from the mother of Izzy’s ex-friend that Izzy allegedly violated the friend. Though Elena runs to her husband Bill, played by Joshua Jackson, the truth will come out in the next episode as the party rapidly goes downward.

whose baby is it?

The episode opens with Bebe months before when she had a hard time taking care of her newborn, May Ling. With the hardship of no power in her bare-bones apartment, Bebe tries to buy formula for May Ling, but she’s seventy cents short, hence the episode’s title. The cashier screams at her to get out of the store. It’s the last straw as Bebe soon leaves May Ling outside a fire station for a safe surrender.

The story obviously touches Mia. With Bebe broken over the baby and also unable to speak fluent English, Mia vows to find out what happened to May Ling.

Elena’s friend, Linda McCullough played by Rosemarie DeWitt, has been introduced in the previous two episodes for a short period of time. It turns out Linda adopted a baby, Mirabelle, and Elena is throwing a birthday party for the one-year-old.

Earlier, Elena tells Mia, the home manager, about the baby shower and Linda’s adoption journey—how Linda and her husband adopted Mirabelle, who is Chinese, after she was abandoned at a fire station.

With this new information, Mia tells Bebe she may have found May Ling,  newly named Mirabelle McCullough. Bebe wants to go to the McCullough house immediately, but Mia calms her and says it’s easier if she goes to see if it’s May Ling first. The identifying factor: a red spot on May Ling’s scalp.

Strapped with more information, Mia offers her photography services for the birthday party at the Richardson home. At the party, Mia is choosy about taking photos until she sneaks upstairs to the sleeping baby. She wakes up Mirabelle and tries to find the red spot. She finds it, but Elena comes in. The baby is handed over as Mia slips away.

The episode, and the party, ends with the earsplitting scream of Bebe, who appears at the party and sees her daughter cradled in the arms of a white family.

Bebe’s baby, May Ling by her supporters and Mirabelle by the McCullough supporters, will be a central point in the story, dividing not only the Richardsons and Warrens in the process but the idyllic community of Shaker Heights.

The first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Seeds and All

Kerry Washington as Mia Warren and Lu Huang as Bebe Chow in Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu.

The second episode of Little Fires Everywhere deepens the shaky acquaintanceship of two matriarchs trying to accept their newfound ties.

Kerry Washington is Mia Warren, a single black mother who moves to rule-abiding Shaker Heights, Ohio with her daughter Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood. Reese Witherspoon is Elena Richardson, a rich white mother with four teenage children distraught over how her youngest daughter, Izzy, played by Megan Stott, is not aspiring to be the American dream she set up for her family.

As Pearl hangs out more with the Richardson children—Izzy; Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn; Tripp, played by Jordan Elsass; and Moody, played by Gavin Lewis—Mia and Elena are seeing their lives collide more, whether they like it or not.

DOING THE MATH

Pearl wants to take algebra two, but the white male school counselor placed her back in geometry. The counselor claims Pearl attended too many schools and assumes she’s being bused in from Cleveland. Knowing her race is really the decision, she later tells Mia about the situation at the Chinese restaurant where her mother works. But Mia is watching her coworker, Bebe, deal with the diners, especially a baby.

Pearl picks up on the disinterest and asks Elena the next morning if she could proofread her essay to get into algebra two. Elena gladly accepts and mentions the school doesn’t like to put the students of color in the higher-level classes. In the kitchen, Elena puts the essay down on the counter to fetch Izzy for school. Lexie sees the abandoned papers and takes a peek.

BOOK CLUB

Elena’s book club is reading The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, which of course riles her conservatism as she complains she had voted for Arthur Golden’s classic Memoirs of a Geisha instead. At the book club inside her spacious living room, Elena touches on motherhood not being mentioned as much in the famous feminist play.

The moderator shoots back about the last chapter revolving around childbirth and asks if she’s less of a woman for not having children. Pouring liqueur in the background, Mia wanders into the conversation to defend Elena, who barely read the play distraught over the mention of “vaginas,” and discusses the buried motherhood theme. Elena approves Mia’s defense and introduces Mia to the book club.

After the book club, Mia and Elena are bonding on the sofa with wine. The invisible competition comes up again when Elena absentmindedly tells Mia that she helped Pearl with her letter to advocate for her upgraded math class. Mia abruptly ends the bonding session. At home, she asks Pearl about how she got into the class. Pearl said she stood up for herself without mentioning any help from Elena.

WHO IS BEBE?

Back at the restaurant where Pearl is talking to Mia about her math dilemma, Mia zeros in on Bebe Chow, the quiet Chinese immigrant working at the restaurant played by Lu Huang. Mia senses Bebe needs help after Bebe shows happiness then sadness when handling a baby for a family, so Mia gets up from the dining table on her night off and tells Bebe she will take over her shift.

Later, Bebe makes homemade noodles for Mia that she brings to Mia at home. Mia gives Bebe her tips from the night before. Her kindness touches Bebe, who admits she lost her baby daughter.

Mia tells Bebe she doesn’t have to share her story to explain her behavior; she understands as a mother. This signals another mother being brought into the equation and how her race will play a role in discovering what happened to her daughter.

still, Who is Mia?

The episode opens in a years-old flashback of Mia having sex in a cramped car. She’s only distracted by baby Pearl waking up. She kicks out her sex partner and comforts Pearl.

This accompanies the New York City subway flashbacks that Mia has been having since the first episode. She’s scared sitting on the subway and the main person she’s staring at across from her in the car is Grey’s Anatomy actor/activist Jesse Williams. At one point, his unidentified character flickers into Elena. Mia’s traumas may take a backseat to Bebe’s traumas we have yet to see.

The first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.