Little fires everywhere *spoiler alert* title edited by MNHQ

[WantToLeaveButItsHard]

Anybody watched this on Prime?

I am really looking forward this.

@BlackSwan it was very Handmaids Tale wasn’t it? Eerie.

I loved all the little repeated moments that made points,

Bebe being short of 70 cents to buy Mai Ling formula and being verbally abused contrasted by Izzy in her homecoming dress being 70 cents short for the bus and being told “don’t worry about it sweetheart” (and realising it was just because she was a pretty white girl).

Bebe begging screaming Mai Ling to “just eat something baby” then later Elena trying to feed screaming baby Izzy and having the same problem.

Bebe leaving her baby outside a fire station to save her baby’s life whilst Elena left her kids to buy a pacifier and disappeared to have sex with Jamie for 3 days.

Just all the subtle contrasts which highlighted the injustice and hypocrisy.

Excellent, EXCELLENT series. One of the best I’ve seen.

Incredible acting. Especially from Pearl and Izzy.

Yes NameChange I thought of Hand Maid's Tale too in the insemination scene.
I thought Elena telling Lexie 'You are perfect!' was very telling - as though she was screaming it at herself (given she wanted an abortion when pregnant with Izzie but wasn't 'allowed', and Lexi got an abortion and therefore wouldn't be trapped by an unwanted baby).

SPOILERS....SPOILERS...SPOILERS

Watched it. Great superb acting, but lots of lazy stereotyping and I felt KW character bar a little more depth, was again a typical perpetually angry black woman with a chip on her shoulder who derides traditional values and and RW was another two dimensional typical middle class, ignorant and hypocritical white woman with a very narrow lived experience who of course, must therefore have no connection with her children.

Not much nuance, and very 80's and 90s

I intially thought it was going to be a nuanced, subtle, thoughtful exploration about two women and families from different worlds who clash but somehow come together and meet each other in the middle. But no.

I also hated the ending. Children setting their house on fire and burning it to the ground..... just an awful message and highly unrealistic.

That said it did keep me watching and the acting was top notch, although I feel KW needs a role that allows her to express more depth and range of emotion. I love seeing her on screen so hopefully she'll get those roles.

Finished it and loved it. Agree Mia wasn’t as I imagined, her story was fascinating and hard to watch but I imagined her to be kinder. A real contrast to Elena.
Hated Lexi’s character in the book but loved her in the series.
Izzy was amazing.

I’m on episode 3 and so disappointed! DH has given up and gone to bed - rejecting it as “a women’s programme”!

I just adored this book when I read it three summers ago. Didn’t want it to end.

The casting is wrong. Reese is so distracting, plays the same part on everything she does. Kerry Washington???? Wrecking it for me. I can’t remember for sure but I don’t think race was an issue in the book - I didn’t remember Mia and Pearl being black, were they?

The youngest daughter’s sexuality - that isn’t part of the book either I’m sure. So they’ve shoehorned race and sexuality into an already stunning book just to make it more “relevant”. Ugh.

SPOILERS

I really enjoyed this series but I would like to discuss the ending. I looked into this after watching the final episode, and understand that the producers changed the ending from that in the book (where Izzie is responsible for the fire).

I think that having the other three children burn down the house was a big mistake. In the first few minutes of the first episode, we know about the fire and that the cop (or what it a fire chief?) thinks that Izzie was responsible. As the story unfolds, other suspects come into the mix, notably Mia and Mai Ling.

I see the story as building up to why Izzie cracks and decides to (using Mia's story) scorch the earth. We don't need a twist; on the contrary, part of the story is that despite other characters bearing (or potentially bearing) a massive grudge for Elena, it was Izzie all along. Having the other kids start the fire struck me as deeply unbelievable, in a way that the other change they apparently introduced to the ending (Mai Ling abducting the baby) did not.

This did not ruin the series for me, but it seems like certain matters were better resolved in the book (including what happens to Izzie). Had I not been able to read about the book, I would have been somewhat unsatisfied by how everything was resolved in the series.

I agree Here.

It lost that thread at that moment. I said out loud oh they wouldn’t do that. It felt under thought. You don’t go from completely adhering to family dynamics to burning your own house and stuff down.

Agree the ending was not credible. Far fetched to have all the kids suddenly side with Izzy to destroy their mother.

Putting that to one side...
I was just thinking it was weird that at the trial, Linda's husband doesn't take the stand, or assuming he did, it's not shown. I suppose the focus is on the mothers, but that's not realistic either. FWIW I didn't like the guy when he told Linda not to go to the baby when she was crying in the night, and couldn't be bothered to get up himself. (I know that says more about me!)

Hearing, not trial

Celeste Ng the writer has said she deliberately didn't state their race in the book, but in her mind they were black

The thing that irked me :

Joshua Jackson was my teenage crush

Apparently he is now SO OLD they need a younger man to portray an earlier version

HORRIFYING

SAY IT AIN'T SO

I actually don't think RW did a bad job. Her hate filled look to KW as she dropped Pearl home was transformative

RW was great. The look on her face as she yelled at Izzy in the final scenes stuck with me.

I agree re the husband not getting up, I’d read the book so I said he’ll regret saying that later

And KW had some great lines in the court room and at the door later on, finally using her inner anger to better effect (rather than appearing to over act)

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit yes to Joshua Jackson!

Having the other kids start the fire struck me as deeply unbelievable, in a way that the other change they apparently introduced to the ending (Mai Ling abducting the baby) did not

The three older kids starting the fire was ludicrous. It was very believable as Izzy. In the book Bebe DOES abduct Mai Ling at the end and the McCulloughs then start another Chinese adoption process. I only read it in February.

Also it seems like a late change because there are no "Little Fires" set around the house as per the book, but the police guy mentions there were in both first and last episode

will there be another season ?

Unlikely as only one book, but there was only one book for Big Little Lies and they carried that on

We pay, they write! I expect season 2 after lockdown.

Well that was a travesty. I’m so disappointed. Little Fires was a great book, I recommended it to so many people at the time. They ruined it! Reese bloody Witherspoon! She gets her mits on every book I like and shoehorns her mug into it. Anyone remember the cameo in Friends when she was Rachel’s sister? That! She plays that character in everything. I’m going to stop reading anything mentioned on her book club website because she wants to turn everything into a tv adaptation starting herself. Grrrrr.

It was such a beautifully written book and they made a soap opera out of it. Rubbish. So many stupid changes. The children burning down their house was just ridiculous. Izzy being a lesbian? Mia a lesbian? In the book Pauline is married. Her and her husband take Mia in and are surrogate parents to her in a way. I’m pretty sure Mia has zero sex in the book.

Why did they make it all about race? And the mother being the root cause of every problem? Lazy sensationalist adaptation of a brilliant, subtle, moving book.

Don’t watch it - read the book instead.

I've always had a thing for Joshua Jackson but the scene when he's in his white Y fronts might have ended that for me after 20 years of lusting!

Otherwise I'm enjoying it, only on no. 5 though.

Can someone help me with this? I am watching this but late at night when I'm tired so might be missing something. Why in court didn't Bill use the info he had on Mia against her? (about the surrogacy/Pearl etc)

Because if the source of the information came out it would have shown up his wife as a witness tamperer. RW tried to blackmail Mia saying if she took the stand as a character witness, she would make sure her own past was revealed.

Ah right, got it. Thanks

I came on here to find out if anyone else didn't like the Kerry Washington casting. Glad it's not just me. I read the book and she was a much kinder, less aggressive character. Kerry plays her in such a forceful and aggressive way that I just didn't get from the book.

I do love Reese Witherspoon though - I could watch her in anything.

I also found Mia a much more subtle character in the book

I was disappointed by the art project at the end

It was a "true self" family portrait of the Richardsons revealing all except Izzy as ugly people