"Little Fires Everywhere" and the show's different (worse) ending from the book
đ¨ SPOILER ALARM: This post contains spoilers about both the book and TV versions of Little Fires Everywhere. đ¨
Iâll admit that the TV adaptation of the Celeste Ng novel Little Fires Everywhere is very compelling â a little bit self-serious, a little bit too pleased with itself, but I binged most of the episodes in a day, and watched the ones I didnât get to when I woke up the next morning. While the miniseries made some changes from the novel, it stuck pretty close to the book, and for the changes it didi make, I think most of them were quite savvy and gave the story a lot more gravitas.
That new ending, though. I just⌠what.
The good stuff first, though. The story follows two families: the Richardsons, the white, rich family consisting of mother Elena (Reese Witherspoon in the TV version), husband Bill (Joshua Jackson), and their kids Lexie, Trip, Moody, and Izzy; Warrens, consisting of mother Mia (Kerry Washington) and daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood), who live in one of the Richardsonsâ properties while Mia works as their maid.
In the novel, Mia and Pearlâs race isnât explicitly specified, but theyâre certainly coded as white. While Ng initially intended for them to be Black, but she didnât feel she was the right person to accurately represent their experience, and since she already included the Chinese character Bebe Chow in the adoption/custody storylines, she decided not to focus on Mia and Pearlâs race and focus more on issues of class.
I think the decision to change Mia and Pearlâs race to Black was a smart one, allowing the show to broaden its themes to those of both race and class â also adding an extra level to Witherspoonâs Elena, who now isnât simply the rich elitist in their lives, but the racist whoâs convinced sheâs not. It raises the tension when Elena first spots Mia and Pearl sleeping in their car, and in the scene where Elena asks Mia to be her new maid, adding more layers of complication to their relationship through the series. It also adds more facets to the relationship between Lexie and Pearl: why Pearl would want to fit in with Lexieâs crowd, and the ramifications of Lexie using Pearlâs experience for her college essay. The show has a lot more to say about the commodification of Black people and Black bodies, and it makes for a more compelling watch.
But now, we have to get to that new ending. Both the show and the novel are framed around the mystery of the Richardsonsâ house burning down and who started the fire. In the novel, the fire is started by Izzy, who has been excluded from her family and bullied by her mother for the entire novel. She ultimately cracks, drenching her and her siblingsâ beds in lighter fluid and sets them aflame. She then runs away from home, vowing to keep running away if sheâs caught.
For some reason, Tigelaar decided to change this slightly in the miniseries to an explanation that makes zero sense. Like in the book, Izzy still covers her and her siblingsâ beds in lighter fluid, but sheâs caught before she can do anything; after a fight with her mom Elena, she ends up running away anyway. But then her older sister Lexie gets into a screaming fight with Elena, defending Pearl and asserting her own imperfection, and then turns around and convinces her two brothers that their mom is toxic and that âmaybe Izzy was right all alongâ â so they all set their own beds on fire and let the house burn down. This all happens within about 30 seconds.
This turn on a dime for not one, but three characters comes out of nowhere. Theyâve spent episode after episode not caring about Izzy, exploiting Pearl and refusing to see her as her own person, and going along with whatever their mom Elena says because they like their comfortable lives and donât want to examine them in any critical way. The miniseries wants me to believe that because Elena has a fight with Izzy (a fight thatâs not much different that any of the other fights the two have had previously), the other kids are all suddenly on Izzyâs side and thus are okay with burning down all their belongings? They suddenly realize the toxic ramifications of their privilege and will do anything to dismantle it, including destroy every piece of clothing, every iPhone, and every memory they own?
I mean, thatâs the dream, sure. But it would never happen.
Itâs absolutely possible for a person who grew up in privilege and who was conditioned to see other people as objects to be manipulated to grow, to have their eyes opened and realize that their entire world view is flawed. Itâs possible for them to do the work and become a better person. This takes a long-ass time, though â years, usually, for them to come to grips with not only their flawed perception but their complicity in it. It doesnât happen in just 30 seconds because youâve decided that you need a different ending but havenât actually laid the groundwork for one.
When Lexie, Moody, and Trip all go set their beds on fire at once, I began to cackle in my apartment, to the point that Craig came out to check on me. Itâs an absolutely absurd ending that makes it harder to appreciate what came before it. And I sympathize with the struggle of adapting a popular novel with a mysterious frame, because so many people will already know how it ends that thereâs a risk those people will get bored. Adding a new ending is a way to combat that, sure, but then you have to make sure that ending actually makes sense, which is difficult if youâre not willing to change much else of the plot.
Beyond that, the ending plays out pretty much the exact same way as the book, which makes the silly change even more ridiculous and unnecessary.
(That said, at least itâs better than the âdifferentâ ending offered by Gracepoint, the American adaption of Broadchurch. They spent the whole season insisting that their ending was different than the original, but ultimately the same person was guilty, itâs just that technically another person sort of did it, too. Donât bother watching Gracepoint and just watch Broadchurch.)
I certainly hope that they stick to this being a miniseries and donât decide to expand it into a multi-season show. Witherspoonâs other TV property Big Little Lies, which was also a pretty closed-ended mystery based on a popular novel, went into a Season 2, and as much as I loved the addition of Meryl Streep, it was a mistake to continue the story. Little Fires Everywhere may have a stupider ending than the book, but itâs not one that needs elaborating on.
Little Fires Everywhere streams on Hulu in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime in Canada.
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