‘Little Fires Everywhere’ Premiere sets premise by drawing parallels between 2 varying dysfunctional families
'Little Fires Everywhere' starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington is based on a book by author Celeste Ng. The Hulu show sees Witherspoon as Elena Richardson and Washington as Mia Warren portray the lives of parents in different kinds of dysfunctional families. Parents who try to do their best for their children, but are hindered by their close-minded outlook on life are reflected in the Richardson family while Warren as a single mother portrays the difficulties of keeping things together and ensuring that she can make ends meet while on the run.
'Little Fires Everywhere' Episode 1 opens with a big fire at Elena Richardson's residence. Someone has tried to burn down the house with her inside and the prime suspect at the moment happens to be Izzy, Elena's youngest daughter. When the fire department investigated, they found what was termed as "little fires everywhere", indicating that the fire was not an accident. So what led to this incident is what we are going to watch over the many episodes of 'Little Fires Everywhere'.
Within the first few minutes, the show draws a parallel between two different kinds of families. One looks perfect on the surface -- a working mother, a supportive father and their four children -- and the other looks just the opposite, with a single mother and her daughter initially living in a car as if they are on the run from something. However, both are dysfunctional. Elena works as a realtor in Shaker Heights. She plans everything and that includes when she has sex. Everything works based on a timetable and her kids and husband fall in line with her plans -- even if they have to be forced.
Elena's daughter Izzy is the only thorn on her side and despite being a parent, Elena looks at Izzy as if she is someone who needs to be fought with. Izzy, however, rebels against her mother and all her plans every step of the way. In fact, she is the only one in the family who seems capable of putting up a fight against her mother. She burns a side of her hair to get her mother to stop bugging her about styling her hair. She writes "Not your puppet" on her forehead with a marker before a recital to show her mother that she is not someone that should be controlled.
In this mother-daughter relationship, Elena comes across a controlling mother who seems hell-bent on erasing Izzy's individuality out. Elena's need to control everything bleeds through onto her relationship with Izzy who she wished was more like Elena, herself.
Then we have Mia Warren. A single mother who is struggling to make ends meet and a past that still haunts her in her sleep. She is a mixed media artist who claims that she is in Shaker Heights for research regarding her work and initially has no place to live. She meets Elena as the realtor who shows her a property that can be rented within Mia's budget. From the beginning, the screen crackles with tension in this relationship. Elena constantly comes up "ideas" that would help Mia, which are not appreciated because Elena's intentions are rooted in opinions that are rooted in judgments about Mia and her life.
In fact, throughout the episode Elena tries to do things for Mia and her daughter Pearl -- she ends up renting a property to Mia at a cheaper than decided price. She tries to offer Mia a housekeeping job, which, of course, Mia doesn't appreciate initially. All of this, she claims to do out of the goodness of her heart but it was also she who called the cops on Mia when she had first seen a car parked in a lot for a suspiciously long period of time.
She finds Mia's parenting style problematic but doesn't voice her opinion directly. Instead, she ends up snooping on Mia with the excuse of dropping her daughter Pearl back home. Pearl and Elena's son, Moody, have become quite close and she is invited over to his place one day when Elena uses the opportunity to pump out more information about her family and background among other things, all while she tries to show how woke she is. However, she doesn't seem to know a lot of things about her son Moody or Izzy. Not as much as she seems to know about Trip or Lexie.
This constant grappling within the two families sets up the premise for an intriguing plotline.
'Little Fires Everywhere' new episodes drop every Wednesday on Hulu.