'Little Fires Everywhere' Episode 4 leaves fans torn over mothers: 'Bebe should've slapped Elena into next week'
Spoilers for Episode 4: 'The Spider's Web'
The most recent fourth episode of Hulu's miniseries 'Little Fires Everywhere' just dropped and once again, Kerry Washington has us floored with her fiery take as Mia Warner, throwing Elena Richardson's entitled, privileged racism right back at her face as she insists on what a good mother she has been, given her circumstances.
Reese Witherspoon brings her signature crazy white woman expertise to the table, which has fans talking about how there couldn't have been a better fit for Elena. But amid all that discourse on what it means to be a mother that Episode 4, titled 'The Spider's Web', focused on, fans are torn between the confusing custody situation which leads them to drag Mia's character for not being as good a mother as she thinks she is, and at the same time, debating on who should win Mirabel's custody: the birth mother, or the one who found her as a baby, duped next to a fire station?
Today's episode sees Mirabel/May-Ling's birth mother Bebe hire a lawyer to claim custody of her two-year-old daughter. Mirabel is being raised by Linda and her husband, after the couple found the baby dumped in front of a fire station, all by herself, out in the cold. Linda had just lost a baby during childbirth and thus, Mirabel is a sheer miracle for her. So now, with Bebe suddenly returning to claim custody is more than just a threat to Linda, who enters a panic frenzy, spending sleepless nights asserting why her role as someone who had found a dumped baby and raised her with the best of life is more valid.
Bebe claims she was struggling, unable to feed her newborn and felt like a victim of circumstances, resorting to such a cruel act. And while Linda is being backed by Elena, backing up Bebe is Mia. Inducing lawyers into this whole tug of war between two mothers is the concept of class, privilege, and racism. A black woman joins forces with an Asian immigrant, and the two of them are fighting against two upper-class white women. It's all very contemporary and monumental for the '90s setting of the show, but what caught fans' notice was that none of the women are fit to be mothers to their kids. Especially since Elena oversteps and offers Bebe cash in exchange for her child, about which a fan got very honest and tweeted: "Bebe should have slapped Elena into next week, how RUDE!"
Some people probably agree with Elena and think a mother who doesn't "put her child's needs before their own, smoke marijuana, and keep moving cities and school" is not as good a mother as they think they are. As a fan tweeted, "Mia thinking she's a good mom is next level delusional. She is a terrible person. that is all." For others, it was Elena's cold demeanor towards Izzy, constantly invalidating whatever the girl is going through. "Elena , you should not be talking considering that your daughter is hurting and refuses to talk to you," a fan wrote about the character's constant judgment of someone who didn't have the options she did.
As for the whole Linda vs Bebe situations, fans are torn. "I’m sorry, but Bebe has no right to re-enter her daughter’s life. You can’t abandon a baby and then cause a horrendous scene because you want her back," wrote a fan about Bebe's situation, while another sympathized with Linda saying: "I kinda hate this Bebe storyline. I’m sad for her, but those people did not steal her child. She left her, they adopted her, and they’re giving her a good life. I don’t understand her angle."
'Little Fires Everywhere' drops new episodes weekly, every Wednesday, only on Hulu.